Homebrewing means cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning. I’m an all-grain brewer, so most of my equipment is quite large, which means I do all that cleaning outside. I was finding it quite annoying as the ground would get wet, mud would be created and it would be impossible to get everything spotless. I started racking my brain to figure out how I could solve this problem and realized I needed some sort of grated platform to clean on. I had grand dreams of building a contraption myself until I came back down to earth and realized that those wooden shipping pallets you always see laying behind stores would be perfect and require no hammer or nails.
I kept my eye out for an abandoned pallet and got lucky the other day when I noticed one lying next to a dumpster, ready to be thrown away. In the back of my car it went and the next day I tested it out after a brew session. It worked like a charm.
With the simple addition of the pallet that was destined for a landfill, cleaning has become a much easier and tidier affair. I stay drier, leaves and dirt stay off the bottom of my equipment and I recycled. A win all around. If you are also an outside cleaner, I highly recommended keeping your eyes out for a pallet of your own.