I was wondering if anyone have some tips to clean a large amount of cans consistently.
What king of phenol? Is is peppery and chalky like diastaticus? Or, is is like a burnt electrical cord like chlorophenol?
This is one of those places where pro brewing is completely different than homebrewing. I think the PBW step is a complete waste of time as cans arrive clean and pretty close to fully sanitary, right from the manufacturer. Even if you're buying less than a full pallet from a secondary supplier, there really shouldn't be any dirt or dust in them. If there is dust or dirt, change suppliers.
In a canning line, they come off the pallet and run past a rinser, upside down. They get reinverted upright a few feet ahead of the filler. The rinse is typically 0.2% peracetic acid (PAA). This is the same rinse your keg washer should be doing, so if there's no phenol in them that lends some credibility to my PBW advice. Peracetic acid doesn't require much contact time since the peroxide does most of the work right away and the acetic portion is the residual sanitation portion. Diluted and exposed to the atmosphere, PAA breaks down into water, oxygen and CO2. This is much more effective and faster than star-san.
