3 Ways to Sterilize Your Home Brew

If you haven't been taught this by anyone else yet, sterilizing your home brew is the single most important step you need to take! If you don't properly sanitize your equipment and wort before the fermentation step, you risk ruining your beer!

Give your brew a chance and do one or all of the the following things to sterilize your home brew!

• Boiling
• Sodium Percarbonate
• Bleach Water

We'll take these one at a time. Boiling is a necessary step in preparing your wort, even if you use a home beer making kit like Mr. Beer or Coopers. Why? it's the boil that kills any bacteria or mold spores that may have made their way into the ingredients of your beer. This is especially true if you are adding fresh fruit like blueberries, cherries or apples to your wort.

Sodium Percarbonate is an environmentally friendly cleaner/sanitizer for home beermaking equipment. It is as effective as chlorine bleach, without the problematic residue of bleach. Sodium Percarbonate devolves into water, oxygen and natural soda ash.

Bleachwater is probably the last choice, albiet an easy one for sanitizing your homebrew supplies. It's easy because bleach is easily purchased in any grocery store, unlike the sodium percarbonate. However it can leave a chlorine residue and requires rinsing your equipment before use.