The most important part of home brewing is cleaning and/or sanitizing. You could make the best beer in the world, but if it gets infected, chances are it’s not going to taste very good.

Every home brewer should have at least the following two things:

1. A cleaning agent, such as PBW

2. A sanitizing agent, such as StarSan

The PBW will be very useful in removing hard, sticky stuff like yeast stuck to the side of the carboy, or leftover wort in the boil kettle. Just throw in a spoonful, fill with water, wait an hour or two to let the cleaner work, and then scrub and/or dump. Don’t get lazy and put this off; take my word for it.

Secondly, anything that touches the beer, or wort, once it’s done boiling, will need to be sanitized with StarSan. This includes the carboy(vessel which will hold the beer while it ferments), siphon, airlock, etc. Just add a small amount of StarSan to some water in a bowl or bucket and let your items soak for about 10 minutes. For the carboy, add some to the carboy and file the entire thing with water and let it set for 10 minutes as well.

If you decide to do a secondary fermentation or check on the progress of fermentation at all, make sure you sanitize anything that will touch the beer, such as a thief or test tube.