How Often To Clean Equipment

[thomer]

I am moving from extract to BIAB. Cleaning my extract equipment was easy. Used to clean it with fragrance free washing liquid to get the crud off and give stuff a general clean after use, then soak with PBW (or similar) and sanitize before using it the next time. However moving to BIAB with a recirculating pump it will be different. I saw a video of someone using PBW and turning on the pump to circulate the PBW after brewing had finished which I understand. However would this need to be done both after brewing and before using the next time as it might be a week or two down the road before its used again?

What are peoples opinions?

 

[Wables]

I clean everything after brew day with oxy clean. Everything hot side gets a quick water rinse before brewing. Everything cold side gets star sanned.

 

[MaxStout]

Everything gets cleaned immediately after use.
Boil kettle gets a PBW soak overnight, followed by a good rinse. 3-piece drain valve is disassembled, cleaned, sanitized, and reassembled.
Cold-side gear like fermenters, bottling buckets, racking canes, tubing, etc., get an overnight soak in PBW, rinse, then Starsan. Plastic tubing is cheap--I replace often.

 

[thomer]

I clean everything after brew day with oxy clean. Everything hot side gets a quick water rinse before brewing. Everything cold side gets star sanned.

So you only Oxy clean once after brewing, regardless of how much time between brews?

 

[thomer]

Everything gets cleaned immediately after use.
Boil kettle gets a PBW soak overnight, followed by a good rinse. 3-piece drain valve is disassembled, cleaned, sanitized, and reassembled.
Cold-side gear like fermenters, bottling buckets, racking canes, tubing, etc., get an overnight soak in PBW, rinse, then Starsan. Plastic tubing is cheap--I replace often.

Thanks for that. So if you do that after brewing, what do you do next time you brew, just sanitize?

 

[madscientist451]

For your kettle, you don't need anything drastic, dish soap and water and a good rinse. If you foul the kettle by scorching the wort, that could take a soak w/oxy-clean. Its a good idea to clean your pump with PBW, and the rinse water, but I don't see any advantage to cleaning it out with PBW twice.

 

[Spikybits]

I BIAB as well - which i rinse with hose and occasionally wash vigorously in a bucket of PBW then rinse. since you BIAB is hot side - just make sure you dont get mold

Brew - finish brew - hose everything out - PBW - scrub w/ layered paper towel or cloth (prevent scratching) - hose out - Star sanitize fittings - reassemble wet w/ starsan unless silicone

Before brew - disassemble - sanitize - reassemble wet w/ Star sanitizer including silicone hoses - brew - repeat above steps

if you have staining - i use bar keepers with a layered paper towel - hose out - repeat above steps

I have triclamp equipment so this is what i do - YMMV - AND HOTSIDE ONLY - i ferment in kegs so i reassemble kegs wet with starsan after PBW - scrub with PBW if you have stuck on krausen - use cloth or paper towel to not put in scratches

 

[BrewChem]

After brew-day… I rinse the kettle with hot water and use a Scotchbrite pad to clean the gunk off of the walls then rinse with hot water and store upside down until next time.

Tubing gets rinsed with hot water and a swish of Starsan inside and out then draped over a wire shelf to drip dry and sit until next time.

Fermenters (I only use glass carbons) get a good scrub with a carboy brush and OxyClean, then rinsed thoroughly. They then get a rinse with StarSan and stored upside down until time to use again.

A quick rinse with StarSan (which is acidic) does the trick of cutting the last remnants of the detergent (which is alkaline) from the surface before storing. No real need to sanitize the hell out of things for storage… just get them clean.

 

[MaxStout]

Thanks for that. So if you do that after brewing, what do you do next time you brew, just sanitize?

Yes, just sanitize just before next use.

 

[Richard Hemmerde]

So you only Oxy clean once after brewing, regardless of how much time between brews?

Same here, after brewing I clean everything with Oxy or PBW and store carboys and bottles upside down; kettles and such with the lid on and small things like bags, caps, etc in freezer bags.
On brew day I just rinse hot side equipment and cold side things get sanitized with starsan.
Once my equipment laid in waiting for two years with this treatment and came back to service with no problem.

 

[seatazzz]

I have a mortal fear of dish soap in my brewery; mainly that I won't rinse everything completely and my next brew will be affected. I only use oxyclean when something gets dried on in either the fermenter, kegs, or the hoses. Fermenters get a good hot soak and rinse with just water after kegging, then a gentle wipe down with a microfiber towel (NEVER anything scratchy), another rinse including the spigot. I've got Fermonsters so I can stick my entire arm in there to make sure everything is clean. Same with the kegs; unless they get left empty for months without cleaning, they just get a good hot rinse and a scrub with a dish brush to get the residual yeast off the bottom, then purged with co2 and stored. Plate chiller gets flushed both ways after brewing with hot water, and once a month gets a good boil-out for 30 minutes both ways. In almost 6 years of brewing I have had ONE infection, and that was in my old 6g plastic carboy that got scratched before I knew what I was doing. On the rare occasions when I bottle, those get rinsed after emptying, and sanitized well on bottling day; if I can't get something out of one, into the trash it goes. And of course everything on the "cold" side gets a good soak with Starsan solution. Hot side? Who cares? If it's visually clean, it's good.

I'm gonna start something here, I bet; but I tend to think that some of us overdo the sanitizing when it may not be needed. Some may laugh, but I have a medical background (pharmacy) and I've always been intrigued by the physiology of bacteria; and the fact that we are inadvertently creating "super" bugs that are resistant to antibiotics and sanitizers, simply because those little buggers can, and do, mutate. Read up on strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis sometime, it's ghastly. Yeast has been doing what it does for thousands of years, for most of those centuries with NONE of the sanitizing or preventative measures that we use today. And it will be here long after we humans have left this planet. Like cockroaches.