Home Beer Brewing – Sanitizing and Cleaning Your Equipment - By: Mark Howard

If you wish to become a real pro at home beer brewing then you must make the effort to clean and sanitize all your home brewing equipment from your bottles thru to your Beer Fermenter and everything in between. Excellent cleaning habits and a very clean environment are the keys to making successful home made beer.

There are three main steps you need to take, one is simply to clean your equipment, the other is to sanitize everything that will come into contact with your beer and finally to sterilize.

Cleaning is done to simply remove all the dust dirt and stains that are visible on your home brewing equipment which includes all your bottles. Sanitizing is the process of removing or eliminating the invisible bacteria and micro-organisms that can ruin your home brew beer. Sterilizing or boiling your wort at a very high temperature for an hour or more is another way to maintain a clean environment for the brewing process.

Having a very clean and dust proof environment to work and store all this equipment is another crucial factor in determining the success of your home brew. Its no use doing all this cleaning if the area that you rinse and drain all the equipment is contaminated as all your hard work could come undone very quickly. It goes without saying that dogs and cats are a big no no!

There are a number of different chemicals that can be used for this cleaning process ranging from iodine-based, chlorine based to ammonia based as well as some environmentally friendly cleaners. I’ve found that ammonia is good for cleaning your bottles but make sure that you give all your equipment a very thorough Hot water rinse.
With the iodine-based product be careful as it will stain any plastic equipment as well as your skin, so wear gloves. I find that chlorine is excellent to use but it can cause corrosion on any stainless steel brewing equipment. Please do not ever mix these chemicals together as they could release a very toxic gas!

To start the process of sterilizing your beer brewing equipment you will need a large sterilized sink or tub so that you can completely immerse the equipment and give it a good soak. Make sure that you always use soft clean sponges on all your equipment as any abrasive type cleaners will only scratch your plastic and stainless equipment. If you follow the instructions from the manufacture closely you should not have any problems.
Be very careful not to use hot water with Chlorine based products as the heat can cause gas to be released.

Once your home made beer is ready you will need to clean and sterilize the bottles. Using a large basin and the correct amount of sanitizer, immerse all your bottles, making sure that there are no air bubbles. Leave for over thirty or forty minutes before you clean with a bottle brush and then, rinse twice and drain. Making sure that the environment is as clean as possible, you don’t want anything to go wrong now. You are not finished yet. Remember to sanitize the bottle caps by boiling for about ten minutes or soaking in a iodine based solution depending on what type of cap you are using. Good Luck!

About the Author

Mark Howard was introduced to the art of producing home made beer by his father over twenty or more years ago. “Never Stop Experimenting” and “Always Enjoy the Fruits of your Labor in Moderation.” http://www.homebrewbeerfermenter.com http://www.homebrewbeerfermenter.com ”>Build Your Own Fermenter

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