Free checklist
Cellar Training Checklist
The checklist (12 items)
Written as observable actions, so two trainers scoring the same shift land in the same place. In CrewSharp this is the Cellar checklist in the Brewery / Taproom starter set, filed under Cellar, and every item here is editable.
- 1Logged tank temperatures and gravity readingsMust pass
- 2Took samples without contaminating the tank
- 3Sanitized hoses and fittings before every transferCritical
- 4Checked valves before opening a tank
- 5Never entered a tank without the confined space procedureCritical
- 6Ventilated the room before working near fermenting tanksCritical
- 7Wore protective gear when handling caustic and acid
- 8Mixed cleaning chemicals at the specified concentration
- 9Ran CIP on the scheduled cycle
- 10Labeled every tank with beer and status
- 11Kept floors dry and hoses coiled
- 12Reported off flavors or stuck fermentations to the brewer
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What usually goes wrong
Three critical items cover sanitizing before transfers, confined space entry and ventilation, and all of them are procedural. This is work where nothing about the work signals that a step was skipped, so the sign-off has to rest on watching the method. A normal-looking result proves very little here.
The items a good total should not outweigh
- Sanitized hoses and fittings before every transfer
- Never entered a tank without the confined space procedure
- Ventilated the room before working near fermenting tanks
When to sign someone off
A workable bar for this checklist: no critical items missed, a score above a line you set for Cellar specifically rather than one number for the whole building, and observed on more than one shift with at least one of them busy. Then date it, so it can expire.
That last part is the one people skip. A sign-off with no date cannot be re-checked, which means a year later you have a record that says somebody was ready once.
Checklists that pair with this one
Someone trained on this one most often covers these alongside it, which makes them the sensible second checklist to train.
Common questions
Should cellar work be signed off separately from brewing?
Yes. They share vocabulary and almost nothing else. Cellar competence is transfer discipline, cleaning standards and chemical handling, and someone can be a capable brewer while being genuinely unsafe on a hose and a caustic tank.
What should be on a cellar checklist?
The 12 items above cover it: logged tank temperatures and gravity readings, took samples without contaminating the tank, sanitized hoses and fittings before every transfer, and the rest of the list. Keep it in that range. Fewer and a pass proves very little; many more and trainers stop finishing it during a real shift.
Which items should count as critical?
On this checklist, 3 items are marked critical: sanitized hoses and fittings before every transfer; never entered a tank without the confined space procedure; ventilated the room before working near fermenting tanks. Missing one means not ready, regardless of the total score, because these are the failures that cannot be corrected after the fact.
Scoring it is the part that lasts
Run this Cellar checklist on a tablet between rushes and CrewSharp keeps the rest: who is signed off, when it was last checked, and which item your crew misses most.
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