Cleaning Carboys and Bottles

Carboys

Carboys are a bit of a challenge to get clean. Especially if you’ve had a very active fermentation, or if your beer was in the carboy for a long time. Midwest offers many ways to help you get them clean. The carboy brush that comes in the equipment kits that we sell will work well if you’re good about cleaning them regularly, but if you’ve got some stuck on sediment that you’re trying to get rid of, you may need something a little more heavy-duty.

Carboy Brush: A carboy brush is a must have for anyone using a carboy. This long handled brush is bent at a ninety-degree angle to clean those tough to get at spots in any size carboy.

Mark II Keg and Carboy Washer: The first thing we learn as brewers is that sanitation is the key to good beer, and with the Mark II keg and carboy washer you can make the dankest keg sparkle and get the most crusted carboy looking like it just came out of the box. This Mark II Keg and Carboy Washer makes clean-up a breeze. Designed to accommodate homebrewing equipment so you don't have to do the scrubbing.

Bottles

The easiest way to keep your bottles clean is to give them a good rinse right after you empty one to drink a homebrew. However, as more and more homebrews are consumed, this gets harder and harder to remember. We understand that you may have a few bottles that you forgot to rinse right away, and now they have some built up sediment on them. Midwest offers a few products to make cleaning the insides of these bottles easier.

Bottle Washer: Super clean wine bottles, beer bottles and carboys for your next batch with this Bottle Washer. Simply attach it to your utility sink faucet and enjoy the steady stream of water that's just right for bottle openings.

FastWasher24 Bottle Washer: The FastWasher24 is your Get Out of Chores Free card. Engineered from high-density plastic, it’s easy to assemble in minutes using just a Philips screwdriver. The cleaning rack fits a wide range of 12 oz bottles (330 to 350 ml). And because it cleans 24 bottles all at once, it cuts your bottle washing time in half and shaves 90% off sanitizing time. That frees up more time for the fun stuff...which is what homebrewing is all about.

Try soaking the bottles in a PBW or B-Brite solution overnight, and you’ll find most (if not all) of the labels floating on top in the morning. Those labels that are still clinging to the bottle will probably slide right off without much effort. These are oxygen-activated cleaners and work great for this and many other cleaning uses.

Carboy and Bottle Cleaning PDF