Cleaning gear and water restrictions

[mongey]

Heya

so with the new water restrictions I'm thinking about my processes .I use a ton of water,and sodium perc, for cleaning every batch . I just let everything soak then wipe it down and rinse . My **** is always clean and have never had an infection. but I feel a bit guilty about using so much water with the restrictions

every brew I -

fill 50l brew pot and soak
fill 30l fermenetr and soak
2 fill tubs with 25l each to soak bottles
fill 20l no chill cube and soak
fill 30l bottling bucket and soak

180 liters for cleaning every brew. Seems crazy when you add it up .

thats not including the 37.5 l (usually) for the actual mash and wort

am I a freak. what do you guys do ?

 

[Truman42]

Heya

so with the new water restrictions I'm thinking about my processes .I use a ton of water,and sodium perc, for cleaning every batch . I just let everything soak then wipe it down and rinse . My **** is always clean and have never had an infection. but I feel a bit guilty about using so much water with the restrictions

every brew I -

fill 50l brew pot and soak
fill 30l fermenetr and soak
2 fill tubs with 25l each to soak bottles
fill 20l no chill cube and soak
fill 30l bottling bucket and soak

180 liters for cleaning every brew. Seems crazy when you add it up .

thats not including the 37.5 l (usually) for the actual mash and wort

am I a freak. what do you guys do ?

I would feel guilty too thats insane.

fill 50l brew pot and soak
You dont need to fill and soak this. I rinse mine out then put 10-15 litres of water in, add sod perc and heat it up to 50C then soak for 30 minutes.. The steam helps soften everything and I wipe it with a soft cloth. You an run this through your pump too and back to the brew pot.

fill 30l fermenetr and soak
Warm water from brew pot then goes into rinsed out fermenter and is left to soak. I shake it up a few times and leave it for anywhere form hours to days. Then rinse.

2 fill tubs with 25l each to soak bottles

If your bottles are rinsed immediately after use you dont need to soak them.

fill 20l no chill cube and soak
You dont need to fill these all the way to the top. A quick rinse after use and then just pour a few litres of sod perc in. You can re use sod perc from your brew pot to fermenter to no chill cube providing you have rinsed them all first to remove solid crap.

fill 30l bottling bucket and soak

Bottling bucket just needs a rinse after use and it should be clean then sanitise with starsan before bottling time. (Re use this starsan for everything else.) It might need a soak in sod perc once every few months but thats it,.

So youve now gone from 180 litres to around 60 litres including rinse water give or take.

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

If you chill, collect the water from the chiller and use this as above to get one more use out of it.

I use bleach for all my plastic kit and re-use the water 3 or 4 times with additional bleach, of course.

 

[mongey]

I would feel guilty too thats insane.

fill 50l brew pot and soak
You dont need to fill and soak this. I rinse mine out then put 10-15 litres of water in, add sod perc and heat it up to 50C then soak for 30 minutes.. The steam helps soften everything and I wipe it with a soft cloth. You an run this through your pump too and back to the brew pot.Yeah If I clean it sooner it will be easier but often after a brew i need to do other stuff and it gets left

fill 30l fermenetr and soak
Warm water from brew pot then goes into rinsed out fermenter and is left to soak. I shake it up a few times and leave it for anywhere form hours to days. Then rinse.I never brew and do ferment same day so doesn't work

2 fill tubs with 25l each to soak bottles

If your bottles are rinsed immediately after use you dont need to soak them.I disagree with this

fill 20l no chill cube and soak
You dont need to fill these all the way to the top. A quick rinse after use and then just pour a few litres of sod perc in. You can re use sod perc from your brew pot to fermenter to no chill cube providing you have rinsed them all first to remove solid crap.Yeah I know this one is a little anal but the thought of any kind of infection after a brew day kills me

fill 30l bottling bucket and soak

Bottling bucket just needs a rinse after use and it should be clean then sanitise with starsan before bottling time. (Re use this starsan for everything else.) It might need a soak in sod perc once every few months but thats it,.

So youve now gone from 180 litres to around 60 litres including rinse water give or take.

fill 50l brew pot and soak
You dont need to fill and soak this. I rinse mine out then put 10-15 litres of water in, add sod perc and heat it up to 50C then soak for 30 minutes.. The steam helps soften everything and I wipe it with a soft cloth. You an run this through your pump too and back to the brew pot.Yeah If I clean it sonnet it will be easier but often after a brew i need to do other stuff and it gets left . defcan improve this one

fill 30l fermenetr and soak
Warm water from brew pot then goes into rinsed out fermenter and is left to soak. I shake it up a few times and leave it for anywhere form hours to days. Then rinse.I never brew and do ferment same day so doesn't work . But I could def reuse the bottle soaking water into the fermenter

2 fill tubs with 25l each to soak bottles

If your bottles are rinsed immediately after use you dont need to soak them.I disagree with this . They sit under the sink for 2 week to month between filling dont trust it

fill 20l no chill cube and soak
You dont need to fill these all the way to the top. A quick rinse after use and then just pour a few litres of sod perc in. You can re use sod perc from your brew pot to fermenter to no chill cube providing you have rinsed them all first to remove solid crap.Yeah I know this one is a little anal but the thought of any kind of infection after a brew day kills me

fill 30l bottling bucket and soak

Bottling bucket just needs a rinse after use and it should be clean then sanitise with starsan before bottling time. (Re use this starsan for everything else.) It might need a soak in sod perc once every few months but thats it,.maybe

So youve now gone from 180 litres to around 60 litres including rinse water give or take.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Any chance you could get a rainwater tank mongey?

 

[mongey]

Any chance you could get a rainwater tank mongey?

Have thought about it. Not just for brewing but for the garden too. Not at the moment. We are gonna do some renovations in the coming year which will free but a bit of space. So maybe then.


Will just try to cut back my usage for now.

that said how many litters does a immersion chiller use ? Must be close to what I’m using just to chill.

 

[Truman42]

fill 30l fermenetr and soak
Warm water from brew pot then goes into rinsed out fermenter and is left to soak. I shake it up a few times and leave it for anywhere form hours to days. Then rinse.I never brew and do ferment same day so doesn't work . But I could def reuse the bottle soaking water into the fermenter

You dont have to brew and ferment same day. You can keep the sod perc in the fermenter for weeks until you do brew next.

2 fill tubs with 25l each to soak bottles
If your bottles are rinsed immediately after use you dont need to soak them.I disagree with this . They sit under the sink for 2 week to month between filling dont trust it

Keep them in a closed box. I keep mine in a box for 6 months or more. if need be give them a quick rinse. They dont need to be soaked in sod perc again, just sanitised in starsan.

fill 20l no chill cube and soak
You dont need to fill these all the way to the top. A quick rinse after use and then just pour a few litres of sod perc in. You can re use sod perc from your brew pot to fermenter to no chill cube providing you have rinsed them all first to remove solid crap.Yeah I know this one is a little anal but the thought of any kind of infection after a brew day kills me

Infections are harder to get than you think. if you pour in a few litres of water and sod perc close the lid and splash it around a bit you can leave it in there for a few weeks evn until you need to use it.


fill 30l bottling bucket and soak

Bottling bucket just needs a rinse after use and it should be clean then sanitise with starsan before bottling time. (Re use this starsan for everything else.) It might need a soak in sod perc once every few months but thats it,.maybe

Then use the sod perc from your cube to clean this also. Sod perc can be reused many times.

Ive been brewing for 10 years and do all of what Ive said above and dont have any issues.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Mongey just get a 1000 litre slim line tank, put your conscience at ease. I had SE water come knock on my door wanting to install an outlet before the meter for the purpose of testing water quality. They put a female non descript fitting before the meter. I went and got the matching male fitting, even so I could not bring myself to use the water before the meter, my conscience wouldn't let me. So my wife now waters the front garden.

 

[Ballaratguy]

Have thought about it. Not just for brewing but for the garden too. Not at the moment. We are gonna do some renovations in the coming year which will free but a bit of space. So maybe then.
I’ve been told that for a 23Lt batch you need 150Lt to chill
I’ve bought a 220 Lt olive oil drum ($10) and will experiment with an old 12v boat bulge pump to pump the water into the chiller coil and return to the top of the drum
Theoretically it will work


Will just try to cut back my usage for now.

that said how many litters does a immersion chiller use ? Must be close to what I’m using just to chill.

 

[Mr B]

I think you really only need a little water.

Brew day I put about 10l in a 20l pot, using the hot water from the heat exchanger for better cleaning. Soak hoses etc, pour some into pump and hex coil to soak for a bit. Rinse after.

Tip a litre or two into mash and boil pots, scrubby to clean before rinse.

Cubes get a kettle of hot water and diy pbw (main cleaning agent for everything), shaky shaky and let them sit, turning a bit to cover all sides. I think most of the cleaning is done on the hot shake, any stubborn stains are dealt with on the soak. Hot water makes a huge difference.

Have an olive oil fermented, that gets a couple of litres of cold and a kettle of hot. Lid on and upside down gets Krause ring loose/clean and steams everything. Get some in the tap too, gets a little scrub with pipe cleaner brush thingy.

Chronical gets sprayed with Resolve cleaner (food safe product from local chemical shop, used by butchers etc - cleans and sanitises. Wipe over and rinse. Pull valves etc apart and soak in a bowl of pbw.

Pretty water efficient, everything is nice and clean.

 

[Roosterboy]

Even the best Craft Breweries waste around 7 to 9 litres of water per litre of beer. It is something that is being looked at by everyone , good post .

 

[mongey]

So managed to cut a fair bit out in my last brew and bottle. Down To probably half what I was using.

 

[wide eyed and legless]