Clean, really clean or FFS

[MashBag]

This has be prompted by another thread, but here goes..

Why are brewers such bleach queens when it comes to hygiene.
When it seems this is not the case for any of the other fermentationists.

Bakers, Winemakers, sourdough, doughnuts

Is saccharomyces cerevisiae very picky about malt products

 

[Agentgonzo]

This has be prompted by another thread, but here goes..

Why are brewers such bleach queens when it comes to hygiene.
When it seems this is not the case for any of the other fermentationists.

Bakers, Winemakers, sourdough, doughnuts

Is saccharomyces cerevisiae very picky about malt products

I can't speak for winemakers, but in the case of bakers, a sourdough and doughnuts:

* The products aren't kept long enough for foreign organisms to have a noticeable effect and spoil the bread/doughnuts
* When baked, the heat will kill everything anyway.

 

[Graz]

Whilst I understand the need for cleanliness in brewing I do tend to agree that there are some who take it a bit too far.

I might just be lucky and got away with it over the years but my cleaning / sterilisation doesn't go beyond just cleaning stuff with a little bit of detergent after a brew and then giving it a swill round with diluted StarSan on brew day. My kegs I soak with Oxi as they're a bit harder to clean but again on kegging day just swilled round with StarSan. I've had the odd mishap like dropping something not sterile into a brew and nothing has ever gone bad.

I even suck on the end of the siphon tube

 

[RichardM]

I thought that the whole point of sour dough is that you want the naturally occurring yeasts to do their thing, whereas , we, as brewers I ly want specific brewing yeasts.

 

[hoppyscotty]

I hope bakers are hygenic. I cringe every time I see a baker kneading bread thinking about all those germs under their fingernails especially Nigella with her long nails and rings. My thinking about hygiene is making sure I've cleaned every nook and cranny of the vessels and hose/tubing - all those areas you can't get to directly with a scrubber or a brush and relying on powerful cleaning fluids...there is alot more kit in beer brewing vs bread making. I don't think it takes that much effort to clean a surface sufficiently for beer making and no-rinse sanitisers have transformed things too, it's just getting into all those nooks and crannies. Though the other day I did removed a thermowell in my mash tun and out fell a load of black manky grain that has been stuck under there for god knows how many brews. Was disgusting, but doesn't seem to have impacted any of the beers produced from it. But needless to say removing that thermowell will now be part of my usual post brew cleaning process.

My brewing area in my dusty cobweb infested garage is nowhere near as clean and hygenic as my kitchen and certainly not as clean and hygenic as a professional kitchen or bakery. But all the areas the wort and beer touches is clean as a whistle.

 

[DocAnna]

This has be prompted by another thread, but here goes..

Why are brewers such bleach queens when it comes to hygiene.
When it seems this is not the case for any of the other fermentationists.

Bakers, Winemakers, sourdough, doughnuts

Is saccharomyces cerevisiae very picky about malt products

I was at an NHS decontamination conference this week... trust me brewers don't even come close to being fussy about hygiene by comparison. Anything you do in brewing is about reducing the amount of bacteria and wild yeasts that could go on to merrily munch their way through your carefully prepared wort. That prefermented liquid is just teeming with all sorts of microbeasties and it's a race for the yeast to produce some alcohol that suppresses the bacteria and outcompete them for the sugars, and even then there's a risk of some clever bacteria using the carbohydrates up that the yeast can't. Winemakers are pretty fussy too, but the alcohol concentration reached is higher so is better at suppressing the bacteria and wild yeasts. Bread products have all sorts of life in there but they get baked which is pretty effective at killing most of them off. Even then they will go off pretty quick either due to drying and going stale, or moulds and wild yeasts getting in there.

EDIT- they had some lovely shiny stainless steel kit at the conference, and was wondering if I could angle for some free samples of kit components for using in the brew space. The H2O2 vapour sterilisers were pretty cool too - the idea of being able to just put all my kit in a thing like a dishwasher, and come back in a few minutes and it all be sterilised was smart.

 

[Sadfield]

The affect of contamination, from anything other than the chosen yeast, isn't binary. The cleaner your kit, the cleaner, more stable the beer.

 

[hoppyscotty]

I was at an NHS decontamination conference this week... trust me brewers don't even come close to being fussy about hygiene by comparison. Anything you do in brewing is about reducing the amount of bacteria and wild yeasts that could go on to merrily munch their way through your carefully prepared wort. That prefermented liquid is just teeming with all sorts of microbeasties and it's a race for the yeast to produce some alcohol that suppresses the bacteria and outcompete them for the sugars, and even then there's a risk of some clever bacteria using the carbohydrates up that the yeast can't. Winemakers are pretty fussy too, but the alcohol concentration reached is higher so is better at suppressing the bacteria and wild yeasts. Bread products have all sorts of life in there but they get baked which is pretty effective at killing most of them off. Even then they will go off pretty quick either due to drying and going stale, or moulds and wild yeasts getting in there.

EDIT- they had some lovely shiny stainless steel kit at the conference, and was wondering if I could angle for some free samples of kit components for using in the brew space. The H2O2 vapour sterilisers were pretty cool too - the idea of being able to just put all my kit in a thing like a dishwasher, and come back in a few minutes and it all be sterilised was smart.

The dishwasher is a vital piece of my kit cleaning process...all the small parts from my fermenter get a go through the dishwasher as to any bottles when I bottle. Basically just a CIP box Shame its not bigger though.

 

[dad_of_jon]

dishwasher, oven and starsan for bottles,
starsan for bottle caps
dishwasher and starsan for plastic bits.

 

[MashBag]

Whilst I understand the need for cleanliness in brewing I do tend to agree that there are some who take it a bit too far.

I might just be lucky and got away with it over the years but my cleaning / sterilisation doesn't go beyond just cleaning stuff with a little bit of detergent after a brew and then giving it a swill round with diluted StarSan on brew day. My kegs I soak with Oxi as they're a bit harder to clean but again on kegging day just swilled round with StarSan. I've had the odd mishap like dropping something not sterile into a brew and nothing has ever gone bad.

I even suck on the end of the siphon tube

I agree.

As a trained winemaker, I can tell you there is not such a fixation about hygiene.

My cleaning regime, is the hose, tfr & vodka.
Caustic TFR is pretty much the same as dishwasher tablets, only in squirty form.

Tbh I was interested in how the hygiene infatuation came to be?

Wondered if it was mildly misplaced in fermentation but a carry over from mashing, where you are actively encouraging (wild-ish) microbiological proceeses?

 

[Agentgonzo]

Tbh I was interested in how the hygiene infatuation came to be?

I think in part it's the echo chamber of internet communities. Someone says it's important. Someone else reads this and thinks it's hugely important and repeats it. A third person reads both posts and thinks the end of the world will come if you don't do it perfectly, so repeats that. It snowballs. There is no feedback loop to go "actually, you've turned it up to 11 which is unnecessary".

 

[Sadfield]

There is no feedback loop to go "actually, you've turned it up to 11 which is unnecessary".

Which would be a 5 on a professional brewers dial. It's surprising what hot caustic removes from visibly clean kit.

Sure there's a bigger financial risk in a brewery, but quality is quality in all scenarios.

The notion that people obsess or worry over sanitation is perpetuated by the lazy. Cleaning and sanitising is quite easy. The implication that some brewer aim keep their kit too clean, too sanitary is ridiculous.

 

[Buffers brewery]

As I store my kit in the garage for about 4 weeks between brews I've found that after a brew day everything is just physically cleaned and thoroughly rinsed with clean warm water and the dried. I then clean with oxy before brew day and only sanitise the fermentation bucket immediately prior to filling with wort after cooling. The coil in my HERMS gets flushed through with clean warm water and then left full of water until next brew day. Don't use bleach

 

[hoppyscotty]

Well there are plenty of people on various forums complaining of infections so there is a level of lack of hygiene where it becomes an issue. And the saying "looks a bit ropey" comes from the brewing industry so infection risk is something you need to be wary of - and my dad who home-brewed 40 years ago always said hygiene was the most important thing as infections were common back then. It's a bit like the issue around oxidisation - there are those that say its a conspiracy theory and they happily splash their wort around willy nilly and have no problems with oxidation - or so they claim - I've had many an oxidised beer down my local homebrew club beer swaps. Then there are those, myself included, who have actually experienced oxidation and am absolutely paranoid about it and bend over backwards to prevent it.

As I said earlier I don't think you need to go overboard with cleaning - probably need to take a bit more care with fermenters vs. mash/kettles, but the challenge are all the nooks and crannies and valve internals, connectors etc. which are perfect traps for organic matter to build up and cause problems eventually if not sorted out.

 

[Agentgonzo]

And the saying "looks a bit ropey" comes from the brewing industry

Really? I just had a search and couldn't find anything indicating it was (and now I'm curious as to what the origin of the saying is)

 

[hoppyscotty]

Think I read it in the book 'Man walks into a pub' by Pete Brown. Apparently they'd look into the fermenter and some infections looks like rope floating on the surface of the beer so if they say that they'd say 'by 'ek....looks a bit ropey' in your best Yorkshire or Staffordshire accent.

A quick google tells me Pediococcus is the bacteria that causes a ropey appearance in the beer.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

I even suck on the end of the siphon tube

So do I but I gargle starsan first.

 

[Donegal john]

Did a fairly large brewery tour recently and they said 90% of their brewery time is spent cleaning.
Kit needs to be clean but I don’t go overboard. Sometimes I “forget” to clean the boiler and fermenter for weeks Haven’t had an infection yet.

 

[crescent city Mike]

Did a fairly large brewery tour recently and they said 90% of their brewery time is spent cleaning.
Kit needs to be clean but I don’t go overboard. Sometimes I “forget” to clean the boiler and fermenter for weeks Haven’t had an infection yet.

I suspect that you don't brew more than 5 to 10 gallons at a time. If that volume goes wrong and has to be dumped, it is sad but not devastating to your wallet. Commercial brewers need to be a bit more careful AND need batch to batch consistency.