How best to sanitize drill bit, spiles, and (possibly) taphole?

[DrTimPerkins]

If the spouts are now, they don't need to be sanitized. The drill bit is not typically sanitized between holes, unless you hit rotted wood. What is your tubing, how long has it been in place, and how have you cleaned it in the past?

In a moderate-large scale setting, hydrogen peroxide is one of the more costly and least effective approaches to sanitizing tubing/spouts. A dilute bleach solution is among the best, although it can attract squirrels. In the case of any sanitizing chemical, a 5-10 min contact time is required, and most require a follow up rinse.

[stimyg]

I'm tiny scale - 50 taps - so expense of peroxide isn't an issue. But if it's less effective, then that answers that. However, I'm mostly on buckets, and just some short tubes to larger buckets, all the tubes are new, so it sounds like sanitizing isn't really something I need to worry about...? At the end of the season I do clean and sanitize everything for storage, using hot water and scrubbing and finish with star san.

Thanks for the input!

[maple flats]

If using plastic taps of any design, just use new taps, don't bother sanitizing them. For the drill bit, use an official tapping bit. Then I boil them in potable water after the tapping is done, let them dry completely then seal them in a zip lock bag. Save them for next year. At 50 taps, you should be good to use that bit at that rate for several years, normally a tapping bit will be good for 2000-2500 holes. Don't use it for any other use, use a regular hardware store bit for other uses.

[Pdiamond]

Boy did I learn that the hard way Dr. Tim. when I first started out and someone gave me a whole lot of 7/16 old spiles I thought I would try to clean some of them, glad I only did a few, what a mess.

[stimyg]

Got it, thanks!