I went into the laundry room today and assesed the carboy situation. I’m horrible about cleaning out my carboys after I rack to keg. I’m always so excited to put the beer on gas and get it ready to try that I space the cleanup of my glassware. This morning when I opened the door I got slapped in the nose by an odor most foul. Uh-oh.

The last double batch I did was the amber and an oatmeal stout. Wow, its been almost a month that I’ve left those carboys sitting there. Mmmm. Thankfully my wife and kids haven’t noticed the smell yet! So what is a guy to do? Sit down at the computer and bemoan the fact that he’s too lazy to go clean it?!?

Heck yeah!

Actually, carboys most foul have an easy schmeezy fix, which is why I don’t stress it too terribly much. Eco-friends will cringe, sorry guys. I dump out the liquid most foul (I’ll keep calling it that. If you haven’t left the trub in the bottom of a carboy for a month, even the secondary trub, then you won’t understand. You’ll just have to believe me.) and fil the carboy with warm water almost to the top, well above any cap ring, and top up with bleach to make it an approximately 10% solution.

Then the fun begins. Put a cork in it and leave it for a day or three, swirling once in a while to get the loose crud up and let the bleach work.  After a few days if the bleach water is still clear rack it into the next carboy and repeat. A few days of bleach water will knock even the hardest crud off the walls of a carboy. I can’t even remember the last time I used my carboy brush!

I use a nose test to make sure the solution is still effective. If it still smells bleach-y, its probably good for another carboy.

After its drained, I rinse the carboy out really well and ideally let it dry completely before using. Read any homebrew books and find out how nasty chlorine affects beer.  I haven’t tested if one-step works as well with the caked on crud. Perhaps I’ll do a side by side with the two carboys and report back.

Cheers!