Sanitation

 

This cannot be stressed enough! Keeping things clean is paramount. The reason behind this is that anything that may have a bad type of bacteria could get into your brew and contaminate it. Now, this does not mean that you need to keep a separate room and completely sanitized. What it does mean is anything after the boiling of the wort that comes in contact with the wort, should be as clean as possible. That is why there are many different sanitizing agents available from your preferred supply store. The most economical to use is probably your everyday bleach. Clorox. unscented! I don't ever measure this to a science, but I usually will use a couple of good glugs in a 5 gallon pail that will be used for the primary fermenter. Fill it with water and continue with the boil of the wort. Eventually, I will go back to the pail, empty it (saving some for other sanitation reasons - a spoon or thermometer that I may use when cooling, etc.) and rinse it good. How good? I do not want to smell the bleach in the pail at all when I am done rinsing. But during the boil, the heat and wort boiling is also a sanitation method. Towards the end of the boil, I will put my cooling coil into the wort to sterilize it as well. That way, I don't need to go through the trouble of dipping the copper tubing coil into the bleach solution and then trying to get it thoroughly rinsed. Rinsing is also very important here because bleach can kill your yeast.

 

So, if you have any more questions concerning this subject, please e-mail me and I will answer your questions as best I can.