Clean a 5-Gallon Plastic Bucket
Food-grade, 5-gallon plastic buckets are used by home-brewers to ferment their beer. Plastic is soft and easily scratched, making it nearly impossible to clean to the degree necessary for food safety. Cleaning 5-gallon plastic buckets is possible, though, if the buckets are handled carefully. Doing so allows the home-brewer to reuse the buckets several times for fermentation, reducing the cost of the brew.
Instructions
1. Fill the 5-gallon plastic bucket with a powder brewery wash, mixed with hot water according to package directions. Allow the mixture to eat away the dirt and debris inside the bucket for one hour.
2. Rinse the 5-gallon plastic bucket thoroughly with hot water. Use a soft sponge or old T-shirt to remove any remaining debris inside the bucket. Be careful not to scratch the inside walls of the bucket.
3. Mix 1 3/5-oz. acid-based sanitizer with 5-gallons of water in the bucket, to lower the pH level of the water to a range of 2.2 to 2.5. Let the mixture stand for five minutes, and then pour the sanitizer into the next bucket that needs to be cleaned.
4. Keep your bucket covered with a clean lid or aluminum foil until you are ready to use for fermenting again.
Tags: 5-gallon plastic, 5-gallon plastic buckets, debris inside, debris inside bucket, inside bucket