Cleaning brewing equipment

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jc64

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Appears that I have not been giving my equipment enough cleaning after my brewday. Here's what I do now any improvements I can make or should this be ok.

Clean off HLT after last sparge water is gone, just a wipe and drain, leave ball valves open.

Scoop grain out of mash tun, rinse with hose, than replace near boil kettle.

After boil, hot water from chilling goes into mash tun with PBW mixed in. Wipe out inside of tun, recirc the PBW through pump back to tun whilst wort is chilling.

Once wort is in fermentor, rinse boil kettle of trub, than redirect PBW into boil kettle. Scrub the kettle, rinse out mash tun and pump with other water and they are finished.

Drain the kettle after cleaning with the PBW, rinse and that is it.

I don't remove my ball valves at all as I thought this was fine but it's been suggested I should. Does this sound ok? Or should I remove the ball valves and soak them? Cheers.
 
jc64 said:
I don't remove my ball valves at all as I thought this was fine but it's been suggested I should. Does this sound ok? Or should I remove the ball valves and soak them? Cheers.
I do once every 6 months...
They are a bit fiflthy, but 100'C wort fixes that in every other brew.
 
adryargument said:
I do once every 6 months...
They are a bit fiflthy, but 100'C wort fixes that in every other brew.
That's what I've always figured.
 
Do any of you guys have a giant bath full of PBW or similar? Mine is about 100 litres I guess (fits 2 corny's or 2 fermenters) and I use it for everything.
 
Seems I will remove the ball valves on occasion and give them a soak. It would appear that others feel this is still not enough going off comments in another thread though.
 
I wouldn't be particularly concerned about valves in the HLT or MLT, but I'd be cleaning the boiler bulkhead and valve assembly every now and again - reason being is that the hot liquor/wort that has passed through potentially contaminated valves ends up being boiled/sterilised, but after flameout you start to run the risk of infection. I like to think of cleaning valves as a bit like knitting - I just do it when I'm watching TV or whatever.
 
I can vouch for pulling down valves periodically. I sometimes run a PBW solution, on recirc through the RIMS and plate chiller, for an hour or two to clean the plate chiller. Even after doing this ball valves can hide build up on their washers and it stinks! Do your self a favour and pull em apart.
 
3 piece valves with the bolts facing out so you can easily break them down makes things a lot easier as you don't have to remove them from the kettle (ie unthreading)
 
I've got three piece ball valves so I'll give that a go.
 
I take mine apart after every brew day (clean it and then store it dry). Never had a problem with a dirty valve myself, but I've read other people that have, so why not learn from their mistake?
 
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