Beer Forum

So I got a used chest freezer for cheap of of Craigs List. I bought a temp control and fermented my first batch in it. The fermentation went wild and the blowoff went every where. There is now a layer of beer and scum at the bottom of the freezer and it reeks. It probably the worst thing I have ever smelled. On the plus side, the beer is great.

Spray in some water, scrub it all down, and suck it out with a wet/dry vac.....no worries.!!

Whitebeard_Brewer wrote:Spray in some water, scrub it all down, and suck it out with a wet/dry vac.....no worries.!!

+1

I also spray Starsan solution to sanitize the chest every so often.

I usually put a little tub of arm and hammer baking soda in there too. it seems to help suck up the smell, but i still clean the shit out of it between ferments

Well I just cleaned it out. I took about two and a half beers to do it. There was about a half an inch of muck on the low end of the freezer. I scooped it out and scrubbed it down. Then I gave it a good hot Oxycleaning. I now have a much happier chest freezer. I think I am going to invest in some of that there Fermcap stuff or whatever it is called so I don't have to worry about blowoffs any more.

good idea. I started using that stuff too, and havnt had bad blow off since. not losing all those healthy yeast cells out the top of the carboy might make better fermentation too.

that happens to me every so often. You can start by opening the drain plug and draining everything out. I typically bleach the whole thing. It's not touching the beer so it doesn't scare me to use it.

Also, I use one of these in my kegorator...really helps keep the moisture down!!!!