The early days of homebrewing were simple. Laundry bleach was your sanitizer, and it was usually your cleanser as well, although you could always use some B-Brite if you wanted to get fancy. We’ve come a long way since then. Bleach is still available, but there are lots of other options to sort through. Picking the right one depends a bit on exactly what you need to do and weighing the tradeoffs.
Let’s take a look at the choices. We’ll start with cleansers because you have to clean everything before the sanitizer can do its job.
Cleansers
Bleach
Bleach is easily available, but make sure you use the “unscented” kind because you don’t want any perfumes or other added scents. A strong solution (1/4 cup for 5 gallons [2 fl oz for 18.93 l]) is great for cleaning bottles and glass carboys, but I recommend wearing gloves and eye protection.