Does cleaning ever get you burned out on brewing?

I just started AG brewing a few months ago and had good results in the two batches I made, but I can't seem to keep it up because of the tediousness of cleaning. It's such an important step that it can't be skipped, but in a small apartment kitchen, I find it's just impossible to get a satisfying clean without an overwhelming effort.

My normal method is to just soak things in PBW, but I have an unpredictable life-style that doesn't always allow for immediate cleaning the next day. So of course, after one soaking, my new tubing is cloudy (which I hear is a bad thing). I'm never sure I'm getting it all out of there anyway because of the vain attempt to flush out four feet of narrow coiled tubing with a sink faucet. It just doesn't get enough pressure.

That brings me to the racking cane and tube: how the hell do you clean this thing? It's too big for any bucket. It will melt in the dishwasher. The thing is completely unwieldy. I can't take it anymore!

I also hate scrubbing bottles and can't afford a kegging system. I'm attempting to rectify this by getting a bottle washer for the sink. I think that will help. Hopefully I'll be able to apply it to my other complaints, but I just don't know.

Ever get in this rut? How did you get out of it? The acceptable quality of my beer alone doesn't seem to justify the effort anymore.

Do you have any slaves? I mean...kids?

On the long items, go to home depot and get a 4' piece of 4"/6" pvc pipe and a end cap ( the flat kind if you can find it). Glue cap on and you have a soak tank that holds long stuff. Set it upright in shower- easy solution and stores in any corner....

I always feel like cleaning the kettle at the end of the day is the worst part but I always think it's worth it. When I used to brew in an apartment I always cleaned everything right away because of space issues. I think letting it sit around makes it worse.

For the racking cane, I always run water through it immediately, take it apart, and put it in the starsan bucket. I flip the cane over so both ends get sanitized. As long as you rinse it right away there really isn't any more you need to do other than sanitize.

I gave up brewing mainly because of the tedious chore of cleaning bottles. I decided to get back into it after I realized converting my garage fridge to a kegerator was fairly simple.
So after a 17 year hiatus, I got my first batch in the primary!! I'm kegging this batch!

For me,music, beer, and a clean as you go m.o. gets the job done. I use a wallpaper tub to clean or soak long parts. It also works great for cleaning and not losing keg parts! At the end of the day, if you are not having fun, don't brew it. There is no shame in buying your beer.
Cheers,
Jim

+1 on the wallpaper water tray. Fill it up and let everything soak. If you're careful not to spill any, you can even slosh the water back and forth in the tray to get a little rinsing action going on through the autosiphon or racking tube. They work great.


PS - I HATE cleaning and bottling too! You're not alone. I wish I had more money so I can start kegging.

+1 to cleaning as you go. Once my brew day is nearing an end, I basically just have my brew kettle and wort chiller left to clean. Also, the longer you wait to clean something, the worse it gets, so I try to get stuff clean before it starts getting dry and crusty.

Also, kegging sounds like an awesome way of avoiding having to clean bottles. I will make that leap when I have the extra cash.

Wow, lots of support! This must be a common problem. I'm sure I'll stick with it, but I've got a beer that's been in the fermenter for over a month and it feels like a nagging chore I have to do.

BarberSurgeon said:

Wow, lots of support! This must be a common problem. I'm sure I'll stick with it, but I've got a beer that's been in the fermenter for over a month and it feels like a nagging chore I have to do.

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Sounds like you need to start saving for a kegging set up. I hated bottling more than cleaning my kettle.

Always make sure to invite someone new.

Cleaning can be tough but like others said if you clean as you go its not that bad. I find it helps me kill time during the waiting steps (mash, boil, etc). If you aren't kegging, get a vinator. You rinse the bottle when they are emptied then do a quick clean with the vinator + starsan on bottling day. If you go to 22oz bottles you only need to wash a couple dozen and with the vinator pre-rinsed clean method I spent about 30-45 minutes to bottle 5 gallons. What also helped me when I was still bottling was going to 3 gal carboy and 2.5 gallon batches. On bottling day I only cleaned 12 22 oz bottles. Since then I've graduated to kegging and am back to 5gal batches. Find ways to stream line your cleaning!

+1 to cleaning as you go from this guy also. None of my equipment sits dirty for more than an hour during a brew day. Typically, as soon as possible, I just rinse everything with hot water and store it so it can drain (racking tubing, cane, spoin, etc gets a quick dip in starsan prior to getting put away). I find that most of the time a quick rinse is all it takes then put the items up for the next brew day. I also find that a little preperation the day/night before significantly helps speed up my brewday, including the cleaning process.

This is why I only brew 15.5gal batches now. Or I say to hell with sanitation and hope for the best.

For the tubes, try soaking in an Oxyclean solution. I do that with my fermenting buckets and bottling bucket. They are usually a littlle stained after use so I fill it up to the stain mark with the solution and let it sit for a few days. They turn out white as can be.

The best part is that if you forget about it or can't get to it then you just leave it and get to it when you can.

You can also rinse whatever small stuff you have and throw it in to the bucket to soak. Rinse and be done with it.

Clean as you go for sure. I cannot brew indoors because of space constraints, so I can feel your small kitchen pain. Oxyclean is a life saver too. 1TB/gallon will make short work of anything.

ziddey said:

This is why I only brew 15.5gal batches now. Or I say to hell with sanitation and hope for the best.

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I guess I spend too much per batch on ingredients to use the "fu€k it" approach to sanitation, but that Is just my 2 cents... Again, make your star san solution (for me 1 gallon at a time) in your bottling bucket the night before and sanitize all the gear that night, then leave it in the bucket until the next day (brewday) and re-sanitize right before you use it. Then use it, give it a quick rinse, re-sanitize and let it dry. Done.

Keg! Also Pumps! We clean as we go. Simply switch pumps and clean up is a snap.

mccumath said:

I guess I spend too much per batch on ingredients to use the "fu€k it" approach to sanitation, but that Is just my 2 cents... Again, make your star san solution (for me 1 gallon at a time) in your bottling bucket the night before and sanitize all the gear that night, then leave it in the bucket until the next day (brewday) and re-sanitize right before you use it. Then use it, give it a quick rinse, re-sanitize and let it dry. Done.

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Star San only requires a 2 minute contact time. Leaving materials, especially softer ones like vinyl tubing, overnight can start to break down the material. You also only need to sanitize once.

I have started cleaning as I brewed, but it was harder when I first started because I wasn't as prepared for the brew day as I usually am now. Being prepared means I don't have as much to do during the brew (looking up charts, preparing ingredients, measuring water, etc.) and I can spend that time putting things away that I'm done with and washing things I've used.

You may just need to be better prepared before brewing.

Also, there may be a couple of simple upgrades that could help as some others have posted. Anything that ruins the brew day should be eliminated from your process IMO.

OneHoppyGuy said:

Always make sure to invite someone new.

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New people bring an excitement about the process that is contagious... and they don't know what they are getting into when they say "sure I'll help"

As for bottles, I always hear people complain about having to scrub them clean... why don't you just take 10 seconds and rinse it out right after it is empty?? I have never had to scrub bottles before.

This thread got me thinking about my cleaning processes and thought i'd share them for inspiration or something. I've never had an infection. The main motto is "rinse after use, sanitize before use". Hasn't failed me yet.

Bottles: The most tedious thing to clean of all time; after I drink a beer i rinse it immediately a few times with hot water and put on top of my kegarator. Once the top of the kegarator is full i buckle down and clean them with a bottle brush. I'm looking to remove all films left and any other organic pieces. Sanitizing them happens on bottling day so i don't do the same work twice. When Sanitizing them i use a vinator, highly recommended and it turns the sanitizing process of bottles into a cakewalk, relative to other methods.

Racking cane: After use I immediately spray its outside down with the hose coming out of the sink. Then with a small bowl or glass in the sink with hot water running into it, pump it rapidly so it rinses out the inside tubing. I will pump starsan through this rapidly the same way to sanitize and splash sanitizing water on the outside in the bucket so all surfaces are sanitized before using next time.

Carboys: after primary and yeast washing I rinse it out with a hose in my yard, then use a bottle brush to clean all organics and material on the inside. Then it goes upside down onto the carboy stand to dry. Sanitizing happens right before use when i dump my starsan bucket or bottling bucket into it and shake it for a bit then dump back into the starsan bucket to use as needed.

Starsan bucket: 2.5 gallons of hot water and .5 oz of starsan that i use any time i do brew related tasks. doesn't get dumped out until i'm done with what i'm doing that day so I can sanitize as I go and in case something needs to be re-sanitized because i dropped it on the ground, etc (happens all the time).

Hope this helps, I'm incredibly lazy and have no problems sticking to this routine because i treat sanitizing as sort of a pre-game activity and rinsing as a post-game activity, it never really feels like i have to clean (except damn bottles).

1. I don't ever clean bottles. I rinse them 3 times each right after pouring the brew. Never needed to clean beyond that and it's never once been an issue. Of course, I sanitize the bottles on bottling day, but no scrubbing or soap whatsoever.

2. I don't use a racking cane, I bottle straight from the spigot on my fermenter with a bottling wand. Less stuff to clean (bottling bucket, tubing or racking cane, etc).

3. The two main things I need to clean physically with a sponge are the kettle and mash tun. I put a little water in, just a little, and some oxyclean and scrub away. It's actually a pretty quick process believe it or not. Tubing, bottling wand, airlock, stuff like that I just fill the sink with hot water and some oxyclean and let it soak a while then rinse. Tubing isn't such a big deal because the beer will be boiled and the tubing I use to drain from the kettle to fermenter is sanitized nicely before use.

Cleaning the fermenter is what I dislike the most. Yeast crud rings and such. But that too isn't horrendous. I take the summer off of brewing because the temps in the house are a bit too warm for most fermentation. It gives me a nice rest from brewing and the cleaning chores and allows me to focus more on my other love - writing music. Maybe set a certain time of the year to take a break as well? Or, you can look at refining your cleaning process and also try cleaning what you can in between steps.


Rev.

I never felt that cleaning was a bad part. I bottle and dislike filling bottles worse than cleaning. I soak my bottles in hot oxyclean for a bit, remove any labels and rinse out, the air dry. To sanitize I just put some starsan in it from my bottling bucket and we are good to go. You could always get one of those bottle blaster things for your faucet to cut time and effort.

Never had a problem with kettle. Just rinse with the garden hose after I'm done boiling and let it sit. For the most part I don't scrub it.

Everything else I just soak in oxyclean and rinse.

Doing this never gave me any problems.

i use 2 of these.. i keep all my stuff in one and the other is for cleaning.. perfect for canes theives ect.. i just stack them inside of each other when i put away.. the second ones lid i drilled out a bunch of holes and turned it into a bottling rack for drying bottles upside down

For the racking cane and tube, I first flush with hot water. Then I fasten the free ends together with a rubber band, fill them with Oxiclean solution, and stand them up in a bucket for a couple hours to soak. I agree that if done immediately, hot water alone should be enough, but this soaking method is so easy I do it just to make sure.

For bottles, I triple rinse with hot water immediately after pouring, being sure to rinse all the sediment out. Then I give each a shot of star san with the vinator just before bottling the next time. Palmer’s on-line “How to Brew” suggests this method.

I put a new faucet in and it seems like the perfect faucet for brewing (when you can't just do it outside using a garden hose). The head comes out far enough to reach over the edge of the sink so I can fill carboys that are on the floor with hot water. The heat seems to make a big difference for me when I use PBW.

Moen Pull Down Faucet

flips

DrBergeron said:

The main motto is "rinse after use, sanitize before use". Hasn't failed me yet.

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+++

I guess I'm weird. I enjoy the cleaning part. To me it's part of the process and I get into it.

Yeah, cleaning is cleaning. Nothing that I hate. It certainly wouldn't keep me from brewing. I clean as I go on brew day. By the time I'm done with the boil, PBW has been re-cirulating in my MLT for at least 40 min, and through pump 1. Transfer wort to carboys, empty BK of debris. Transfer PBW to BK and set up to recirculate through pump 2, while clean water is transfered from HLT to MLT through pump 1 and then recirculated. Rinses out pump 1. Do the same thing after 20 min of the PBW in the BK. and then rinse for 20 min in BK and pump 2.

By the time i'm done with that, everything else is already cleaned and put away. On Racking day's, I transfer my beer to whatever vessel (secondary, keg, etc). Then put a hot PBW solution in the carboy and let it sit. Hit it with a brush for whatever the PBW didn't eat (which isn't much). Rinse that out and let it sit till it's needed. Then sanitize and good to go.

One time, a bad pinlock slowly leaked 5 gallons of my best high gravity beer onto the bottom of my chest-freezer kegerator.

It was hard to get back on the horse after that.

I'm also in the rinse after, sanitize before use camp.

The only things I really use pbw/oxyclean on are my kegs, kettle, and fermenters. All the little miscellaneous stuff like tubing, racking cane, bottling bucket, hydrometer, etc. I just rinse. I just rinse my mash tun too.