Newbie Idea

[Bubba_Mustafa]

Its on sanitation:

My kit came with beer-brite cleaner/sanitizer (yes, says both. Leaves me skeptical. But for a first brew figure its OK )
It needs a rinse and have a few gallons of boiled water cooling down now.

But my idea is to have a pail of the stuff with items that fit soaking in it.

Then siphon it off into the carboy (to be swashed around) But its the siphoning aspect/idea. Would that be enough to treat the siphon and vinyl tubing?

And is an alcohol wipe down fine for thermometers, hydrometers and such ok?
(the long stuff that doesn't get submerged fully)

Can I sanitize stuff and toss in a virgin ZipLok and be ok until next round? (I can vacuum seal/bag stuff.)

 

[Catt22]

I'm not familiar with the beer-brite stuff, so I can't comment one way or the other on it specifically. All cleaners will also sanitize, but they require rinsing which negates the sanitizing aspect. Rinsing with boiled water will work, but that's a lot of trouble to go to when there are better alternatives. Siphoning a cleaner through the tubing works well, but you still must rinse it. Alcohol works well as a sanitizer, but you need to be careful about what type of alcohol you use. Ordinary rubbing alcohol contains additives for denaturing purposes that may impart undesirable flavors. I would not use the toxic methanol (wood alcohol) for similar reasons. I suppose you could use high proof grain alcohol, but it's not cheap and as I mentioned above, there are much better alternatives.

I prefer to use Oxyclean, PBW and sometimes automatic dishwasher detergent for cleaning and either Iodophor or Star San as a sanitizer. Lot's of home brewers use these products, so they have a proven track record. They are also very economical to use.

There is no need to go to extremes on this stuff. Clean everything thoroughly, sanitize with a dependable product. A good practice is to rinse equipment with sanitizer immediately prior to use even if it was sanitized previously. Don't worry too much about equipment that the beer will be exposed to prior to the boil. It's post boil where the sanitizing is most important. That's not saying to be lax about cleaning everything, just that post boil is where it is critical to have everything properly sanitized. Be thorough, but don't agonize over this stuff. With reasonable cleaning and sanitizing procedures your beer will come out just fine.