Jun 2016
Cleanliness!!!
June, 2016 Filed in: Wine making
As wine and beer makers we know the importance of cleaning and sterilizing all equipment, bottles and carboys prior to use. However, we are now finding that soaking your equipment with a product like chlorinated cleaner (the pink stuff) maybe not enough!
It is now suggested by kit suppliers that you also scrub your equipment. Bio-films, the products of the fermentation process, can build up on surfaces and become potential contaminants that may ruin a batch of wine or beer. A good analogy is your dishes. If you soak your plates in dish detergent after a meal, and then put them away, a build of bacteria can occur. No, everyone scrub these dishes to prevent harmful build up prior to their next use; goes without saying.
We recommend you periodically soak your, carboy and wine bottles in a solution of chlorinated cleaner, for at least 20 minutes. Use a bottle brush or carboy brush to scrub the surfaces of the equipment to remove any bio-film build up. For plastic primary pails, or if you use plastic carboys, then use a dish cloth to scrub the surfaces. In the case of plastic carboys put the dish cloth in the carboy and roll the dish cloth around the carboy and remove it by pulling it out of the neck. It is thought brushes can scratch the plastic surfaces and become home to evil batch-destroying bacteria. Alternatively, we do sell a drill-mounted carboy cleaner that has cloth pads that power scrub much like rollers in a car wash.
Try soaking your carboys and scrubbing them, you will be amazed at the sickly brown crud left in the bottom.
It is now suggested by kit suppliers that you also scrub your equipment. Bio-films, the products of the fermentation process, can build up on surfaces and become potential contaminants that may ruin a batch of wine or beer. A good analogy is your dishes. If you soak your plates in dish detergent after a meal, and then put them away, a build of bacteria can occur. No, everyone scrub these dishes to prevent harmful build up prior to their next use; goes without saying.
We recommend you periodically soak your, carboy and wine bottles in a solution of chlorinated cleaner, for at least 20 minutes. Use a bottle brush or carboy brush to scrub the surfaces of the equipment to remove any bio-film build up. For plastic primary pails, or if you use plastic carboys, then use a dish cloth to scrub the surfaces. In the case of plastic carboys put the dish cloth in the carboy and roll the dish cloth around the carboy and remove it by pulling it out of the neck. It is thought brushes can scratch the plastic surfaces and become home to evil batch-destroying bacteria. Alternatively, we do sell a drill-mounted carboy cleaner that has cloth pads that power scrub much like rollers in a car wash.
Try soaking your carboys and scrubbing them, you will be amazed at the sickly brown crud left in the bottom.