Sanitising - How anal about it are you?

[BrewStew]

Since my first ever AG brew ended up growing the dreaded furry stuff i've been overly anal about sanitising... to the point where i'll rinse my hands in the sanitiser and wont touch anything unnecessary from that point on

how anal are you about it? or on the flip side, what have you gotten away with?

My mate somehow managed to get away with his mrs degassing his wine with a normal kitchen wooden spoon that hadn't even seen sanitiser in it's life :shock:

 

[brewzone]

I only ever lost one brew due to infection and that was one of the first kits I made around 1985.

I shared a house with a friend and his missus and there was a real damp problem in almost every room. I wasn't overly concerned about the damp until My beer got infected with something that resembled a spiders web.

It wasn't long before I moved out because i didn't want the same to happen to My lungs!

I've never lost a beer since! Even when I've made some real cockups sanitation wise the beer Gods were looking down on Me and everything turned out OK.

I wouldn't recommend being too flipant though because tipping beer down the bog is just the pits! :shock:

 

[Dozzer]

Not very

I suspect with a bit of thought the hot side could sanitise the cold side of brewing only leaving kegs bottles and pipes to clean with chemicals, however that said I do for the most part use sodium percarbonate and an acid sanitizer.

Closed stainless steel fermenter with cooling coil, pour in boiling wort .... just an idea

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Not very for me also.

I use Milton tablets and make sure all surfaces are covered in a FV I pour in a couple of litres put the lid on and roll it on its side etc and for the smaller items I fill a washing up bowl add a couple of tablets and submerge all the gear in it for 15 minutes.

 

[An Ankoù]

SO2 works great for me so I keep a 6 gallon fermenter with lid a quarter full of sodium metabisulphite solution (quite strong) and in go all my flasks, spoons, paddles, syphon tubes, air locks- everything made of plastic or glass- where they stay until I come to use them. Then they get a quick rinse under the cold tap. The solution might get changed after a year or so, when the smell of sulphur dioxide starts to diminish. I keep my unused fermenters and plastic barrels sweet with a centimetre or so of the same solution and they get a rinse before use.
Stainless steel and hop socks get a quick boil on the cooker top.
Encrusted air locks and yeast flasks get soaked in ordinary bleach solution, rinsed the next day and into the SO2 bucket.
Never had a problem.
2 caveats: don't leave stainless steel or anything metallic in either bleach or SO2 solutions as they will discolour and taint the solution. Solutions of sodium (or potassium) metabisulphite won't destroy some bacteria (typically gram beta) while bleach or boiling will. So if you're propagating or growing yeast up from a slide or from a commercial brew, it's best to sterilise your stuff in the pressure cooker.
Anything pre-boil only needs to be clean and free of contaminants; there's no need to sanitise.

 

[Gerryjo]

I use a food grade sanitiser which is similar to starsan but it's only £5.50 for 5lts.
This is only for anything after boiling wort where it's submerged in a clean fermenter and also have 2 spray bottles kept in my fridge when changing out kegs or just cleaning beer taps.
Hope it doesn't take another 11 years for someone to reply...

 

[Dutto]

In answer to the OP = "VERY!"

When you have poured two consecutive 23 litres brews (the equivalent of 18 hours of your life) down the drain you too will become "Anal" about sanitising!

 

[PeterB]

11 years! Hahaha patience is very important.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

11 years! Hahaha patience is very important.

Yep a thread from 2008, I guess we have a bit of a rarity in the forum a member who does use search before posting.

.

 

[The Baron]

Not anal but the usual wash things clean and starsan. Leave Fv's when not in use with a little starsan in them and tip upside down a couple of times before re-use apart from that, thats as far as I go

 

[GerritT]

I clean it before use, and clean it before putting it away, on brewday.
Bucket gets a good scrubbing after bottling day.

 

[Clint]

Oxi and starsan...biggest ball ache I find is cleaning bottles but as per Dutto....RINSE THEM OUT AFTER YOU REMOVE THE CONTENTS!!
I did have creepy crawlies in some after keeping them in the shed so now I stock pile my nicely rinsed empties at strategic locations around the kitchen...which bizarrely annoys the Mrs??

 

[The Baron]

just put some cling film or foil over the bottle tops if storing in the shed etc Clint

 

[Cwrw666]

I don't use chemicals. Boiler, FV, Biab bag, thermometer, stirrer etc, all get rinsed with boiling water. Bottles now get 5 minutes in a 120c oven. That's it.
What have I got away with - once my FV started leaking badly from the tap seal at bottling time so I had to stick my unwashed arm in to tighten the nut. Beer was fine.

 

[GerritT]

It's quite amazing how we get away with a lot. There must be some gods that want us to make beer!

 

[Slid]

It's quite amazing how we get away with a lot. There must be some gods that want us to make beer!

Indeed, they do. Beer was popular during the Middle Ages because it was much safer to drink than stream water. At an acidic 5% ABV ethanol, it is not an attractive home to most bacteria.

The boiling is the main thing, of course, as it destroys the cell wall protection for the bacterial nuclei.

 

[pvt_ak]

Oxi and Milton.
Occasional soak in citric acid (the Peco).

Never had a bad one yet .... famous last words !

 

[Hoppyland]

I think I once read that brewing is 10% about making beer, and 90% about washing, cleaning, sterilising and sanitising.
Maybe an exaggeration, but it often feels that way.
Basically sanitising is a bum job - so I suppose I am anal about it...

 

[RichK]

Not very but everything that goes anywhere near something that is going to become beer gets rinsed with a sanitizer solution if only briefly.

 

[Clint]

It seems my beer making is over 50% faffing about...weighing stuff,writing stuff... forgetting stuff.