The Eight Rules of Cleaning & Sanitizing
When it comes to making wine or brewing beer, there is no such thing as too clean or too sanitized. The following list is from Five Star Chemicals & Supply Inc., leaders in brewing industry cleaning and sanitization products.
- You can only sanitize clean equipment.
- Dirty equipment will always contain bacteria.
- MOST Cleaners ARE NOT sanitizers. Whether alkali or acid, the majority of cleaners should not be used as the final procedure.
- Sanitizers ARE NOT cleaners. Sanitizing is the final procedure after cleaning or on clean equipment just prior to brewing.
- Cleaning and sanitizing can be improved by time and temperature. Allowing longer contact time and/or increasing the temperature of solutions will improve the results.
- Do not overuse chemicals. “More is not better”. It normally requires more water and/or higher temperatures to rinse, and may leave an unwanted residue or just cake on to the equipment. Follow the directions.
- Cleaners and sanitizers must come in contact with 100% of the soils. This means that all blind areas, such as man-way lips or racking arms, must be hand cleaned and sanitized, use of spray balls can be very effective.
- Never add water to chemicals. Always blend cleaning or sanitizing chemicals into water.
