What is your cleaning/sanitization process?

[brewer1222]

How much cleaning do you do? I am not sure if I'd doing too much or to little but cleaning/sanitizing are time-consuming.

My process is
1. hose the bucket off till I cant see any dirt/sludge
2. fill it to the brim, add Oxyclean, wait 1 hour or more
3. rinse 3 times and store

And then when I use it again

1. rinse
2. fill and sanitize with Starsan

Say you just bottled your beer so you have a giant dirty plastic food bucket - what is your routine for cleaning it and then sanitizing it for use next time?

 

[rico567]

This process sounds pretty much OK to me..but I almost never use Oxi-Clean on a plastic bucket, unless once in a blue moon when I de-stain it. Then I'll do an Oxi-Clean soak. When I'm through fermenting, I loosen up all the gunk inside with the sink sprayer, then take the bucket out and dump all the stuff on the compost heap. Then I bring it inside and wash it out good with dish detergent (Dawn, Palmolive) using a sponge only. When clean, I rinse it out good, and store it until next time. The next brew day, I spray down the inside with Star San (including the lid, obviously), and I'm good to go.
Cleaning the bottling bucket is similar, but easier because there's no caked-on krausen inside. I just make sure that I take off the spigot, and disassemble and clean it, too.

 

[ibbones]

Another one who uses dish soap to clean out the bucket and then store until next use. When I use it again, I clean it again with a sponge and dish soap and rinse in the sink, then pour in about one gallon of Star San and use a paper town to rinse and splash all over the bucket and lid. Then I put all my other items in the bucket and let them set until I am ready to use them. When it's time to use the bucket, the only think left inside is the airlock so I pit it together and add Star San to it, take the paper town and rewet the sides of the bucket and lid and add my wort.

 

[Arkador]

the only difference in my process is i don't use a bottling bucket, and am almost always cleaning a fermenter with a kruzen ring around the top

overnight soak with oxiclean

2.5gal batch of starsan, and swirl to make sure everything has contact (uses less sanitizer)