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Author Topic: Bottling bucket spigot contamination!  (Read 11037 times)

Offline tubercle

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Re: Bottling bucket spigot contamination!
« Reply #15 on: April 10, 2012, 08:33:02 pm »
I use mine^^^ till they wear out. The OP's traditional bottling spigot is prone to fail catastrophically and has some nooks and crannies that are difficult to clean. Don't ferment with them.
I hate to differ with you but I've used those spigots on my fermenting buckets since I started brewing 20 years ago.  I've cleaned them well and only replaced them maybe 6 or 8 times over the years, and I've never had a single infection from my buckets(I have 4 that i use regularly).

 Same here. I have used them for years before replacing. Clean them while they are still wet by rinsing with how water very well and using a q-tip if necessary to wipe away any residue on the inside. Dunk in star san and throw them in the box with all the other parts and stuff. Never had an infection.
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Offline euge

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Re: Bottling bucket spigot contamination!
« Reply #16 on: April 10, 2012, 08:56:56 pm »
I use mine^^^ till they wear out. The OP's traditional bottling spigot is prone to fail catastrophically and has some nooks and crannies that are difficult to clean. Don't ferment with them.
I hate to differ with you but I've used those spigots on my fermenting buckets since I started brewing 20 years ago.  I've cleaned them well and only replaced them maybe 6 or 8 times over the years, and I've never had a single infection from my buckets(I have 4 that i use regularly).

 Same here. I have used them for years before replacing. Clean them while they are still wet by rinsing with how water very well and using a q-tip if necessary to wipe away any residue on the inside. Dunk in star san and throw them in the box with all the other parts and stuff. Never had an infection.

I've had bad luck with them, I guess. ::)
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Offline seajellie

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Re: Bottling bucket spigot contamination!
« Reply #17 on: April 11, 2012, 08:01:42 am »
I have to add my own caution about bottling spigots in here too. I had a bad string of infections that I tracked to bottling spigots. Beer was fantastic going into bottles; then slowly in a Kafkaesque way, things got progressively worse every day after packaging. Same off flavor would develop. Wild yeast I think. This happened over six months of brewing efforts.

I had been cleaning and "sanitizing" the spigots, even trying to pasteurize them, all to no avail. The few times I tried to take them apart, they developed leaks upon reassembly. I'm fanatic about sanitization, but  readily admit to not being a great mechanic and tool person.

I couldn't find spigots that I could sanitize and reassemble to my satisfaction, so I switched to bottling from kegs when I have to do it. N'er a problem since, in four years.