The Basic Home Brewing Process

Step 1: Cleaning and Sanitizing Home Brewing Equipment

When many people think of cleaning equipment for food and drink use, they think of possibly detergent or soap, hot water and a sponge. In the case of brewing, it is important to remember that due to the delicate nature of the yeast and possible infection of the beer that can take place due to the wrong things getting into your wort, such as bacteria or soapy residue, many more precautions have to be made in order to brew a great tasting batch of beer.
Anything that will be touching the wort will need to be cleaned and sanitized. This is not a difficult process. It is just a very important one. It is also important to remember that, cleaning and sanitizing are also two different processes.
Some good cleaners that can be used are those cleaners that are provided with your homebrew kits, Chlorinated TSP, Soda Ash, B-Brite which uses hydrogen peroxide, as well as Five Star PBW which is non-toxic and an excellent cleaner.
When cleaning your equipment, be sure to run plenty of warm, not boiling, water through all of your brewing utensils. If it becomes a hassle, try filling your fermenter bucket (if you are using one) with warm water and cleaning solution and scrub the equipment in the warm water. You can clean the brew kettle in the kitchen sink. What is most important is AFTER the boil where everything has to be sanitized as the boil will help disinfect the brew.

Next step is sanitization of the equipment. The point of sanitizing your equipment is to eliminate any or all wild yeasts and bacteria that may be on the equipment. After cleaning your brewing equipment, create a bucket of sanitizer to let your equipment soak in for a 20-30 minutes. The most recommended type of sanitizers are those that are included in your beer kits as well as Five Star StarSan products and iodine sanitizers. Iodine sanitizers don’t affect the flavor or aroma of your beer as using chlorine bleach may do. Otherwise, if you choose to use chlorine bleach to sanitize your equipment with, be sure you are very careful with the amounts and how you handle it as bleach can be very harmful not just to people, but also to your carpet and more. Be sure to avoid use of perfumed chlorine bleach as well.
For iodine sanitizers, you should consult the directions of the sanitizing product in order to get the right amount of sanitizer per batch. As a rule of thumb, when using bleach, it is recommended to use about two tablespoons for every 5 gallons of water.

Overall, cleaning and sanitization of your brewing equipment is very, very important. But don’t let that intimidate you at all. It is just a precaution nearly all home brewers take into account, along with commercial brewers and winemakers alike in order to help assure brewers like you that your next batch will be a great new batch of home brewed beer.

NEXT: Mashing

The Basic Homebrewing Procedure :

Step 1: Cleaning and Sanitizing Home Brewing Equipment
Step 2: Mashing
Step 3: Brewing (Boiling and Adding Hops)
Step 4: Fermentation (Primary and Secondary Fermentation)
Step 5: Bottling/Racking