I've seen a lot of discussion about cleaning with a lot of people who seem convinced that you can't clean the tubing at all, the most frequently listed reason being that you allegedly cannot run alcohol through this type of tubing (food safe heat resistant tubing for brewing).
I am having difficulty with the idea that they would sell tubing for brewing that wouldn't stand up to alcohol. I will certainly ask when buying. I don't use isopropyl for reclaim. I personally prefer Tuaca. I rinse out my stems by putting some Tuaca in there and shaking it up until it dissolves. Actually that is the OLD way of doing it, these days I've got a small capacity bottle that is about 6.5" high and a mouth wide enough that I can drop a 3/4" UD Alpha glass stem right in there (as well as all other small glass stems that I have which are smaller) and let it sit while the resin magically dissolves into the Tuaca, which I then use to make near-khoa.
Cook cream until it thickens, the khoa stage would be full-on fudge, with this I stop while it is extremely thick but still some what liquidy. Then I dump that and all its resiny Tuaca-y goodness into a cup of tea and it is DELICIOUS. Well not all of it, a great big dollop at a time. Then I sleep very well and soundly, as was my goal LOL!
I have decided that a vinegar rinse after the Tuaca might be a good idea (going forward, at least for my stems if not the tubing). So Tuaca to dissolve the resin, then a vinegar rinse (accomplished with little further effort from me by getting another tall skinny bottle just for a vinegar soak). Then a final wash with soap and water (for glass) or just really good rinse with plain water (for silicone tubing). And the dry stage of course. Not a problem when you live in the desert.
And then spend a little time thinking of what you could do with cannabis infused vinegar. Not sure how much weedy goodness would infuse in to vinegar, but if it dissolves the visible resin it must be in the vinegar. Could make for some exciting salads down the line ... Especially if you've just vinegar-cleaned several feet of tubing, especially especially if the alcohol step has to be skipped for silicone tubing.
Food for thought ...
Yeah there are things to consider about how to clean 3' of silicone tubing vs 6" of glass stem. There are several methods that could be adapted to a 3' long piece of tubing but I won't take up space describing them - think of the time saved if I really CANNOT run some Tuaca through the whip. Mechanics isn't the issue at the moment though.
But back to the alcohol-through-tubing thing. *shrug* we'll see what they say at the brew supply place.
But even if it is true - no Tuaca in tubing for me - you can still clean them. Ignoring various ways of making partial reclaim (like a vinegar rinse), for heaven's sake, just run them through a PBW wash. That's what the stuff is made for - cleaning weird nooks and crannies and hard to reach places and TUBING in all the ins and outs of your brewing equipment. Did I mention that includes the tubing? It'll be clean, 100%. PBW will not damage your tubing but it will clean it. If you're going to toss it and lose all that reclaim anyway, why not just clean it out right and proper to start with? At least you'll save the $10 to $40 people seem to be paying for a new whip LOL!
So I have a question about tubing that seems perhaps a bit more general than most on here. I plan to get some silicone food safe heat resistant tubing soon from a local brew supply shop. I'm making a whip for my UD (and hopefully it will also work with a HI, but I won't have one to test for some while yet).
I've settled on a 3' length, but what effect does the ID of the tubing have? I could go with either 3/8" or 1/2" (ID) for the whip tubing. Does it make a difference in practice?
