Let me first say - I love the Better Bottle (versus glass carboys). But in cleaning mine yesterday, I think I might’ve hosed mine up.
I added Oxyclean and hot water to it (about half-way up), and decided to clean my auto-siphon at the same time, so I put the auto-siphon in. As I held the auto-siphon, I pushed down… and subsequently heard a crunching/scraping sound as the bottom of the auto-siphon moved against the bottom of the Better Bottle, which happened to have some non-dissolved Oxyclean there.
I think you’re fine. It’s much harder to scratch PET plastic than regular plastic buckets. I’ve heard plenty of people using buckets with all sorts of scratches in them with no sign of an infection so I’d say RDWHAHB
I’m pretty much convinced that the “scratches allow bacteria to hide” wisdom is just a myth. As long as the surface is clean, the sanitizer can get into any crack or crevice that a bacteria would be able to hide in, and kill it.
You likely heard oxyclean crystals crunching between the bottom and the autosiphon - you would have to really work at it to scratch PET with a plastic autosiphon tip and even then you would be making grooves, not scratches.
Agree 100%. As soon as I read the OP that’s the first thing I thought of. You’d probably have to break your autosiphon to push it hard enough to scratch the bottom of the BB.
[quote=“rebuiltcellars”]I’m pretty much convinced that the “scratches allow bacteria to hide” wisdom is just a myth. As long as the surface is clean, the sanitizer can get into any crack or crevice that a bacteria would be able to hide in, and kill it.
Your BB is fine.[/quote]
Agreed! I get so tired of hearing “Oh… if there’s a scratch you can’t use it anymore!”. My buckets and better bottles are all over 4 years old and ALL have scratches. It’s inevitable. I’m closing in on batch 100 and I’ve only had 1 infection, which was due to the bung/airlock blowing out and the fermentor being open in my fridge for days.
[quote=“dobe12”][quote=“rebuiltcellars”]I’m pretty much convinced that the “scratches allow bacteria to hide” wisdom is just a myth. As long as the surface is clean, the sanitizer can get into any crack or crevice that a bacteria would be able to hide in, and kill it.
Your BB is fine.[/quote]
Agreed! I get so tired of hearing “Oh… if there’s a scratch you can’t use it anymore!”. My buckets and better bottles are all over 4 years old and ALL have scratches. It’s inevitable. I’m closing in on batch 100 and I’ve only had 1 infection, which was due to the bung/airlock blowing out and the fermentor being open in my fridge for days.
Ferment on… it will be fine![/quote]
I’m pushing the limit to see just how much you can get away with on plastic. The two buckets I use the most for fermenters have been in service for six years. They are scratched and stained. If those two are both occupied, I’ll occasionally use other buckets which I sometimes use for grain storage. I’ve done lacto fermentations in some of them as well. In ten years of brewing, I’ve had 3 or 4 infections total, and EVERY one of them was traceable to adding fresh, unsanitized fruit after the bulk of the fermentation was completed.
Being careful about sanitation is a good thing, but being paranoid about it is crazy. I’m sure that if I was to keep my equipment clean and not use sanitizer, infections would be uncommon. Add a quick soak of Star San to the routine, and I basically don’t worry about it at all - unless I’m adding fresh fruit.
