How do you clean up after brewing

[kproudfoot]

I recently upgraded to a plate chiller/pump combo with camlock disconnects. Currently my cleanup up process is as follows

1.) fill brew kettle with plain water and flush everything out.
2.) spray out/wipe out kettle with pbw and rinse
3.) Refill pot with warm/hot water and pbw.
4.) Run solution of pbw threw pump/hoses/plate chiller for 5-10 minutes.
5.) rinse out pot and full with water. Run through system again
6.) repeat step 5 several times to make sure pbw is rinsed
7.) Hook up plate chiller up to back wash in my sink and blast hot water though it for a few minutes and the.
8.) Bake plate chiller in oven before storing
9. Remove head from pump and rinse out further in the sink.

So is this over kill?

Could I simply:
1) scrub the brew kettle.
2) soak hoses/pump head/plate chiller in pbw and the rinse

Thanks

 

[Homercidal]

I don't use a plate chiller, but with my CFC I basically clean each thing individually.

I just pump faucet water through the CFC and drain it out and call it good. I am not exactly thrilled with this, but I think PBW isn't going to do much better without a long soak, and my brush can only get so far into the CFC. I figure a 10 minute circulation at boil temps should kill any minute crud inside the CFC.

I rinse the pump out the same way real quick and then take the pump head apart and clean manually with a small brush.

I do think baking the PC in the oven is overkill. Maybe do that once in a while, but not every brew.

This is why I want to get, or make, a dual-stage immersion chiller. As effective or more, and none of the cleaning hassle of a CFC or PC.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

.....as quickly as possible.

Rinse,wipe..done...then do a quick second wipe down on brew day

 

[kproudfoot]

Yeah that precisely my concern that I am spending too much time and if I need to spend that much time on the hoses, pump and chiller plate or if simply soaking and rinsing will do the trick (since I can't wipe the insides down)

 

[plazola86]

I do BIAB so I have 1 pot, 1 pump, 1 plate chiller. I wipe everything down after brew day and run PBW and clean water to flush everything out. I sanitize everything right before brew day by running boiling water through all the system while I crush my grain and weigh everything out. I have never baked or done anything special to my plate chiller.

 

[corkybstewart]

I fill my HLT (a keg) so that as soon as I'm done I have hot water to flush my pump and CFC. Every 2 or three brews I'll fill the mash tun(a keg) with PBW and very hot water and recirculate for a couple of hours.

 

[Weezy]

I have three dogs that take care of the floor...

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I'm pretty good about keeping the "water side" and the "wort side" pumps separate in my process, so I don't really need to do anything to clean the "water side".

After brewing, the "wort side" hose leading from the BK is either connected to the MT (where I've been recirculating ice water through the CFC) and pumped out to flush until the water is exhausted, or I run the pump while shooting hose water into the inlet. This rinses out the pump, the inside of the CFC, and any other tubing that's been getting wort through it. Since this stuff is never allowed to sit long enough for things to dry and cake on there, I'm not really concerned that it needs more than a rinse. And that stuff all gets sterilized by boiling wort during the next batch anyway.

Ideally I should take an hour and recirc PBW through there soon. Just haven't gotten around to it.

 

[italarican]

I just do a basic cleaning with a sponge, the oxyclean I'm already using that day, and hot water. I figure I have to reclean everything while it collects dust before the next brew day anyway, so a deep cleaning to sit in my basement is overkill.

 

[Smellyglove]

I have a two kettle setup so I just dump spent grains, fill the MT with water, toss out the water and wipe it down, sometimes cleaning the sightglass too.

The BK i just dump the trub, fill it with water, heat up the water, recirculate through the herms to clean that one out too, and back into the kettle. Dump the water, and wipe it down. Every something like 10 brews I use PBW. The whole process from start to finish takes about 10 minutes including the heating of the water.

 

[seatazzz]

I'm using a bag in my mash tun now, so cleaning up the tun is just hosing it down well with the garden hose. Once the wort is in the fermenter, I take the BK (a keggle) out to the driveway and hose it down as well. Before all that, I run hot water from the hot water heater through the pumps and hoses, and call it good. Everything gets rinsed again before starting the next brew day. The bag itself gets a good bath in the kitchen sink then hung up to dry for the next brew day - any grain that manages to escape the rinse is easily brushed off once it's dry.

 

[madscientist451]

I don't feel like cleaning so much stuff, so I don't use a plate chiller, pump or hoses.
I do some manual re-circulation, and keep thinking I want a pump, but then the thought of all the cleaning makes me want to keep everything simple.
I collect the hot water runoff from my immersion chiller in tub and use that hot water to clean my pot. I clean my mashtun and other stuff while the boil is going on. So after I dump the chilled wort in the carboy, I clean the pot and I'm done.

 

[kh54s10]

I have a gravity system so no pumps to deal with. The short sections of tubing just get rinsed out right away so nothing dries in them. The cooler mash tun gets dumped in the compost pile then hosed out. The boil kettle gets scrubbed out with water and a Scrubbie. Every once in a while I do a more thorough cleaning of the valves.

Other than that I don't worry too much about it. Everything gets sanitary in the boil.

 

[Jonakr]

tl;dr: Rub both pits once with a wet rag...

My biggest problem is drying. I have racks in my garage for the bigger items, but small stuff hangs around in the kitchen. I start getting looks at two days later.

The kitchen sink really isn't big enough for kegs, 15 gallon stockpot, or fermentation buckets. Kegs and stockpot leave scuffs in the tub, so that has to get scrubbed down, too.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

While my boil is going on I clean out grains and hose out my cooler MLT.

After transferring wort to the fermentor I wash the 10 gal kettle in the sink. I also rinse the pump, hoses and WP arm.

Then I fill the kettle with hot water, put it on the burner and heat to near boiling. I connect the pump, hoses, WP arm and cycle near boiling water for about 15 minutes, including cycling the valves open/closed about a dozen times.

Drain the hot water to the MLT and drain through that valve, cycling a dozen times or so.

I plan to start scavenging the immersion chiller output (when it's hot) to use for cleaning. I keep forgetting to do it, but I use a 5 gallon drink cooler for an HLT, no reason not to collect the hot chiller water in that for cleaning.

That's about it.

 

[kristiismean]

when I start the boil after mashing, i take the grain bag out of my 10 gallon cooler and put it in the plastic bag the grains came in, turn it and empty the grains, tie the plastic bag and throw it in the trash, shake the bag out (outside) and then rinse in the tub, and hang it up to dry. Rinse the cooler and whipe it down with a clean rag, run water through the stainless valve, set outside to dry.

After boil: rinse kettle, wipe down with rag, if soap needed, add soap and wipe out with rag. If using soap, i will remove the stainless valve and clean it as well, if no soap, just a wipe down, I'll still run water through the valve, but will not remove.

Counterflow, run high pressure water through it both directions, run sanitizer through it, cap it and store dry.

plate chiller, same way, hi pressure water both directions until it runs clear (might do a few extra to shake something loose if it's stuck) and then run sanitizer through it, rinse and let air dry.

immersion chiller, just hose it off.

hoses get high pressure water back and forth, sanitizer rinse, hang dry.

fermenters: always use rag and soap, make sure it's clean and rinse sell. air dry. i'll clean it again with soap before using it again, while the cooler and kettles just get a quick rinse.

 

[Kent88]

Rinse everything down as well as I can, wipe up the kettle a bit, leave siphon and tubing in leftover EZ-clean sanitizer, double check that I cleaned stuff up well enough that nothing will start to smell or get stuck on in the next 9 hours, go to sleep because it is probably 2am, and finish up in the morning.

No fancy equipment here, 3 gallon mash tun, I chill via sink ice bath, I siphon from kettle to carboy.

 

[user 125772]

My vessels get wiped down with PBW and rinsed, pumps, chiller, and hoses are all flushed w/ PBW & rinsed with water. (so everything is stored clean).

On brew day, the wort pump, chiller, associated hoses, and fermenter are flushed w/ star-san. (oxygen wand too)

Everything BEFORE the boil kettle just needs to be clean, not sanitized (after all, you're dumping a bunch of dirty grain in there). Everything AFTER the boil is where it needs to be very sanitary.

 

[rhys333]

I clean as I go, so there's only the BK, large spoon and strainer to clean at the very end. If I'm tired or in a rush, I'll rinse the BK and give it a thorough clean the next day.

 

[kproudfoot]

Thanks for all the input. Seems like everybody kind a has their own way of doing it from very simple to very detailed. I'm probably doing a few things I don't need to and can definitely simplified. Should have pointed out that I just do extract brewing so it's hard to clean as I go.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Should have pointed out that I just do extract brewing so it's hard to clean as I go.

True, but it's also far less to clean overall