I have made too many batches to count and have always only used LD Carlson's Easy Clean. I buy it in 5# pails. It doesn't seem to take all the skin off my hands (kidding) and does a really good job on my equipment. No odors and no rinse necessary. It doesn't, because it can't, claim to be a sanitizer but that is because of DOT regs. It does sanitize, at least well enough for my environment. I use a 6.5 gallon fermenter and make at least 4 gal. of it on brewday. Throw everything in there after I first wash it very well. If you wash dirty equipment and use dawn or another mild dishwashing liquid be SURE to rinse overly well, become a major rinser. You want stuff to be clean but have no soap residue on it because it can mess up the head retention of the beer. Anyhow, clean stuff really well and then soak it in the Easy Clean. So 2 stages I suppose, clean (macro clean - get the dirt off and then rinse like a crazy person) and then 15 sec. for ez-clean. I put about 1/2 gal. of ez clean in my fermenters and wash down the sides with it and the top. Then I dump the solution out about 30 min prior to racking the wort in. I keep the cover loosely on but usually the fermenter is dry by the time I transfer the wort. The stuff leaves a white mineral film on the outside of bottles. It will wash off with clean water.
For bottling I do a 2 step procedure just like with brew equipment. Use a bottle brush and a mild dishwashing liquid, a very small amount, a few drops. Scrub out all of the bottles and rinse like crazy, I usually rinse 4x at least and I have pretty hard water so soap doesn't stick around, the softer your water the more rinsing you might have to do. Then I soak all the bottles in a fermenter filled with an EZ clean solution for a few minutes each and put them on a bottle tree. Done, never had a problem with infection.
Good luck and don't fear the ez clean, it's the easy solution that works.
