Author: Marshall Schott
As much as I appreciate cleanliness, I hate cleaning with a passion. It sucks. Unfortunately, it’s one of the more important aspects of brewing– dirty gear makes dirty beer. Over the years, I’ve settled on a few methods I’ve found make the arduous task of clean-up a bit less annoying. Obviously, this is based on my particular setup and may not necessarily be as helpful for folks using different gear or who are more/less anal than me. Also, I tend to focus more on ensuring my cold-side equipment is clean since there aren’t many beer spoiling critters that can survive a boil. With that, here’s what works for me!
Given my abhorrence for cleaning, I should note that “step 1” for each of the methods listed below is the same: pour a beer and enjoy.
| MASH TUN |
I always clean my mash tun immediately after collecting the sweet wort and waiting for it to reach a boil. I’ve heard horror stories of people discovering tuns full of stinky mold infested grain weeks after brewing, this is something I wish to avoid. I currently use a converted cooler MLT to mash my grains, often with a BIAB fabric filter that did simplify my cleaning process– pull out bag, dump grains, then spray the bag and tun with high pressure water from the hose. This takes no longer than 2 minutes.
When not using the bag, I hoist the MLT onto the edge of my compost bin, pour the grains in, use my hand to sweep straggling grain bits out, then proceed to rinse. Any time difference between this and the bag method is negligible, though I tend to prefer the ease of removing the bagged grains. Back when my MLTs were outfitted with 3-piece ball valves, I would blast water through the output while slowly opening and closing the valve a few time to rinse the innards. Occasional checks revealed this worked fairly well. Since swapping to Quick Clean Take-Apart Ball Valves, I simply loosen a knob, pull the thing apart, and spray it all down until clean. Couldn’t be easier.
I’ve been using the same coolers for over 4 years and not once have I used anything other than water to clean them.
I know of others, a couple Brülosophy contributors included, who use stainless mash tuns and do things a bit different, preferring to treat them similarly to the way I do my kettles.
| KETTLE |
My kettle cleaning regimen consists of a few simple steps completed in a matter of minutes. Again, my kettles get cleaned as soon as the wort they once contained has been transferred to carboys. I start by pouring any remaining kettle trub down the drain then remove and clean the ball valve as outlined above. With all chunky debris out of the way, I give a quick scrub with a scouring pad to remove any dried bits ringing the kettle as well as loosen the gunk plastered to the bottom. This is followed by another high pressure rinse then I usually call it good. After about 20 or so batches, the bottom of my kettle will start to develop an off-colored layer that cannot be scrubbed off with water and scouring pad. While I’m highly doubtful this stuff has any impact on beer character, the vanity bug occasionally bites and I take measures to bring back that pretty shine.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a product with a better price to effectiveness ratio than Bar Keeper’s Friend, a cleaning powder that uses oxalic acid as the active ingredient. A light dusting and a bit of elbow
grease quickly removes any build up, returning your kettle to its lustrous virgin state. BKF is also a fantastic solution for ring-around-the-toilet, dirty stoves, and stained sinks, but has little utility in other areas of the brewery. For those looking for a multipurpose solution, I’ve experienced similar results with Craft Meister’s Alkaline Brewery Wash, which can be used to clean so much more than just kettles, as I will discuss in a bit.
| IMMERSION CHILLER |
Likely due to my adoration and advocacy for high quality immersion chillers, I’m often asked how I go about keeping mine clean. One of the many reasons I prefer immersion chillers over other options is that cleaning is so easy. Before I start chilling the wort, I run the output 
hose to a bucket to catch the first and hottest runoff. Once chilling is complete, I place the IC in the bucket and move it around a bit to release any debris. Finally, I spray the chiller off and put it away. That’s it. No cleaners, no scrubbing, just rinsing. My King Cobra IC requires the use of a larger bucket given it’s girth, though the Hydra and most other chillers fit perfectly in a standard 6 gallon fermentation bucket.
| CARBOYS |
In my opinion, the piece of equipment most vulnerable to contamination in any brewery is the fermentor, as this is where the beer is left for long periods of time at temperatures ideal for many wild yeasts and bacteria. Because of this, I focus a large portion of my cleaning energy on making sure my carboys are pristine. I highly prefer 6 gallon PET carboys or Better Bottles, though these tips work just as well with glass and even plastic buckets. I start by pouring any leftover beer and yeast down the drain of my utility sink then, using a hose I attached to the faucet, I spray the inside of the carboy out with a high pressure stream of hot water until all that remains is the kräusen ring. From here, I add the proper amount of my preferred cleaner, fill the carboy with warm water, and let it sit for an hour or so, sometimes overnight, before emptying and rinsing.
When it comes to cleaners, I’ve tried a few and developed opinions on each. OxiClean Free was my go-to for awhile, mainly because I could pick it up on a whim while grocery shopping. It worked pretty good, though often failed to remove all of the kräusen ringing the inside of my carboys. In search of something more effective, I acquired some Keg and Carboy Cleaning Tablets made by Craft Meister, which I decided to compare to OxiClean Free following the kegging of a couple xBmt beers. Both carboys were rinsed well and had similar looking kräusen rings remaining prior to receiving their respective cleaner.
Next, each was filled with hot water then dosed with either 2 tablets (per instructions) or a half scoop of OxiClean Free. Within minutes, bubbles were rising up the walls of both carboys, a sign the cleaners were doing something, though the carboy hit with the tablets appeared quite a bit more active and generated more foam. I checked on them every 30 minutes or so, both carboys appeared cleaner on each occasion, but I discovered the OxiClean required nearly an hour longer to achieve the same level of cleanliness as the tablets. Not one to be easily swayed, I repeated this comparison a couple more times and achieved similar results– both products cleaned well, though the OxiClean Free consistently required more time.
The convenience offered by Craft Meister’s Keg & Carboy Cleaning Tablets alone may be enough to convince some brewers to give the product a shot, but as someone who cleans upwards of 6 carboys per month, it didn’t outweigh the cost for me. After some poking around, I decided to try another Craft Meister product in hopes it would be as effective as the tablets.
Additional comparisons commenced, this time Craft Meister’s Alkaline Brewery Wash to both the tablets and OxiClean Free. With just half of a scoop in a full carboy, this stuff plowed through kräusen like nothing I’ve ever seen, producing a pristine clean after less than 45 minutes, and there was zero foam. I was sold!
Finally, in those times where bits of kräusen remain plastered to the inner walls of the carboy even after a long soak, something I’ve not experienced since I started using ABW, there’s a rad solution that doesn’t involve the use of a cumbersome carboy brush. Rather, all you need is a clean washrag.
Simply wet the rag and place it in the freshly drained carboy, turn it on its side, swirl like mad until all the grime is gone, then rinse like normal. This is also a perfect method for those times you don’t want (or can’t) wait the 45+ minutes for the cleaning solution to do its thing.
Like I said, I take carboy cleaning seriously, hence the length of this section. And for those who are curious, I’m not affiliated with Craft Meister.
| KEGS |
I’ve heard of many different ways to clean a keg and really appreciate the more thorough approaches people like Ray take. Some call it laziness, I like to think of it as efficient, but my keg cleaning routine is not quite as involved. I start by pouring any residual beer down my utility sink drain then blasting the inside with a high pressure stream of hot water, making sure to hit the length of the liquid diptube and the bottom of the keg really well. Next, I use a dishwashing brush to scrub the inside of the keg, removing anything the water left behind.
Following another quick rinse, I add about a gallon of really hot water then use a screwdriver to depress the liquid-out poppet, allowing the hot water to flow through the diptube. This is all I do probably 80% of the time. Between every 5-6 uses, I’ll give each keg a slightly deeper cleaning by removing the posts and diptubes then letting them soak in an ABW solution for an hour or so before rinsing and reassembling. It’s during these times I’ll also fill the kegs with the same cleaning solution and leave them to soak for a bit. Following a final rinse, I store my kegs upside down with the lids off to allow them to drain, then prior to being refilled with beer, I sanitize with IO Star iodine sanitizer followed by a rinse with StarSan solution. You can never be too cautious.
| TUBING |
I don’t use much tubing in my brewery these days, mostly just the small amount connected to my sterile siphon starter. Plastic tubing can be a pain in the ass to keep clean, particularly since even the smallest amount of leftover moisture can create a perfect breeding ground for 
shit I don’t want in my beer. This is why I like to keep bulk amounts of the sizes I use most often around so I’ve always some at the ready should it be required. For the most part, my tube cleaning routine involves nothing more than running hot tap water through the line immediately after use, rinsing with StarSan, then dangerously spinning it over my head for a good 10 seconds until centrifugal force removes a large portion of the remaining liquid. It is then hung over a hook to dry. There have been times where I’ve noticed scummy build up inside the tubing and was all out of my bulk supply, so I let it sit in a hot cleaning solution until it was gone, it seemed to work fine.
| BOTTLES |
I avoid bottling at all costs, though there are times it has to be done, like when I send beers to friends or enter competitions. Being cheap, I certainly appreciate reusing bottles, though I’ll only do so if it was rinsed immediately after being emptied. Who knows what the hell can make its way into a bottle that’s been sitting uncapped in my garage all night? I like to store clean bottles upside down in the box, as it disallows the falling in of airborne contaminants while also creating a slight seal on the mouth of the bottle so other things can’t crawl inside. Prior to filling with beer and after ensuring each bottle is grime-free, I let them soak in an IO Star iodine solution for 5-10 minutes then dunk them in a StarSan solution to rinse.
And there you have it, how I clean my stuff. As is often the case, I’m hesitant to strongly recommend others adopt these methods without first considering their particular setup, as I’d hate for someone to make a switch and have a batch go bad. Ultimately, this is what has worked well for me for years, if you’ve developed a neat cleaning trick, please share it in the comments section below.
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45 thoughts on “Washing The Wares | How I Clean My Brewing Gear”
It’s a bit of an upfront investment but I really really like my mark’s keg washer. Put a carboy on it, clean in a few minutes. Put a keg on it, it can run cleaner into the keg and through the beer out/gas in all at once. you can also use it to run cleaner through your tubing.
I know others who like their MKW a lot. I’m personally more interested in simple methods that don’t require additional gear.
I use mine for cleaning just about everything that’s cleanable: buckets, carboys, kegs, draught lines… my buddy even uses his to clean out barrels! Thing is pretty versatile.
Agreed, I love my keg washer! I use it for both my kegs and carboy. Big time saver for me. I like the bits on the immersion chiller and the compound he used for his kettles. Will need to check those out.
I really hated having to dump carboys filled with water, so I bought a mark’s keg washer. Pretty much the best $100 I’ve spent. Love the towel idea, never thought that would work. Really despise pulling the bottle brush out of the carboy after scrubbing off krausen. Thanks.
Also like the idea of idophor and rinse with star san. Wonder if there is any chemistry reason not to do that? Time for some research.
When you remove the carboy brush from the carboy, poke a tiny hole in the bottom of a plastic grocery bag, insert the handle through the hole, and put it over the mouth of the carboy, as you remove the brush it will contain all the water spray.
The washer is great. It also allows you to clean kegs and carboys with only one gallon of water instead of five or six.
I got my MKW (Mark’s Keg Washer) with a few gift certificates I had won…WOW. I love it. I only use 1.5 gallons or so to clean several kegs and lines, or carboys and whatever else I can toss in the reservoir.
I can just flip them over and then forgot about them while I do other brewery things or play around with the kids (…or wife – hehe). Seriously. Less water, fewer chemicals, less time.
$$$ well spent. Well, gift certs, but now that I know how much I like it and use it I’d gladly pay for one.
Ok, ok… I’m almost convinced.
Great stuff! One thing I’ve found useful when cleaning carboys: If the krausen ring doesn’t come off with a (insert preferred cleaner) soak, a bottle brush can be bent to reach that area of the carboy. Works best when it’s filled with water, just give it a couple times around the ring and it should be good.
FWIW…I love simple cleaning solutions too.
-I use almost exclusively silicon tube…the thick walled kind…which you can boil.
– after brewing I boil a few gallons in my HLT and circulate it through all hoses ( collect and toss the first couple quarts of dirty water through) and my one pump while doing other cleaning. The 2 times I’ve open my pump it’s been perfectly clean inside. Later this extremely hot water can be used to clean that IC I forgot to clean earlier 😉
– I only bottle…the day or more, before I bottle, I fill an old bottling bucket with hot but weak oxiclean solution then speed fill every bottle. Let sit. Dump and quick rinse prior to starsan in vinerator ( an awesome tool) rinse on bottling day. I am still amazed at the gunk that comes out of otherwise visibly clean bottles this way.
One last comment…spent grain sure stinks after a few days in the summer heat, huh?
I like the idea of filling a bucket with hot water to stick the immersion coil in. The heat seems to help push a little water out too. I had left one in the garage one winter and the expanding ice inside burst through the copper :(. I keep spray bottles of StarSan where I brew, near the kegerator and fermentation area and give everything a quick mist before and after touching anything.
It doesn’t even freeze where I live and I blow the water out of my ICs after every use.
If you simply hold the IC up or elevate it somehow (I use my brewstand), a siphoning effect will take place and it empties itself without the need to blow. Well, that’s how my IC acts anyway, your mileage may vary 🙂
Oh, I know, I’m just impatient 🙂
I have that JaDed Hydra and the way its made, turning it upside down does not allow all the tubing to drain. I froze my previous chiller after thinking it was fully drained to the hydra gets blown out and comes inside with me!
My favorite tool for cleaning stainless steel is a copper scrubbing cloth. It takes everything off but never scratches the steel. Seems to last forever and is naturally bacteriostatic so doesn’t grow badness. Currently using one of these: http://thebestbrushes.com/Copper-Cloth-Hotel-Size.html
The method I use to remove the buildup on the bottom of the boil kettle, or beerstone as some people calls it, requires very minimal scrubbing. I pour a small amount of concentrated StarSan directly to the bottom, then I take a regular non-scrub sponge and smear it out evenly so it covers the area you want to clean. Wait 3 minutes or even less, and then gently wipe it off. It comes off like magic and my kettle looks like new. I do this maybe every 5-7 batches, depending on what time I finish the brew (I’m a night brewer and don’t start my ~4 hour process until the kids are asleep.
PS. My apologies as I may have submitted this comment twice…
Furthermore, a brush that I can’t live without is a 16-inch Urn Brush. Currently I can only find it for an unpleasant amount of money (I got mine for $13 with free shipping), but it’s in the same shape now as it was when I bought it a few years ago, so the price may be still justifiable. I use it to clean my kegs as my arm only reaches in about 8″ and it is a perfect for the 2 liter erlenmeyer flasks I use for starters. I would think it would last for many years to come.
For hoses, especially the siphoning hose, and dip tubes (both kegs and boil kettle), I use a flexible double ended long brush. Very inexpensive and available from many various sources.
This is probably a stupid question but would there be any effect of cleaning using a garden hose? I wouldn’t want anything to taste like garden hose water and not sure if it would permeate Better Bottle carboys.
Any thoughts?
I don’t think it’d be an issue at all, but I use potable water hoses.
I clean all of my equipment with the runoff from my immersion chiller which is attached to my garden hose and/or straight from the hose itself. I rinse everything right after use then sprinkle Oxy in the mash tun, bucket, etc. with a bit of water then fill with them with the IC runoff and go from there. Can’t do that during mid-west winters though. Damn you Polar Vortex!
No off flavors at all.
I honestly just soak everything in PBW overnight. With fermenters I soak them with PBW until they are needed for another batch (which honestly is never too long)
Hmm, I’ll have to try filling a bucket with hot water out of the IC, for washing the IC.
You’ll laugh, but I bought a toilet brush just for scrubbing the inside of my 5G corny kegs. The longer the brush handle, the less arm you have to wedge into the sometimes sharp opening of the keg.
And I’ve found that beerstone comes right off of the bottom of my stainless pot after an overnight soak in vinegar. You just need enough to cover the bottom.
Thanks for this Marshall. I use the “washrag” trick often, with a small 3M microfiber like this. What I usually do is put a very small amount of hot water and Oxlclean free in the Better Bottle, add a solid stopper and just slosh it around on its side. Works like a charm.
Mainly I’m commenting to say: HOLY SHIT I JUST REMEMBERED A NOT RINSED NOR QUITE EMPTY KEG SITTING IN MY GARAGE THAT I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT. This is going to be a fun cleanup job.
For tubing, I am a 100% hi-temp silicon only guy. I rinse after brew day and other uses. To sanitize, Everything gets hit with recirculating boiling wort on brew day and if I use it to transfer a sour beer or just notice a little something on the inside, 40 minutes in the oven at 350.
What is your routine for cleaning Keg Lines, faucets and connectors?
I keep a keg of BLC solution next to my keezer, it doesn’t get used very often. Most of the time, I don’t clean my beer lines, I go from empty to full keg and call it good. The Vent-Matic faucets have removable nozzles that are easy to clean, otherwise I rely on the BLC solution to take care of the the rest of the cleaning when it flows through the lines.
“Dangerously spinning over my head.” I use the same move! Feels like Napoleon Dynamite with the sweet nunchuck skills. Thanks for the laugh!
What is the frequency and what process do you use to clean your Vent-Matic faucets?
Well… I like to think beer cleans my faucets just fine. I’ve only had the VM faucets for a couple months, they’re still seemingly clean. Maybe I’m wrong. I guess it’s not something I’m too worried about.
If I go more than two weeks without cleaning mine I start getting blue mold shit flaking off into my glass. It’s a pain in the ass to take them apart and clean them that often…
That doesn’t seem right. When and where did you get your faucets?
Hey. I know this isn’t the main point of this article, but for BIAB would you increase the grain bill from a all grain kit you buy from someone. Thanks and love your stuff.
If it’s a pre-packaged kit, I’d be inclined to brew it as-is. Also, I get basically the same efficiency with BIAB as I do with batch sparge.
Just wanted to throw this out there; the instructions for the brewery wash say to use 2 scoops per gallon; but you used 1/2 a scoop for 5 gallons? Were you using a different scoop, or can we just dispense with the instructions?
The small blue scoop that’s included with the ABW 🙂
Cleaning tubing is absolutely the worst. I laughed when I read how you swing it over your head, which is what I did and probably most people do. Every time I did that I was like: “what the fuck am I doing? this sucks.” My entire system is probably inspired by that one fact: now i have no tubes.
Replying to “That doesn’t seem right. When and where did you get your faucets?”
I picked up my Vent-Matic faucets from KegOutlet.com in January this year.
Unfortunately, according to the owner of Vent-Matic, those faucets are knockoffs made in China and not to spec. Such a bummer.
Great article, thanks. I have a few follow up questions: What is your final step before storing carboys? Do you give them a quick fresh water rinse, air dry / towel dry, and then store covered / uncovered?
Also, what do you with carboys do on brew day, when you have cleaned your carboys as described in this article? Do give them a quick water rinse, spray with starsan and then fill with wort? Or something more / less time consuming?
I am occasionally storing carboys for months at a time between uses and would appreciate the advice. Thanks.
I place them upside down and let them sit until next use. On brew day, I’ll give them a quick rinse then sanitize with StarSan (1 gallon splashed around for 30+ minutes).
I am not Marshall but I have a batch of starsan made up with distilled water. This I leave a small amount in my glass carboys with the top sealed with plastic wrap and a rubber band. I swirl it around occasionally. Check the pH, if your pH is still under 3, the starsan is doing its thing. If your starsan turns cloudy, it is not working. I have ridiculously hard water here and my starsan is inactive almost right away with tap.
Cloudy StarSan isn’t necessarily and indication it’ll be ineffective. So long as the pH is lower than 3.0, it’s good to go. I spoke with a Five Star rep at length about this recently.
good lord man. Don’t rename your laziness as efficiency. Put some damn cleaner in your keg. All you have to do is miss a little bit and your beautiful brew becomes crap. I’m sure it has worked, but it’ll get you some day. I bet it already has and your good beer could have been great. There are two places you cannot skimp out on. cleaning and sanitizing. After that, worry about your fermentation but that’s a distant 3rd. CLEAN AND SANITIZE. I have experience as a home brewer and I brought my cleaning and sanitizing practice from my stint as a culture and media prep tech. If you cannot put it in an autoclave, then clean the shitake out of it. Some day, I will have a gigantic autoclave and a laminar flow hood with uv sterilizers.