Carboy Washer

It was pointed out to me recently that I did not duly give credit for the design of this device. Now, having said that, I would like to thank John Peed of Oak Ridge, Tennessee for his creativity and design prowess on the development of this great brewing tool. I stole the idea of putting the guts of the control box in a plastic tool box from him too. Isn't plagiarism….er, I mean, imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Thanks again John.

The Carboy Washer is a HUGE timesaver. I made it because I was tired of rinsing out carboys by hand. With this device, I just invert the carboy over the spout and turn the hose on. The carboy is rinsed by a continuous stream of water in about a minute.

The stand for the actual carboy was made from a plastic flower pot I bought at Home Depot. The pot is inverted and a hole is cut out of the center for the neck of the carboy. Even without the spout in place, the carboy can be inverted onto this stand and left to drain such as when you are sanitizing and you want to get as much of the sanitizer out as possible (assuming you are using a no-rinse type sanitizer). On the bottom, a slot is cut out for the spout to stick through for the hose attachment.

The spout was made from standard 1/2" PVC pipe cemented together. It took about 30 minutes to cut and glue the entire thing together. The base of the spout is made so it just fits inside the flower pot stand.

The spout sits on the ground, the stand is placed over it and the slot lined up with the hose connection. The hose is attached to the spout (note the use of quick disconnects for the hose) and the carboy is inverted over the vertical pipe. The vertical pipe is about 1 inch from the bottom of the inverted carboy. In my brewery, all of my carboys are the same (6.5 gallon). If you have multiple types, be sure to cut the vertical tube so that it can accommodate the shortest carboy. Once the carboy is in place, just turn the hose on. The water shoots out the spout, hits the bottom of the carboy, clings to the surface and then runs down the vertical walls and out the neck. Adjust the flow so that you get a good rinsing action down the vertical walls but not so much that the water can't run out of the neck fast enough.

I personally don't use any cleaners on my carboys. This is just personal preference. If you allow your carboys to dry out with fermentation remnants still in them, you will probably need a cleaner like PBW or TSP to get it off, along with significant amounts of elbow grease and time. But as long as you clean the carboy right after siphoning, water all by itself is perfectly capable of cleaning off the crud. The dirtiest carboy is the one used for primary fermentation. It has all the krausen on the neck, etc. I'll just invert the dirty carboy over the Carboy Washer and let it run for a couple of minutes to soften up the crud, then use a carboy brush to scrub off the gunk, rinse again, look for any missed spots, brush again, then final rinse it. Once it's visually clean, I put about 3 inches of water in it and pour a splash of bleach in, then shake it up really good. The bleach will take care of any organic mate