Cleaning primary feementer

[MistFM]

Hello everyone, I am new to HBT and beer brewing in general and I am going to be bottling my first batch ever tomorrow and I was wondering what the best way to clean my bucket is? I was just going to wash it out with soap and water and a sponge since I don't have any other cleaning supplies. Any tips for a newbie cleaning? I also have a better bottle carboy as a secondary that I haven't used yet but have no idea how to clean. Thanks in advanced, and I'm looking forward to getting into this hobby.

 

[NineMilBill]

Use a small amount of mild soap to clean your bucket with a soft sponge. Oxyclean works great as well. For carboys, you can buy a 'carboy brush' that really helps get inside and around its corners. You can pick those up at your LHBS or online.

 

[truebe]

just a few thoughts/tips

if you use soap then make sure to spend a lot of effort rinsing it out very well. just a little bit of soap residue can really hurt head retention.

sponges are good but dont use any kind of brush and in general be careful about protecting the inside from scratches. scratches harbor bacteria.

always unscrew your spigot and wash all those pieces separately. you get a lot of crude in there and in the threads and stuff.

oxyclean is the next step up. it strips off organic material much better than soap and you dont have to worry about a little bit of residue destroying your head.

pbw sold at your homebrew store is probably the ultimate cleaner for the homebrewer.

edit: actually if your bucket is new then I wouldnt even risk it with the soap. I would just use hot water and a sponge to make sure all the dust is out.

 

[Collective_Wisdom]

Just tried a new trick today to clean out plastic carboy:
I was not able to reach the bottom of the carboy with the bottle brush. So I added a 1/4 cup of uncooked rice and 2 cups of water and shook things up. The rice was abrasive enough to clean the hard to reach places.
Since it was good enough I might use this to clean after fermentation w/o any chemicals.