After taking the stone out of the fermenter we push clean warm water through it to get rid of any beer. Then the stone is put into PVC holder we have made, a straight section of PVC with caps (not glued on) on both ends that has lots of holes drilled in it so we are not banging the thing around or touching it. That is put into an ultrasonic cleaner that has heated caustic in it and is given a 15-20 minute cycle. Then warm water is pushed through to clear out the caustic. If the stone isn't going back onto a tank it is stored in a container with PAA at the same strength we would use for sanitizing tanks. That gets changed out every day or two. Before any stone goes back on a tank the PAA is drained out and the stone gets 10 minutes in a pressure cooker (wrapped in foil and not in the PVC holder!). Luckily our carb stones are fairly short so we didn't have to get an oversized ultrasonic cleaner or pressure cooker.
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Patrick Brown
Brewer
2nd Story Ale Works
Tokushima, Japan
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-10-2022 12:14
From: Rob Weaver
Subject: Storage of oxygenation stone
What's the best way to store an oxygenation stone? Should we purge, soak in cleaner, purge again, sanitize and store dry, sanitizing again prior to use? Or should we store it in some sort of solution?
Thanks,
Rob Weaver
The Laird Arcade Brewery
Sent from my iPad