↠ Do I have to sanitise all my beer brewing equipment?

Yes, you do bloody have to clean, sanitize and sterilize your beer brewing equipment, right down to the bottle caps and stirring spoon

There are plenty of tricks and cheats you can do to product quality tasting beer but the one thing you can't escape from is the proper cleaning, sanitizing and sterilization of your beer gear.

There's a difference between sanitizing and sterilizing

Sanitizing is a technical term that means a certain allowable amount of microbes to survive on the surface of your equipment.

Sterilizing is like sanitizing, but it removes all the microorganisms (the bugs and germs that will ruin your beer).

Think of washing your hands with hot water and soap as sanitization as it kills a few bugs but not all and is an acceptable means of cleaning your hands.

If you want to kill all the bugs on your hand so the skin is sterile with no bugs on it anywhere, then I suggest you boil your hands in water...

For the most part, the typical homebrewers don't need to sterilize, only sanitize. The chemicals commonly used for homebrew brewing are made to sanitize.

Now we've got those definitions clear, there are several methods that you can try to 'sterilize' your gear.

We'll note a couple in detail:

You can drown everything in bleach

A cheap and cost effective way to get your gear free of bugs is to drown your gear in bleach.

But what is bleach?

Bleach is usually a solution of chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide and they act as an oxidizing agent. They are great for all kinds of things such as removing bad smells, making your whites whiter and your brights brighter and for home brewing.

A popular American brand of bleach is Chlorox but there are hundreds of brands of bleach you could use.

As with all these sterilizing methods, you simply soak your equipment in the solution for a good length of time. A quick dip of ten minutes is the bare minimum.

We try and do several hours of soaking if possible.

The trick with bleach is to remember that you need to rinse everything off with clean water after. This is done to ensure that no yucky flavours leftover from the bleach makes it into your batch of beer. 

Use sodium percarbonate as a sanitizing agent

Using sodium percarbonate is our preferred method as it works well, no rinsing is required and it's very easy to order in bulk online.

And it does not smell like chlorine does.

If you've ever tried to buy sodium percarbonate from a specialist beer brewery shop, you'll know that you can get a small bottle or container of it that will cost you a small fortune.

If you can buy it in bulk from an online supplier, you'll do well to nab some as using it will effectively bring down your cost per brew. 

To use sodium percarbonate you simply add it to water. I like to add hot or ever boiling water to the drum so as to get the action of the chemical happening pretty quickly. The boiling water also helps kill off any nasty bugs hiding about as well. 

A home brand with sodium percarbonate.

Here's another trick, this chemical is basically what you might know as Tide or Napisan or any product that's brand name tries to use the word 'oxy' as in oxygen cleaning or oxidization agent.

Chances are you already have some in your home laundry so feel free to use that. I have done so several times with no problems whatsoever.

Non scented house brands are awesome.

Other methods of sanitization and sterilization

• Applying heat - use your oven for a good dry heat.
• Boiling in water with your camping stove or burner
• Use an autoclave or pressure cooker (this seems like a bit of overkill though)
• An ordinary house dishwasher machine can be used for sanitation but remember it's not likely to clean the inside of the bottles as well as you might wish, rather you are using the heat of the dishwasher to kill any microbes. 

The key goal here is to make sure that your equipment is nice and clean and that it has a few microbes on it is possible. You can use whatever means you like to achieve this but you have to do it and you must be consistent.

You cannot take a break from it. If you want a good tasting beer that's not contaminated then you just have to take the plunge. 

If you are looking for a product to CLEAN your brewing equipment then we suggest you consider using PBW:

PBW stands for Powdered Brewery Wash

PBW cleaning product by Five Star is widely used in many commercial breweries but countless homebrewers across the land have cottoned on to how they can use it for cleaning their own brewing equipment.

If you've ever used a 5 gallon stainless steel boil pot you'll know how crusty the remnants on the bottom of the pot can be. A quick round with PBW will sort them out easily. All you have to do when cleaning with hot water, is add just a little bit of PBW, mix it up, and let it sit in the pot. All of that burned-on garbage lifts right off. Ideally, a good burner will not cause this problem!

PBW is also excellent for cleaning the inside of your beer bottles, it can really clean out the beer's sediment. 

The main ingredient is about 30% Sodium Metasilicate. Its chemical formula is Na2SiO3 and it's what kicks grease and beer smegma to the curb. If you want to be brave and buy the main ingredient in bulk, there's plenty of value on offer on Amazon.

Image credit Anna L Martin as per Creative Commons License

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7 simple tips for the beginner beer brewer

7 handy tips for new beer brewers 

If you're sick of drinking 'dry white wine' at dinner parties and want to take the plunge and brew your first batch of home brew beer, good on you!

If you take the time to do it right, you will be rewarded with a refreshingly good beverage.

Are you with me?

A good start to your 'brewing campaign' will give you the confidence that brewing home brew is actually easy and you might continue with it as a hobby.

There's certainly a lot to learn, so if you are a first-time beer brewer, you might want to have a read of these tips and tricks.

1. That starter beer kit your wife gave you for Christmas is not enough

While the beer kit you were given for Christmas by your loving wife or partner will help you on your way to making a good homebrew beer, you can do better.

Kits that only come with a bag of sugar or dextrose alone will contribute to a beer that's weak in the sense that it will seem thin in terms of its 'mouth feel'.

Think of mouthfeel as that sense of 'full heartiness' that you get from that first mouthful of a well-deserved beer. In response to this need, the home brewer should consider adding more malt - either liquid or dry malt.

For the dry malt, a 'brew enhancer' pack is what you need.

In this writer's experience, making a homebrew beer kit without the enhancer most definitely results in a weaker feeling beer, so make sure your starter kit comes with it or at the least, head to your local brew shop and grab a packet.

It shouldn't cost more than ten bucks.

2. You'd do best to brew an ale than a lager

The truth is that the darker the beer, the more forgiving it will be in the home brewing process. It's very easy to make a brewing mistake with your first home brew so a beer style that's good to drink and is also easy to take care of is the brew you are after.

Basically, the heavier flavor of the beer will mask things such as 'off' bi-products of the fermentation process caused by things such as temperature mismanagement.

While you should feel free to start with a lager, and yes, many beer kits do come with lagers, bear in mind that lagers need to be cooled rather more quickly than an ale and they also require a bit more yeast in the fermentation process.

You can drink them sooner too!

We love brewing Nut Brown Ales for this reason!

3. In the cold cold, night

Fermentation is a process that requires just the right kind of temperatures and the right kind of times.

Different temperatures brew different kinds of beers.

A constant temperature is also very important as the yeast can react to a temperature variance in ways that are not good for tasty beer! So when doing your first brews, make sure it can be done in a warmish area and one that's going to keep that temperature.

A very rough guide is that you should aim to brew lagers between 10-14 degrees and get those ales done between 18-21 degrees.

You got that White Stripes reference right?

4. You don't need to bottle straight away, just because the fermentation bottle has stopped bubbling

If the bubbles in the airlock have stopped completely, this is not necessarily a sign that the fermentation process has completed. It's quite likely that there's still some fermentation quietly happening in the drum.

So let that play out a bit longer. It could be that you let your beer rest longer than the written instructions that came with your beer kit.

Give the yeast time to do its thing. Maybe you could add some hops.

If you are feeling brave, you could even consider cold crashing the beer just before you bottle. Basically, you just leave the drum in a fridge for a week when fermentation is complete.

Then bottle away.

5. But don't bottle too early!

Simply put, don't bottle too early.

This basically point four repeated.

If you bottle before fermentation has completed too early, you could be in for some trouble.

Did you ever see that Breaking Bad episode where Hank woke up in the night thinking he was being shot at but in reality, it was just his home brew exploding?

That's what happens if you bottle your beer too early, the primary fermentation continues, the CO2 pressure builds and then kaboom! Don't be like Hank, let your beer mellow in the fermenter just a bit longer.

Chances are it will taste better too!

6. Using a hydrometer will help you develop your home brewer's 'Sixth Sense' about how your brew is going.

A hydrometer, correctly used will help you to determine if your batch has finished fermenting. If you get the same reading twice in a row, the fermentation process has finished - but leave it just a little bit longer before you bottle.

Trust us on this one.

You can also use the hydrometer to work out the alcohol content of your beer.

7. Good things come to those who wait

Once you've managed to get your precious liquid gold into your well-sterilized bottles we can only imagine how keen you are to sample your efforts. You're going to have to wait.

The instructions in your beer kit may suggest you need to wait two or three weeks.

Believe them. Or not.

Let your beer have time to make those bubbles.

You will be rewarded with a better-tasting beer. If you can't wait, get yourself busy with a second brew and at the very least, give your equipment a good clean.

So that's plenty of things to think about. Once you've done that, get brewing!

When you've become a pro brewer, you can then start to think about ph meters and propane burners and the best conical fermenters!!

Beer image courtesy James Palinsad by way of Creative Commons licence. We have no idea if James prefers Star Trek or has even read Mortal Engines.

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