Hi gang! I've just upgraded to my kit from a bunch of plastic buckets with no hidden or moving parts to a bunch of stainless steel buckets including pipes and taps and things. As I start screwing everything together, I've realized that I've got a couple of questions about cleaning. 1) How often do you do a full dismantle and clean of your kit? Not just disconnecting the hoses but unscrewing taps and thermowells and suchlike and properly cleaning up the individual parts. 2) How do you clean out taps, tubes and hoses after a brew? Do you just run water and/or cleaner through, or do you go in with a brush or something? The fermenter is going to be doing double duty as an HLT, which means it's going to get a free heat treatment every brewday, but I'd like to feel like I've got rid of any buildup of gunk as well... Thanks
I do a complete breakdown and overnight PBW soak of all metal parts and gaskets that can be disassembled (soaked in the conical itself). All hoses are rinsed in water unless there is something obvious, those get the overnight treatment. I'm also fairly thorough on replacing silicone hoses/gaskets as they age and show stains. I find this to be the least "enjoyable" part of brewing (aka PITA).
I try to hot or cold water rinse everything immediately after use. A thorough cleaning is a lot easier if there is no dried snot stuck in every corner and crevice. I usually just rinse most of my equipment before brewing and on the same day, so long as it was cleaned out prior. With stainless steel, you want to avoid bleach. Plastic has a big advantage here. With plastic, you can not use high heat. That's a strength of stainless. I use generic powdered oxygen and soap if needed. And lots of rinse water. Pro-tip. Take a shower with your brew equipment. Bring a dish brush and some neutral soap. Cheers
My HLT was separate from my boil kettle. Recently I used my old boil kettle for the HLT and for chilling (new boil kettle is too big for my sink, so I transferred the boiled wort to my old boil kettle for chilling). During brew day cleanup I disassembled the stainless ball valve from the HLT/chilling kettle and was a little (but not completely) surprised at the buildup. Enough so that I’ll be breaking down everything that could be used on the cold side and has been touched by wort, every time…..something I should have already been doing. One thing I didn’t do but will now that I thought about it, is disassemble the ball valve down to it’s innards for an inspection. All I did was soak in PBW and occasionally work it open/closed. I’m not as meticulous or wary about equipment that is dedicated full-time to the hot side. I have no pipes, only hoses. They get treated similarly re: hot/cold side. Yeah, it’s a PITA, but not as much of one as throwing away time spent on brewing and packaging. It’s not so much the soaking and cleaning that’s a bother to me but refitting everything and checking for leaks. ^ ^ ^ This ^ ^ ^ This too Cosmo.......NOT! (the dish brush will irritate your privates )
Hot side I run a Mash And Boil, I just give it all a good hot rinse from the kettle through the hoses to the pump and out the other hose. Cold side I have a SS Conical with tri-clamps. I break that down every 2-3 brews. The reason I do that is because often times I pull the beer off the yeast and then brew a batch right onto the cake. I'll do a handful of beers using one yeast, then break it down, hot oxi+TSP soak, good hot rinse, Starsan, reassemble. I tend to to this on brewday while the mash and boil run.
