Cleaning / Sterallizing Gear..

[Crambo]

about to do my first brew and have read how important cleaning and sterallizing is, but how paranoid do i need to be? Like where am i meant to leave the stuff to dry if im using no rinse sanitizer? Im paranoid leaving it on the kitchen sink, even though i wiped it with the sanitizer is not good enough, give me some tipolas please.. what do you normally do?

 

[Silo Ted]

You need to use a laminar flowhood when sanitising your equipment. Anything less will be a biological disaster for your beer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow_cabinet

 

[argon]

once you've sanitised your gear just lay it on a clean towel prior to use. Always handy to have a spray bottle of your favourite sanitising solution at hand... then a quick spray is easy as.

For a feremnter.. just put the lid on... or a bit of glad wrap on top. If you're really paranoid, just throw everything in the fermenter submersed in sanitser.

 

[ekul]

I spray bleach on my screen so that i don't get infections from looking at other peoples breweries.

I make up a spray bottle of iodophor when fermenting/bottling (not that i bottle anymore) so that anything i deem unsanitary gets a quick squirt. If anything goes near my beer it gets a squirt.

You can get quite paranoid with it, i sometimes give the air in the shed a quick squirt to kill anything in the air. People think i'm crazy, but i swear i can feel the mould spores and bacterium in the air.

 

[kelbygreen]

For cleaning I squirt out all the yeast and anything that a quick spray will get out. Remove the tap and squirt the thread to get the yeast out of that, put the bung in take the tap apart (think there is a thread in articles section. Then put in about 2-3 tablespoons maybe more of non scented napisan (well a home brand version) fill to the brim an chuck in anything else that needs cleaning (bottles spoons anything) just let it soak till you need it.

When I bottled the bottles would be a quick rinse when they was finished and then put in a full fermenter or pot with the napisan solution, Leave over night or till the fermenters full and then take out tip solution back into the fermenter/pot and 3 quick rinses straight onto the bottle tree. But make sure you do it straight away once you finished the bottle a 3+ day old bottle may need a bottle brush as they get mouldy and the crap gets caked on.

For sanitising I just use starsan mix 1.5ml in 1lt of water and shake the hell out of it then leave a min shake leave a min and shake then leave a min and tip the stuff out and its right to use straight away the bubbles wont harm your brew. I some times just give it a quick shake if there is heaps of bubbles as they some times come out the top when filling lol

 

[woodwormm]

i think once you're seeing dead people, you're almost paranoid enough... until then keep cleaning

 

[bignath]

You need to use a laminar flowhood when sanitising your equipment. Anything less will be a biological disaster for your beer.

I spray bleach on my screen so that i don't get infections from looking at other peoples breweries.

Very funny stuff :icon_cheers:

 

[kelbygreen]

lol. Well sodium percarbonate (active ingredient in napisan) turns into sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide, So it has very good cleaning ability and some sanising ability I would not trust it as a sanitiser but some use it I think brewcraft sanitiser is in fact sodium percarbonate. I like it as a cleaner as I have left for about a month and the water wont got stank and rinse and sanitise never had a infection.

 

[bowie in space]

Rubber gloves. Nothing worse than an unsanitised hands contaminating your beer.

 

[colonel]

You need to use a laminar flowhood when sanitising your equipment. Anything less will be a biological disaster for your beer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow_cabinet

There was a post a while back from someone who said he boiled the scissors he uses to open the yeast sachet!
I think I'll have to autoclave all my gear and only brew in an operating theatre from now on.

 

[bignath]

lol. Well sodium percarbonate (active ingredient in napisan) turns into sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide, So it has very good cleaning ability and some sanising ability I would not trust it as a sanitiser but some use it I think brewcraft sanitiser is in fact sodium percarbonate. I like it as a cleaner as I have left for about a month and the water wont got stank and rinse and sanitise never had a infection.

Yep, i do what Kelbygreen does. Napisan (either branded or home brand) as a cleaner, and then your favourite no rinse sanitiser. All sweet in the brewery, errrr i mean garage.

 

[pimpsqueak]

Yep, i do what Kelbygreen does. Napisan (either branded or home brand) as a cleaner, and then your favourite no rinse sanitiser. All sweet in the brewery, errrr i mean garage.

+1 for napisan and sanitiser... starsan for me until I run out and try something new.

 

[kelbygreen]

I have tried iodine, bleach/vinegar, pink stain remover and few others all worked good no problems but for simplicity and cost cant go past starsan one bottle will last years and years. As I say 1lt per fermenter so 1.5ml per fermenter

 

[jayse]

about to do my first brew and have read how important cleaning and sterallizing is, but how paranoid do i need to be? Like where am i meant to leave the stuff to dry if im using no rinse sanitizer? Im paranoid leaving it on the kitchen sink, even though i wiped it with the sanitizer is not good enough, give me some tipolas please.. what do you normally do?

You need to sanitize it directly before you fill it up, put the sanitizer in while you get your **** ready, when your ready empty sanitizer and fill up with wort/kit with water.
So your not really leaving it on the kitchen sink because as soon as the sanitizer comes out the wort goes in.

 

[dave_h]

In addition to using napisan I also put a couple of ltrs of boiling water in the fermenter and give it a good swirl around and then run it through the tap.

Seems to work well.......

 

[felten]

There was a post a while back from someone who said he boiled the scissors he uses to open the yeast sachet!

WYeast recommend that you sanitise your scissors and yeast packet beforehand, nothing wrong with that.

 

[altstart]

WYeast recommend that you sanitise your scissors and yeast packet beforehand, nothing wrong with that.

Absolutely agree with this. All the hard work brewing a beer and not takeing the trouble of sanitiseing the scissors, yeast packet and your hands before pitching and then loseing the beer to infection.

Altstart

 

[going down a hill]

Remove the tap and squirt the thread to get the yeast out of that, put the bung in take the tap apart (think there is a thread in articles section).

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=10484

Never thought of it untill I saw the thread.