Most useful for me is using hot caustic and sodium percarbonate for cleaning. My old process was to fill fermenters, casks bottles etc to the brim with cold water and nappy san then leave them at least overnight to soak.
Now I do nearly all my cleaning on brew day. I add a little caustic to about 4 or 5 litres of cold water in a stock pot bring it to the boil while I’m waiting for my mash liquor to reach temperature.
I don’t use kegs (or bottles very often) but I use cubes as real ale casks so after I have mashed in I pour the hot caustic in to 2 or 3 cubes and give them a shake while exercising extreme caution because hot caustic is nasty stuff. I usually pull the taps apart bung the tap hole and pop the taps inside the cubes along with the sealing ring from the cap.
If I had remembered to rinse out the cubes after last use and the caustic solution is still clean I return it to the stock pot and re heat it to clean the fermenter if not make up 2 or 3 litres of clean solution.
Rinse out the cubes with cold water then pour in a little phosphoric sanitiser, give them a shake and drain them.
By this time it’s about time to start the fly sparge. During the sparge I transfer the last brew from my fermenter in to the cubes. I collect a jar of yeast from the bottom of the fermenter with a jar and desert spoon that I had put in the stock pot while the caustic was heating up then rinsed and sanitised them.
Hose out the fermenter, pour in the caustic replace the lid and roll it about for a minute or so till the dried yeast and crud ring around the top has disappeared then rinse, sanitise and leave it upside down with the lid on to drain till needed.
Near the end of the boil I connect the pump and counter flow chiller and re circulate boiling wort through it to clean and sanitise it. (Hose cold water through the chiller first in case something has crawled in since last use). After whirlpool I pump through the chiller straight in to my 60L fermenter. I sometimes run off a no chill cube of wort first to use with a fresh packet of dried yeast or smack pack.
I then aerate the wort with my new aeration kit and add the yeast I had collected. Until recently I chilled into a 25L cube before shaking it and tipping into the fermenter.
Then it time to recirculate a few litres of warm sodium percarbonate through the copper chiller back to the kettle and finally in to the mash tun to clean them.
So there you have it the most useful thing for me is cleaning with hot caustic.
The most annoying thing used to be the time it took to soak and clean everything with cold water and nappy san and the amount of water it wasted but I’m happy with my whole brewing process now.
Cheers Sean
