BeerBorg

Ive used oxiclean free for over 4 years to clean bottles (over night soak then rinse the hell out of them)
And pretty much everything else
Never cleaned bottles with anything else
But the last tub I bought has ruined 32 bottles and left a powdery looking, but damn near concrete type film on my sink.
I didnt do anything different than ?I have done hundreds of times before
But literally, after trying 3 times to clean them, had to throw away 32 bottles
I called oxiclean, and explained what happened and asked if they had changed anything.
And in a voice I could barely understand, the representative explained to me that they don't recommend using oxiclean for that purpose
Soooo ... really not much help there
Anyone else had a problem?
What else can I use? I don't think I want any more oxiclean free.
Probably wont use it for anything else any more either

I only use PBW. It's more expensive but just works. There are other brewery cleaners out there but I buy mine in the 8lb size and it last me nearly a year so I haven't tried anything else.
Don't know why they would change anything but I guess it would be due to money.

I've only ever used Oxyclean too, and while I didn't have a scale problem, I did have more crud on my carboy after the last brew. Usually a soak and a washcloth takes care of everything, but this time took some scrubbing. Now I wonder if it's the cleaner.


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Sorry, can't help as I use PBW as well.

Did your tap water radically change, IE did your city switch suppliers, change treatment protocols, etc.? PH or makeup of the water could be messing with it.

FWIW, whenever I have had oxiclean or easy clean or one step leave any kind of residue on bottles, what I've done is fill them with water up to about the fill line where you'd fill them with beer, and then fill them to the top with bleach. And let them sit for a few hours. Then dump and rinse 3 times and let dry fully before using.

The bleach solution at that concentration has always taken the scale off.

Same with fermenters, once in a while I've had them get a weird kind of scale due to some interaction between hop oils and the oxiclean/easy clean/one step. I say hop oils because it's only happened when cleaning up batches where I threw in a ton of hops and ended up with a yellow lupulin colored film on the inside of the fermenter. A bleach solution has always taken care of that too. Note that in these specific batches, I tried PBW to clean the fermenters too, and it did nothing, it just left the film too. I could literally scrape it off the inside of my fermenter as thin yellow papery strips. It was weird. But the bleach solution took care of it.

I haven't de-labeled bottles for a while, I keg. I did just break out the container of oxiclean- like cleaner for my equipment. I haven't noticed a problem, but I will watch.
One of my fermenters has pretty noticeable hop stains inside. This is a plastic bucket, I don't think I want to bleach it. Should I worry about the stains?

Stains shouldn't be a problem but deep scratches are what you should look for in plastic buckets. I got new buckets every 2 years but saved some for other uses.
You could use a small amount of chlorine overnight then rinse very well and use PBW then starsan before use and you should be good.

@John...

You should be able to bleach a plastic bucket... all my fermenters are plastic. All my bottles too.

As long as you rinse 3x and let it air dry fully, then sanitize again as normal later, you won't get weird phenolic flavors from it in your beer.

Thanks guys.

I've used oxiclean free a lot to clean and de-label bottles, yes I've ended up with that white caked on stuff if I let them sit in it for a few days but most of the time just a over night soak in hot water no problems. I've been using a heavy bleach on any nasty bottles lately, but wont remove the labels like oxiclean will but nice clean looking bottles in the end....
Edit: but when using bleach you need to rinse good and good and good,
then do your normal sanitation.

John Sand wrote:This is a plastic bucket, I don't think I want to bleach it.

John, This has already been answered very well above, but I will reiterate, no problem and it works just do a good job rinsing and all is good.