Cleaning and Storing Cider Making Equipment

Why Orchard Hygiene Makes or Breaks a Cider

Anyone who has tipped a promising batch of cider down the drain will tell you the same thing: the fruit was fine, the yeast was fine, but something lurking in a scratched bucket or a dusty siphon wasn't. Cider is a fermented drink made by yeast, but it is also an invitation to every wild microbe in the shed. Acetic acid bacteria turn alcohol into vinegar, moulds taint a brew with musty flavours, and stray wild yeasts can leave a dry, thin drink where you wanted something rounded and appley.

The good news is that cleaning and sanitising are among the simplest jobs in cider making, and doing them properly takes perhaps an hour at the end of a season. Get into the habit and you will save yourself a great deal of heartache next autumn.

Cleaning Is Not the Same as Sanitising

These two words get used interchangeably, but they do different jobs, and you need both.

• Cleaning removes physical debris — pulp, dried juice, yeast crust, the stubborn ring of sediment in a demijohn. Dirt shields microbes from anything you apply afterwards, so cleaning always comes first.
• Sanitising reduces the remaining microbes to a level where your chosen yeast can dominate. It cannot work on a dirty surface.

For cleaning, hot water and a soft brush do most of the work. Unscented washing soda or a percarbonate-based cleaner handles dried-on deposits without leaving perfumes behind. Avoid washing-up liquid unless it is thoroughly rinsed — the residue can kill the head on a ferment and leave odd flavours.

For sanitising, a sulphite solution made from sodium metabisulphite (or crushed Campden tablets) is the traditional orchard choice. Mix it fresh, use it wet, and give everything a good twenty minutes of contact time. Citric acid solution is a useful alternative for stainless steel and glass, though never for anything that might corrode.

Looking After the Press and Scratcher

The press is the piece of kit most often neglected, largely because it's heavy and nobody wants to think about it until next September. Clean it on the day you use it, not a fortnight later.

• Scrub the slats, base and juice tray with warm water and a stiff brush, working the pulp out of the grain and the gaps between battens.
• Do not soak a wooden press. A long soak swells the timber, warps slats and encourages mould in the joints. Rinse, scrub, and let it dry naturally somewhere airy.
• Clean the screw thread and any metal fittings, dry them thoroughly, then apply a thin coat of food-safe grease to keep them moving freely.
• Store the slats loosely stacked, not clamped tight, so air can circulate. A damp press in a sealed corner is a mould factory.

Scratchers, mills and pulpers should be stripped down where possible. Pulp dries like concrete in the corners of a drum, so flush them out with a hose before it sets.

Demijohns, Fermenters and Siphons

Glass demijohns are a joy — they scrub clean, take a sulphite rinse without complaint, and you can see exactly what's happening inside. Use a proper bottle brush and pay attention to the shoulder, where sediment clings. Check the neck for chips; a cracked demijohn is an accident waiting to happen.

Plastic fermentation buckets need more care. Once a bucket is scratched, those fine grooves harbour bacteria that no amount of sanitising will shift. Retire scratched plastic, however fond you are of it. Food-grade buckets are cheap; a spoiled fifty-litre batch is not.

Airlocks, bungs, taps and siphon tubing are the sneakiest culprits of all.

• Pull airlocks apart and clean inside the stem with a pipe cleaner.
• Run hot cleaning solution through siphon tubing, then sanitising solution, then rinse with cooled boiled water.
• Dismantle plastic taps — the washer and spout hide a surprising amount of residue.
• Hang tubing to drain vertically so water doesn't sit in the loops.

Bottles, Corks and Crown Caps

Rinse bottles the moment they're empty. A bottle that has held cider for six months and then dried out will take ten times longer to clean than one rinsed at the sink in thirty seconds.

Before bottling, inspect each bottle against a light for haze or films. Wash with a bottle brush, then sanitise on a bottle tree or in a bath of sulphite solution, draining upside down. Crown caps and corks should be kept in sealed bags until the moment of use, and corks given a quick steam or sulphite dip if you're storing bottles long term. Never store corks loose in a shed — they absorb every smell going.

Storing Kit Between Seasons

Once everything is clean, dry and sanitised, storage is about keeping it that way. Damp sheds and frosty garages are the enemies here: damp grows mould, and hard frost can crack glass and perish rubber.

• Choose a dry, frost-free spot with a little airflow — a spare room, a dry loft, or a ventilated cupboard.
• Store demijohns upside down on a dowel or bottle rack, or upright with a loose bung covered in foil to keep dust out.
• Drape a cotton sheet or dust cover over the press rather than sealing it in plastic, which traps moisture.
• Keep tubing, bungs and airlocks in a clean lidded box, away from paint, fuel and garden chemicals.
• Write the date on your sulphite solution and make it fresh each session — old solution gives false confidence.

Half an hour with a brush and a bucket in October buys you a far better pint the following autumn. Treat your equipment as kindly as you treat your trees, and it will repay you season after season.