Best way to clean and sanitize for a newbie

[M12345]

I'm going to be making some hard cider. Following the Carmel apple recipe on here. I will be using a one gallon wine jug and then bottling the few I make. What is the best way to clean the jug once the wine is gone? What's the easiest way to sanitize the jug, equipment I just bought and bottles/caps? Thanks

 

[Hello]

I would clean the jug with warm water and oxyclean or PBW. Just a little bit. Then I would sanitize just before I go to pour in my apple juice with star san. Star san is only effective when wet so you want to do it just before you pour your liquid into the jug. I would have a vessel that holds star san and put my airlock, bung, etc into it which I will soak just before I go to use them. Caps the same way which won't be used until bottling day.

Make sense?

 

[zachattack]

Easiest way to clean is to soak in a hot water / oxyclean solution, brush if needed, then rinse thoroughly.

Easiest/best sanitizer is Star San in my opinion (and in the opinion of most people on here I believe). It just needs 30 seconds of wet contact time, no need for soaking and you don't rinse. You can mix it up in a spray bottle.

 

[M12345]

Seems simple enough. But I never used star san befofe. How do I get it inside the jug/ bottles and on all the surface? Fill it who the stuff? Do regular stores sell it or do I have to go to a homebrew store? Thanks

 

[flars]

Once you have the jugs cleaned pour a few ounces of the Starsan solution into the jug and plug. Shake to coat all the surfaces. The Starsan will foam. Invert the jug to drain the Starsan back to the mouth. Pour back into your Starsan bucket. The Starsan solution can be reused until your get crud in it or the pH rises above 3.2.

The foam that remains in the jug will not harm your cider. If I have a lot of foam in a carboy I will use a spray bottle of Starsan to get it to drain out. This is not necessary though.

Rinse very well if you use Oxyclean or PBW. I prefer PBW because it rinses much easier.

 

[flars]

Starsan is usually only available in stores that sell home brew supplies.

 

[M12345]

Once you have the jugs cleaned pour a few ounces of the Starsan solution into the jug and plug. Shake to coat all the surfaces. The Starsan will foam. Invert the jug to drain the Starsan back to the mouth. Pour back into your Starsan bucket. The Starsan solution can be reused until your get crud in it or the pH rises above 3.2.

The foam that remains in the jug will not harm your cider. If I have a lot of foam in a carboy I will use a spray bottle of Starsan to get it to drain out. This is not necessary though.

Rinse very well if you use Oxyclean or PBW. I prefer PBW because it rinses much easier.

Thank you. I want to do everything by the book and right the first time so it turns out right. If it does and I like I'm going to scale up to 5 gallons.

 

[podz]

I've made way too much dicer, err cider, and never had a sanitation problem.

I've never used a brush inside of my glass fermentation bottles, except for the initial cleaning of a couple of 40 year old 5 litre jugs I bought from the second hand store.

After fermentation, I fill them up with hot water, maybe let them soak for 2-3 minutes, and then empty them out. I don't cover them or anything, just put them on the shelf until the next use.

When I use them again, I mix up a rinse bucket full of sanitising solution and pour some in the glass vessels that I am about to use. Cover the hole with my hand, hold them upside down and shake them a few times. Then I rinse them with cold water, typically two fills and empties. Then I use them.

It's that simple, and after way more uses than I can count - never had an infection.

Edit: Didn't notice that this is in the beer section. For beer, I always ferment in a plastic bucket. When it comes time to wash, typically there is a thick ring of sediment at the top end of the bucket. I fill it with warm water and wash off the ring of junk with my fingers, nothing else because I don't want to scratch my bucket. Other than that, same as above.