Carb stone life?

[noodle]

Hi,

How long do you get out of a carb stone?

Best way to clean?

thanks,

[BroadWay411]

As far as I am concerned they do not have a measurable life span. That being said they will become less effective over time dependent on how you treat them. Things like improper cleaning or dropping it multiple times can lead to smearing or closing of the pores, resulting in less surface area and longer carb times. The best way to clean them that I have found is to completely disassemble them and soak in caustic/acid. It is worth saying to make sure you have a check valve installed on them to prevent beer from going into your CO2 lines. For longer stones you can build a tube that can hold your cleaner and sanitizing chemical to get the job done a little easier. Also if you are sanitizing them with PAA or any other chemical that can harm your beer it's worth hooking up your CO2 to the stone when you are completely done with your CIP and blow that sanitizer out of the stone, if not you'd just blow PAA into finished product when you go to carb the tank after filling it the first time.

[gitchegumee]

What he said....

Best way to clean is with ultrasonic cleaner. If you find an ultrasonic cleaner too expensive, then your carbonation stone is likely too cheap. You get what you pay for and a good carbonation stone will have a high differential pressure drop and a very fine pore size. Making it more important to handle carefully and clean properly. The trade off for a more expensive stone is that it will carbonate faster and your CO2 will hydrate quicker. Zahm & Nagel has a page dedicated to carbonation stone cleaning. Cheers!

[TGTimm]

The lifespan will depend on the quality, the material, and the treatment. We have Zahm & Nagel stones that have been in use for 20 years (some may have been bought used back then).

We tried one ceramic stone, as it was recommended by Z&N. It lasted less than a year before it was broken. The SS stones, baring beating them up 'til they don't produce fine bubbles, are eternal.

I'll second what gitchegumie wrote re: ultrasound cleaners. We bought a 1,000 watt, 12 gallon unit a number of years ago, and use it for all small parts washing. A couple of years back, the generator for it broke down. The brewers went on strike. I now keep a spare gen for it, at $1,200. That's how well an ultrasonic cleaner works.

[adw1984]

A good method I've used to clean carb stones is to do a caustic soak (you can leave it assembled). We then put the carb stone back on the tank then hook it up to a tri clamp fitting on a t-connection on the outflow side of the pump using one of our CO2 lines. We'll run acid and sanitizer through the carb stone during CIP, then hook the line back up to the CO2 regulators for our purge, which pushes all the sani through the line and the stone. Now you have a clean stone and a clean CO2 line. I would still recommend pulling the stone apart every month or so for inspection, but honestly this method has left everything spotless. I've only had to disassemble and scrub out the stone once in six months.