Cleaning Ex-labware for secondary fermentation

[wwyw]

Hey All, I work in a lab that goes through a lot of 1gal brown glass bottles of 100% isopropanol, I recently brewed a stout to sour and wanted to split it to compare different brett strains, so I took a bunch that were getting tossed. The bottles, however, have an off smell to them, not of isopropanol but I'm not sure what it could be. I've rinsed them with a high pressure bottle washer our lab has, but the smell remains, albeit at a lower intensity.

I don't want to ruin my beer, does anyone have any suggestions on proper cleaning procedure to make sure there's nothing left in there? It's glass, it should have been additive free and the IPA should evaporate cleanly, so I think it would be ok for reuse as much as a glass carboy is. Would an overnight soak in oxyclean be enough? Hot water? Any suggestions would be great. Thanks guys!

[Jbug]

I was going suggest Oxyclean and hot water and a long soak... I had a stinky keg and that cleaned it up pretty good...
Sounds like you got something cool going on there.. Keep it up!


Josh

[PSUHomebrewer]

If you can get some alconox from work I'd start there. If that cleans up the smell a quick wash in oxyclean to remove any residue and you should be good.

The smell may be from other organics they add to the alchols to make sure they are undrinkable, even though ipa is already that way.

[spiderwrangler]

the IPA should evaporate cleanly,

to make sure they are undrinkable, even though ipa is already that way.

I don't know what kind of India Pale Ales you guys are brewing! Mine are always drinkable, and I've never had problems with them evaporating on me... disappearing down my gullet perhaps...

[PSUHomebrewer]

Ipa in this case means isopropyl alcohol, not indian pale ale. But if you can drink isopropyl alcohol and survive you got one strong and cheap way of getting smashed.

[wwyw]

In case anyone is interested, I think a strong ammonia solution and another few rinses after did the trick. Will post update.