Cleaning Efficiency Tips

I'm a bit OCD with cleaning/sanitizing & have found that I tend to go overboard with these things. But, I'm trying to make my cleaning time a bit more efficient. So, I'm looking for some tips to help streamline the process.

I've done 7 batches and have found some techniques that have helped with actually brewing efficiency (i.e., start heating water while gathering rest of equipment & ingredients). But, it seems like I spend more time cleaning than anything else. Which is fine -- I'm willing to do the things needed to keep my equipment in tip-top shape.

However, during the cleaning process, it seems like I spend the most time RINSING. I use PBW for cleaning, and I rinse until the item being cleaned doesn't feel "slick" -- usually 3-4 rinses. For my carboy, buckets & kettle, there's a helluva lot of time just rinsing.

So, I'd like to open a discussion about cleaning/sanitizing process. Is all this rinsing necessary? Is there a more time efficient way to tackle this?

If you are using a cleaner, its absolutely necessary to get all the residue off. If you are sanitizing, then if you are using a no-rise sanitizer and you follow the instructions as far as how diluted everything is, then there would be no need to rinse.

I do find myself rinsing a lot after cleaning because I use products such as OxyClean which can leave a slight residue behind. Maybe you need to use warmer/hotter water when you rinse? I can usually get everything rinsed from cleaning product residue with one pass as long as my water is hot enough. The worst is probably my glass carboy I use as a primary. After a batch, I will clean and rinse out everything, then fill it back up with warm water and let it sit overnight with a little OxyClean. The next day when I rinse it out, if I don't use hot water, I do have to rinse out a few times, and even using hot water, I clean it out really well because I do not want any cleaning agents getting into my next batch.

I'd say what you are doing is perfectly normal for most of us. Do you have hard water or have a water softening system? I am lucky enough I can pull my water from my well and its very good water requiring no filtering or other systems to be drinkable. Its not hard, so it cleans very well. My father-in-laws place has hard water and they have to use a water softener and it feels like nothing ever gets clean and seems like everything has a film on it. So maybe its just your water? Are you using hot/warm water to rinse everything?

I typically don't rinse starsan, unless its my carboy & I'm trying to get a bit of the foam out. I know the foam is safe; but I aerate by pouring my wort back/forth between two sanitized buckets a couple of times before pouring into the carboy, which generates a ton of foam. When I've done this WITHOUT rinsing the carboy, I ended foaming over at the mouth of it because of the starsan/wort foam.

My water isn't hard at all (in fact I was told by LHBS that its pretty soft) & my h20 heater puts out about 140F. I use water about as hot as I can stand it for cleaning/rinsing. After racking from carboy I make a 140F PBW solution and let it sit overnight. I come back the next morning and fill it up with 140F water 3 or 4 times to rinse. I set it on my carboy storage dryer for the day, cap it and put it in storage until next use. At next use, I usually just fill, empty & rinse the starsan before pouring in the wort.

My end of brewday equipment gets soaked in 140F PBW solution, scrubbed if need-be, then rinsed (3 or 4 times) with hot-as-I-can-stand-it water. Then it gets left out overnight to dry before storing in a covered (but not airtight) container till next use. Before next use, I'll let the items soak in starsan for 10-60 minutes (depending on my current process).

The rinsing seems to take a long time especially when filling containers with 5+ gallons of hot water multiple times (carboy, boil kettle, bucket(s), etc.).

Ah...well beyond filling up my carboy to soak overnight, I don't bother filling it up to rinse. I might use 1-2 gallons of hot water when rinsing out the carboy, and I also do a lot of my cleaning and rinsing in the tub. That way I get a lot more water flow and it seems to go significantly faster than trying to clean everything in the kitchen sink. Otherwise, I think you are experiencing what most of us go through after a brew day. Its just part of the hobby.

Get a spray bottle for sanitizing. Mix up some StarSan with distilled water and it'll last indefinitely. Very handy and definitely a time saver.

TyTanium said:

Get a spray bottle for sanitizing.

Click to expand...

This.

Also, I have a dedicated mop bucket that I use for sanitizing. I'll make up some sanitizer during the boil in my primary, and dump it into the mop bucket. Throw in all the little things (bungs, airlocks, tubing, auto-siphon, scissors, etc), and you can carry the bucket around with you and grab things out as needed.

Thanks for the tips guys! I brewed last night & got my post-brew clean-up down to about 35 minutes.