Like you I am a lover of wine. I developed my interest in wine in university when my friends would host wine and cheese parties, which were not only fun because of the new people I met but also because of all of the different types of wine I was exposed to. 
Question Of The Week: How Do You Clean Your Wine Making Equipment?
Saturday, November 1st, 2008If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I was asked the other day how I clean my wine making equipment so I thought this would be a good topic for my “question of the week” as I’m sure there are others curious as well. So here’s what I do to keep the germs off my winemaking gear:
I call it the “Double Whammy”!
Step 1 - Pink Solution (Sani Brew)
It’s comes as chlorinated pink powder that you dissolve 3.5 g per litre of cold water (5 tsp. per gal). Soak stained equipment up to 48 hours. Rinse thoroughly with hot water. Because it’s a chlorine product you want to be careful with stainless steel equipment and you’ll also want to make sure you rinse really well. I like soaking my wine and beer bottles in it for several days to clean all the “gunge” out of them, especially if they’re used. It’s also great for removing stains from your equipment (especially your primary).
Step 2 - MetaBisulphite spray down.
This is a good sanitizer as well but doesn’t clean like in step one hence why I do both. I use a spray bottle like the one below as it really helps get you good coverage. The nice thing about the MetaBisulphite solution is that it is reusable for up to a month. Note that it has a strong sulphur smell so use it in a well ventilated area so you don’t irritate your lungs. I typically rinse my equipment after using it but some people just let their equipment drip dry as it won’t be a bad thing if it gets into your wine as it will help prevent oxidization.
Anyhoo, that’s basically what I do to clean my equipment.
Oh … one thing you might want to do is go to your hardware store and invest in a short garden hose that you can attach to a tap as this’ll help you clean your primary and secondary. I was able to pick one up that was about 6 feet long with one end open and the other with the tap connector. I’ve used it for years and it makes things really easy. Make sure that you clean this out first (i.e. in step 1) so that you clean out any bugs that might be lurking in it as well.
If you’re interested in some more details on how to clean your equipment here are two good resources for you:
- http://www.clickabrew.com/cn-0903.html (scroll down the page and look for “Cleaning & Sanitising your Winemaking Equipment”
- http://www.eckraus.com/Cleaners_-and-_Sanitizers.html (an online store where you can buy some of the sanitizers)
- http://www.grapestompers.com/sanitation.asp (lot’s of great detail here)
If you have any interesting cleaning methods please share below!
- Scott
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