# Understanding cleaning steps



## Anna (Jun 17, 2008)

I am looking into making wine and I want to fully understand what cleaning chemicals I will need and at what steps I use them. Where is a good place to get them from also? I would appreicate any help trying to figure this all out - thanks! 
Anna


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## cpfan (Jun 17, 2008)

Anna:

First, welcome to this forum and to a highly addictive hobby.

Second, many questions that you ask will have different answers depending where you live. This is one of those questions.

Why? Home Brewing Supply (HBS) shops are more plentiful in Canada than the USA. So mail order is necessary more in the US than in Canada. Also different products are sold in the two countries.

Finally to get to your real question, it is necessary to first clean then sanitize your equipment, etc.

There are a large number of good cleaners. Personally I have been using two. The first is a product called Saniton, that I believe is basically TSP (Tri Sodium Phosphate). For stubborn stains (esp red wine on certain plastics), I use Diversol (a chlorinated product that goes under various brand names).

For sanitizing, I use an iodine based product called Iodophor. Potassium or sodium metabisulphite are more commonly used as sanitizers but their unpleasant arome bothers me. Some people do not like iodophor because it can stain. I have used it a lot (I used to run a Ferment on Premises) without any problems except that it stains badly certain plastics, primarily siphon hose.

Personally I clean after use, and sanitize before use. If an item hasn't been used in some time, I will probably do a quick clean prior to sanitizing as well.

Hope this helps, Steve


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## Noontime (Jun 17, 2008)

Hello Anna!
I use either Easy Clean or B-Bright to clean, and then rinse everything with K-mata (potassium meta bi-sulphite). Some people use chlorinated products, others oxygenated...they all work, you just have to do some research and figure out what YOU prefer (kinda like the soap you use to bathe...nothing disastrous is going to happen if you use one over the other). It's really important to keep everything clean, but at the same time it's not rocket science. You want to clean to get any debri off, and sanitize to make sure you don't inoculate your wine with anything but your intended yeast. I usually clean and sanitize everything I use after I use it, then clean and sanitize it again before I use it. By doing this I don't have to work really hard to get anything clean, just basically let the chemical reactions do their job. Be careful not to use anything abrasive...you don't want to put any scratches in your equipment were nasties can live. And you also don't want to use any detergents or anything else that may "linger" or be hard to rinse.

Have fun!!!


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