When the first time homebrewer gathers all of his equipment and supplies to brew, he is probably thinking about that first delicious sip of his own beer and about how impressed his friends and family will be.  He is probably not thinking about how important the cleaning and sterilization of his equipment is to insure that the first sip of his brew doesn’t make his friends and family sick and shame him in their eyes forever.  While bad homebrew won’t likely make anyone actually ill, it does smell and taste absolutely awful and it is incredibly embarrassing to hand someone a frosty mug of foul-smelling swill.  The proper cleaning and sanitation of everything that comes in contact with your beer is the easiest and most basic way to insure your budding reputation as a beer mechanic and to brew good beer time after time. 

Cleaning
 
Cleaning homebrew equipment sounds like it would be a simple task and thankfully it is!  A wide variety of cleansers are available and some are even specifically made for and marketed to the homebrew market.  Probably the most cost efficient product is a mild, preferably fragrance free dish soap.  Bleach is another inexpensive cleaning product but keep in mind bleach will pit and corrode stainless steel and other metals if exposed to them for extended periods of time.  Here at the Homebrew Garage we wash all of our equipment in hot soapy water and then rinse thoroughly before allowing everything to air dry.  You can towel dry if you are done with everything for the day, but dish towels are notorious for harboring bacteria so make sure the towel is clean and unused.  The objective of your cleaning is to remove all visible dirt, debris, and contaminants from an object's surface.  Other than the cleaner, a little good old fashioned elbow grease should be all that is required to do the job right.  Once your equipment is clean, it is ready to be sanitized or put away ready for the next brewing day.

Sanitation

While cleaning removes all the nasty stuff you can see, sanitation kills the invisible microorganisms that may remain after cleaning.  Even though a fermentation vessel is sparkling clean, until it is sanitized it could be harboring harmful bacteria just waiting to ruin your beer.  Please note, trace residues and oils left behind on poorly cleaned equipment can seriously inhibit the effectiveness of many sanitizers.  While the Homebrew Garage typically goes the cheap route when it comes to cleaning products, we tend to spend a little more money on our sanitizers.

The most cost efficient sanitizer is unscented household bleach.  Bleach mixed at a ratio of 1 tablespoon to 1 gallon of clean water is an effective sanitizer.  While cheap, bleach does need a contact time of 20 minutes to sanitize and leaves behind that unpleasant bleach scent.  Some people claim that when diluted to the level mentioned above, bleach does not need to be rinsed off the equipment prior to use.  While this might be we do suggest rinsing first just to be safe.  Other than bleach, there are several sanitizing products for sale to homebrewers.  Some are acid based while others are oxygen based and both types are odorless and are marketed as no-rinse.  These type of products usually have very short contact times (they are effective in as little as 2 minutes) and are good products when used according to the package directions.  Here at the HBG we keep a large plastic tote to mix up sanitizing solution in on brewing days.  Once the solution is mixed we submerge the equipment and put the lid on the tote and then pull out what we need when we need it.  While this isn’t the only solution, it works well for us and hasn’t let us down yet.

Summary

There are no hard and fast rules about what to use and how to clean and sanitize your brewing equipment.  The best thing is to find products you like and that fit your budget and make them a consistent part of your regular routine.  If you work on developing good cleaning and sanitation habits up front, it soon becomes second nature and your beer will turn out great every time. 
 
Regardless of the cleaning and sanitation products used, we recommend that you keep the following points in mind:
 
• Do not scrub plastic or metal brewing equipment with anything that could scratch the surface. Pits and scratches provide places for microorganisms to hide.
• Kitchen towels are notorious for harboring bacteria and other microorganisms.  Don't towel dry - allow items to air dry in a drying rack after cleaning and sanitizing.
• Any item that comes into contact with the wort or finished beer should be free of oil and soap residue.  Soap residue and oil can affect the head retention of your home crafted beer.
• Cleaners and sanitizers work at peak efficiency when you follow the manufacturer's instructions.  More is not always better.
 
In most home brewing environments it is impractical (if not impossible) to completely prevent unwanted microbes from getting into your brew.  Your goal is to limit these microbes as much as possible so that the yeast can rapidly reproduce and create an environment less favorable to other organisms.  With proper technique and a little luck you won't have to be one of those homebrewers who has experienced a 'bad batch'.  Besides, it angers the Beer Gods when you dump out their golden elixir, so why even take the risk?