The first few batches I brewed I had one thing in mind… “Don’t ruin this batch…”
My ‘how to brew instructions’ where at my side the entire brew day… I read the instructions before the next step… during the step and after the step to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong…
Timed everything with precision and worried if I steeped my grains a couple degrees over the suggested 154 F…
But what really had me worried was cleaning and sanitizing…
I heard that the #1 thing a brewer should worry about is cleaning and sanitizing… but I disagree…
Now that’s not to say that it’s not important, but I’ve seen cleaning and sanitizing taken overboard…
I was distracted by YouTube… (gasp)… again, and clicked on a video where I saw a brewer wear latex gloves to grab his grain bag and steep the grains…
and that’s when I thought… hmmm, is wearing gloves really necessary?
NO…
Listen, I applaud all those who go that extra step… but if you understand the difference between cleaning and sanitizing you can put that extra effort into more important things… like drink beer…
Here’s the deal…
Cleaning is a matter of getting rid of dirt, debris and anything you’d find in the surface of your equipment…
Sanitizing is meant to kill bacteria…
The way sanitizers work is by lowering the pH of the surface and creating an environment where bacteria can’t survive and therefore die…
But there is another way to sanitize… heat…
When you boil your wort, you are not just sanitizing the wort, but pretty much sterilizing it!
Therefore, I don’t actually worry much about soaking anything in a sanitizing solution prior to the boil…
Now that’s not to say that I slack off and throw in a dirty spoon into the mash or grab the steeping grains with dirty hands… no!… I focus on cleaning, but sanitizing is one thing I leave until after the boil… when I cool the wort and can’t heat it up again to kill bacteria…
That’s when sanitizing becomes important…
… and as important as it is… cleaning is more so important than sanitizing… you can not sanitize something that is not clean…
Just because you washed something with dish detergent doesn’t mean it’s clean… calcium deposits or chalk need a different type of cleaner… as long as you use the right cleaners you’ll have thoroughly clean equipment where bacteria won’t grow…
You can in fact brew without sanitizing, but your cleaning better be immaculate… I wouldn’t do it, I’m just trying to make a point…
Cheers!
P.S. I got an email from a brewer who said he does a really good job at cleaning his equipment and only sanitizes the equipment every now and then… so there you go…
Leave A Reply (4 comments so far)
Brian
160 days ago
Is it ok just to use regular liquid dish soap? Ive also heard about using Oxi clean Versatile Free. What would you recommend? Thanks
Jorge
160 days ago
@Brian – as long as the dishsoap is unscented then yes…I use oxiclean versatile and tsp/90 (4:1 ratio) or pbw…
Doug
145 days ago
Is it okay to use household bleach to sanitize bottles?
Jorge
145 days ago
Yes and no… bleach can sanitize your bottles, but the problem is making sure you rinse out each bottle very very well… and that’s a PITA…
I would strongly recommend you get starsan and mix it in a spray bottle and use that instead… or soak the bottles in an iodophor solution intead…