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**GlacierBrewing** · 06-02-2009, 09:00 PM

Originally posted by JMBrewer

So I have to ask what may be obvious questions because I just don't know...

What are you all doing once you have cleaned your tanks? More specifically, if you cleaned a tank a day or two prior to putting product into it, how are you storing the tank? Are your manway doors sealed with the gasket in place? Do you leave your drain valves open?

After I sani a tank, I seal the manway, seal all the valves and don't open it again until I need to (ie. pitching yeast into the FV). I've been doing this for my entire brewing career with great results.

I ask because I have always been curious but never wanted to try keeping a tank closed when not in use. I didn't know if keeping stale air inside the tank would be detrimental to the cleanliness of the tank or if keeping the tank open and exposed would be more detrimental. I am always careful about not splashing or accidentally spraying water or any other liquid on or near the open valves of a tank that I previously cleaned.

CLOSE THE VALVES!

Keeping with the valve theme... Do any of you cover your valves on your tanks when they are closed to protect the outside portion of the port from getting dirty? If so, what are you using? I was thinking about using keg caps, but they don't quite fit. I was also thinking about using some sort of gauze to allow airflow so the valve port can stay dry, but still provide a little protection against getting dirty. Are there commercial products for what I am describing?

I don't worry too much about getting the valve fronts dirty after they are cleaned. Clean/sani the valve fronts BEFORE you connect any hose to it and you should be fine.

Ok, one FINAL question. What chemicals are you using on your floors to prevent mold and keep the floor clean? We have an uncoated cement floor that likes to get a little slick behind the fermenters. I have been regularly splashing my left-over peracetic acid on the floors at the end of they day which seemed to have helped considerably.

SEAL your floor! You can get some pretty good product at Home Depot to seal the concrete floor. you'll have to re-coat it every couple of years but it's better than an unsealed floor. The beer, chemicals, and hot and cold liquor will EAT away your floor. You must do this now. The mold WILL get into the concrete and cause big problems later. After it's sealed, power wash once or twice a year depending on your location. Luck to ya!

Prost
Dave

**Vendetta** · 06-02-2009, 09:48 PM

If you're really concerned about dirtying the outsides of your valves, you might consider solid end tri-clamp caps.

**gitchegumee** · 06-03-2009, 03:29 AM

And now for a different perspective...

After cleaning, rinsing, and acid washing a tank, I remove the manway gasket, leave the manway open, and leave the outlet valve open. I do this to dry the tank and keep the moisture from growing anything. The carbonating stone, manway gasket, and sample valve are soaked until the tank is used again. I would never sanitize a tank and expect it to be sanitary the next day, let alone many days later.
Regarding the exposed valve on a full tank; I use the (ususally blue) soft plastic dust caps that are shipped with new valves. After filling the tank, the valves are sprayed with sanitizer and fit with these bonnets. Remove, resanitize, and harvest or dump yeast. No grain bits splashed on the interior of my valves! They fit snug, work great, and are free. Look for them where a new brewery is installed. Butterfly valves come new with one on each end, so that means there are usually more than enough for a new brewery to share.
And lastly, I'll disagree with James. I like bare concrete floors. Even tile floors will require regrouting and resealing, but I've worked on bare concrete floors that were bulletproof. (and again, why is there hot liquor--or worse, wort, on the floor?) Use quaternary ammonia compounds sprayed from a foam gun. McMaster sells a nice foaming gun that screws on a standard garden hose. Fill the container with a foaming quat solution (like Quantum from Five Star), use it on your ceiling, walls, and floors and you're golden. Leaves a swath of microbiological destruction behind it. It's fast, and even fun for a sick, micro-sadistic SOB like me. Watching that foam cascade down the wall and thinking to myself, "Take THAT you damnosis POS!" And a nice clean scent. No more mold. Cleaner than most hospitals when you're done.
Good luck, and BTW good questions.

**schlosser** · 06-03-2009, 05:56 AM

Hello Phil

Hey Phil, how you doing? Long time since Siebel.

QUAT is fantastic for killing and has a nice residual kill that I'm sure is great in a climate like Phil's, but remember it is not approved for use as a no rinse sanitizer for food contact. So if you use it, you have to be sure to either take care not to get it on valves or you need to rinse it off before use.

Cheers,

Dave

**JoeV** · 06-03-2009, 07:57 AM

quat approval?

we use quat when washing glassware as a terminal no rinse sanitizer. They sell the product for this use so I am surprised it is not approved? Any thoughts?

**schlosser** · 06-03-2009, 08:11 AM

My Bad

I just did a little checking and quat is indeed approved if used in the correct amounts. I think in the Brewery application we used it for we were doing a major clean and were using a much higher ppm than allowable (a few years ago so my memory is a little hazy). Just be sure that if your using it in foaming applications that you can correctly measure the PPM you are getting, otherwise a quick rinse of any food contact surfaces should be done.

Sorry for the confusion.

Dave

**gitchegumee** · 06-03-2009, 04:19 PM

Hey Dave! Long time indeed. Many, many beers since then. So, part of our foam-down-the-brewery routine is to put the fore-mentioned caps on the filled tanks. Those caps stay on unless we're accessing the contents. One other thing that comes to mind is to tape off electrical outlets! And we measure the quat first by suitable dilution and then adding to our gun: McMaster part 3239K12. The gun has adjustable orifices for different dilution rates as well, but only down to 1oz/gallon. We then foam the complete interior of the brewery. Tanks, walls, tables, sinks and every surface we can get to. Especially undersides of working surfaces that don't get looked at frequently. The floor gets foamed by virtue of the rest of the suds in the brewery slowly moving toward the drains. We try to do this once a week, but reality has it at about once every two weeks. It will leave a brewery you can be proud of.

**william.heinric** · 06-03-2009, 04:37 PM

Tanks and Floors

I'm going to have to agree with Dave on this one. We seal tanks after PAA cycle and don't look at them again until we put wort or beer in them. Sometimes the lager tanks sit for a month before something gets to them (not so much these days), and we're still getting clean bacterial plates.

Round two of repetition: don't leave your concrete bare. Our lager cellar is bare concrete, or at least what's left of it. It is pitted, smelly, and impossible to clean. Regrouting or popping out a loose tile, all-be-it a pain in the ass, would be preferable to working on top of this catastrophe of concrete. And who's to say that a boil-over or some leftover trub won't make it to the floor? Perhaps some phosphoric or nitric gets spilled on it. You'll be able to write your name in the concrete with strong acids, but good tile will hold up over the long run.

I like the Qaut sprayer, though. It sounds like a delightful little sanitizing method that would make my life substantially easier.

Of course, what works in this brewery probably doesn't apply to the real world.

Cheers,
Bill

**liammckenna** · 06-03-2009, 05:29 PM

I was always told quats were incredibly dangerous in regards to head retention.

Comments?

Pax.

Liam

**gitchegumee** · 06-04-2009, 04:30 AM

Bill, if you can seal a sterile tank and use it a month later and have the cultures to prove stability, then power to you! Nobody can fault a sound technique that doesn't use more effort, time, or chemicals. Personally, I don't care to chance it and would rather wait to sanitize my tank until I fill it. Same with my heat exchanger--although I keep it packed in a weak sanitizer solution, I recirculate a fresh batch through it and the knock out hose to the tee and valve on the tank before knockout.
Bill and Dave are definitely in the majority on the bare concrete issue, I must say. And I think much has to do with the type and age of the concrete, and how you operate your brewery. I have seen some nasty concrete before, but I also know that it can, and has been done well. Just don't know how it's done! Tile is the all-around winner. Like anything else, do your homework, don't buy the cheapest product (it will end up costing more later), install it as perfectly as possible, and then maintain it scrupulously. If your ceilings, walls, tanks, and floors are kept spotless by incorporating proven techniques with a regular routine, you'll end up saving time, money, beer, and peace of mind. And for sure there are different ways to accomplish this. The fact that James had the balls to ask shows me that he's got his priorities right. Sometimes the smartest thing you can say is "I don't know".

**Sulfur** · 06-04-2009, 05:57 AM

tank

I clean with a caustic regimen, rinse, and leave open. Then, prior to filling with product, I acid wash/sanitize and rinse (no rinse sanitizers not quite my thing...at least not yet.) If you are going to leave a tank closed, beware of a temperature differential. In my case, pump use warms the tank which will lead to a vacuum as the tank cools (if vented while warm).

As to Tank caps, I generally spray them with alcohol and close them.

For the floor and walls, I currently use Enforce from Ecolab as it foams up nicely.

**wiredgourmet** · 06-04-2009, 06:06 AM

Originally posted by gitchegumee

Sometimes the smartest thing you can say is "I don't know".

Hear, hear.

/or nothing at all, when the above applies

**sbradt** · 06-04-2009, 06:40 AM

Valve covers

Eventually those plastic caps that come with the valves wear out. I bought some caps from Caplugs <http://www.caplugs.com/> several years ago that fit pretty well on 1.5" TC fittings. They didn't cost much and the box of 1,000 has lasted us for at least 10 years (you can buy smaller qty too but it cost almost as much). We spray off valves with iodaphor prior to capping them and then spray them off with alcohol prior to making connections. It's worked well for us.

We wash tanks with caustic and then leave the valves open and manway close3d until we sanitize prior to use.

We use foaming quat on the floors at the end of the day. I woould echo the cautionary note about quats being a head killer. Not what I'd prefer to have on my glassware

**Michael Murphy** · 06-04-2009, 11:57 PM

I usually clean the tank and leave it open at the valves, that is becuase I will resanitize it prior to use.
I dont think its a great idea to seal an empty tank, espeially if it has been risen in tempurature, if the cooling gets turned on and the tank creates a vaccum the PRV may not always work, A sucked in tank will make the brewer very unpopular with the managment...

Unless one puts a bit of pressure into it with CO2 or Steril air...

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