Sterilizing

[devilsaltarboy]

For general all purpose cleaning of brewery equiptment I use napisan, to keep my g/f happy by not having bottles on table I have a big bucket of water outside which I dump my bottles to soak with a little napisan, the day before Im going to empty bucket I add fresh napisan (degrades in 24h in solution) and just rinse bottles thoroughly. For sanitisation I coat everything in 70% ethanol in water
Cheers
Peter

 

[GOLIATH]

It's interesting this sanitising/cleaning fixation we all seem to have.

Taking apart the tap is a must and any way is good, I have alwys used a No.3 Phillips head screwdriver with no problems.

All the products mentioned will do the sanitising/cleaning job with the Exception of Sodium Metabisulphite.

In my experience a clean fermenter is just that! Clean!

I tend to think that we home brew stores have conjured up nasty stories to inflict on brewers so that you will all rush out and buy the next powerful chemical on the market to solve all your problems.

A couple of fundamental points here.

HOW you use your sanitiser will have more effect than what you use.
Having said that, I agree with the monk in that Ortho-Phos based sanitisers are probably the pick of the bunch for the home brewer. It has the credibility of commercial application and is very safe and extremely effective in very small amounts.

Back to Sodium Metabisulphite. This product creates a Sulphur Dioxide gas which will hold bacteria back a bit but once the gas has gone No effect! Wineries and the dried fruits industry use it to kill wild yeast. They do not use it as a sanitiser. To sanitise, there are various products about but generally they use citric acid.

Further, since Sodium Met kills yeast, it has no place in any home brewery. To explain, we are making a yeast based product, the end result is entirely dependent on the health, vigour and vitality of the yeast that we pitch. It is therefore not logical to be expecting good yeast performance when we are subjecting the equipment to a product that kills or at very least inhibits it.

In the commercial environment, breweries DO use sulphur in the metabisulphite form. It is added to beer 8 - 15ppm in which the yeast has been filtered out in order to preserve it. Same deal with wine.

Lastly, it has been my experience that brewers using liquid yeast rarely get infections. If they do, it can be generally traced back to pitching and/or wort aeration. (obviously there are exceptions)

So when using dried yeast, ensure that it is rehydrated correctly, fed at the right time with some of the wort it is to brew for about 10 minutes and pitched into a well aerated wort. Don't forget that not too many bugs will survive a high yeast environment, particularly bacteria!

Be clean by all means, don't overdo it with chemicals though, and have a look at good yeast practice with the understanding that it is YEAST that makes the beer.

It is logical then that if we look after the yeast and follow sound practice rather than follow the coopers kit instructions that the yeast will look after the beer.

That's it folks!
Happy Brewing
Dave Stewart

 

[Kai]

Bacteria can survive bleach and even boiling!

Bacteria can survive phos too, the important thing is that the bugs the brewer is concerned about are killed. Phosphoric, boiling and bleach will all do that if used correctly.

The one thing that I'm curious about with phosphoric acid, how effective is it against wild yeasts?

 

[sosman]

Bacteria can survive bleach and even boiling!

Bacteria can survive phos too, the important thing is that the bugs the brewer is concerned about are killed. Phosphoric, boiling and bleach will all do that if used correctly.

The one thing that I'm curious about with phosphoric acid, how effective is it against wild yeasts?

Kai - that would be a great research topic for you.

I have been using phos acid for sanitizing exclusively since about my 2nd brew. I also use sodium percarbonate for cleaning. I have never had an infection (not even 1 or 2 bottles per batch).

Everyone has their own system - use what is right for you. The things I like about my own approach include:

- alkaline cleaner, acid sanitizer - really gives the bugs a workout.
- both no-rinse products.
- relatively inexpensive.
- so far 100% effective.
- by-products of the solutions are relatively benign (see no rinse).
- I only need a few litres of each in the fermenter - I add a foaming agent and shake like buggery. Note only does this get into nooks and crannies that a soak doesn't, I don't break my back.

 

[Darren]

Bacteria can survive bleach and even boiling!


Jovial Monk

Hey Tom,
Bacteria donot survive bleach.

 

[Darren]

The one thing that I'm curious about with phosphoric acid, how effective is it against wild yeasts?

In a word, poor!

 

[Darren]

I seem to be posting a lot on sanitation! Guess it is my microbiology backround.
My suggestion is to swap and change your sanitiser of preference. That way if you have bugs with a resistent phenotype to a given chemical they will be challenged by a change of sanitiser.
cheers again
Darren

On that point I have recently used Lysol. Anyone else tried this?

 

[wee stu]

A contribution from the hand tool challenged.

Doesn't matter what I use, lawnmowers, screwdrivers, pickaxes, angle grinders, wooden spoons, whatever - regular fermenter taps are b^%$#@s to dismantle and clean.

Snap lock taps dismantle easily by hand, are easily cleaned, and equally easily put back together.

It is also relatively hard to leave a snap lock tap in the open position and not notice. (If you subscribe to the "I brew, therefore I drink" mantra and consume proportionally, then anything is possible I suppose)

Since I've moved over to snap locks, I haven't had to use a monkey wrench or mig welder once. What more can I say?

 

[Linz]

Ordinary homebrew taps can be dismantled.

Simply leave them in some warm water for a few minutes, then insert something rigid into the back of the tap (a screwdriver is good, but something that doesnt scratch the tap would be better). Let the end of the rigid bar come flush against the inside of the tap and then smack the other end of the bar against a surface while holding the outside of the tap.

A few short sharp knocks and the middle piece of the tap flies out letting you get to all the bacterial goodness

And after several "cleanings" these begin to drip slowly

 

[Kai]

The snap taps seem to be a bugger to find easily. If I don't go out of my way, all I seem to see are the orindary ones.

 

[Linz]

Picked mine up at woolies,Kai

 

[Jase]

I have been using phos acid for sanitizing exclusively since about my 2nd brew. I also use sodium percarbonate for cleaning. I have never had an infection (not even 1 or 2 bottles per batch).

Everyone has their own system - use what is right for you. The things I like about my own approach include:

- alkaline cleaner, acid sanitizer - really gives the bugs a workout.
- both no-rinse products.
- relatively inexpensive.
- so far 100% effective.
- by-products of the solutions are relatively benign (see no rinse).
- I only need a few litres of each in the fermenter - I add a foaming agent and shake like buggery. Note only does this get into nooks and crannies that a soak doesn't, I don't break my back.

Sosman,

Is there a retail trade name for these products that you use?

Where are they available from?

Cheers,
Jase

 

[J.W.B]

Every month I fill my fermenters up with water and add 6 cups of white king bleach

I fill with water and add 2 cups of plain bleach

J.W.B

I think you,re going seriously OTT with the bleach. It's the chlorine in bleach that kills bacteria and if it's to be used as a spray sanitiser for surfaces you need 100ppm or if you are going to immerse the item you only need 50ppm (and a 60 second soak).

Now most domestic bleach contains 4% chlorine, so you only need about 2.5ml:1ltr for spraying surfaces and 2.5ml:5ltr for immersion.

6 cups is equal to 1500ml, so unless you have 3000ltr fermenter, you're getting into extreme overkill. Even 2 cups would be enough for 1000ltrs.

Importantly using these extreme concentrations doesn't make it anymore effective as a sanitiser than using 2.5ml:5ltr.

Please use a lot less, so that you're not pouring all that chlorine down the sink and into our waterways.

Cheers
MAH

Thanks for the advice MAH.
I wondered if I was going into overkill...Point taken ...
How about 1 cup per full fermenter??.
It doesnt sound like much...but if it does the job I will do it..

Thganks once again

JWB :chug:

 

[user 384]

JWB

If you wanted to be cautious and use and us the maximum allowed by the American FDA for no-rinse food contact it would be 200ppm or about 5ml per litre, so for a 30ltr fermenter, just 150mls would suffice.

As Darren pointed out, the effectiveness of a bleach solution is has a limited time span, becuase the chlorine breaks down fairly quickly. So I wouldn't use the same solution the next day.

Cheers
MAH

 

[devilsaltarboy]

I will clearly state that a percentage of bacteria do survive bleach, the amount depends on concentration, time left on and temperature of bleach solution.
Some Bacteria can survive long periods of boiling water.
All these techniques are sanitation because we are hacking the level of bacteria to neglible amounts.
In surgical environments sterilisation is used which kills all bacteria however I have been told by a friend in microbiology one know bacteria can survive the autoclave however extraordinarily rare.

 

[GOLIATH]

Sorry to ressurect this post (or is that resurrect?)

The question of whether Phos Acid can kill wild yeast was asked. In a word or 3 NO it won't.

Having said that, I can't ever recall a time when a beer has been fermented by wild yeast. Perhaps i'm not good enough to recognise it but it would be an extremely rare event.

Provided we are pitching at correct rates in to well aerated wort, logic says that our yeast will overcome anything else simply by weight of numbers. It may be worth having a look, but in the wine industry there are considerable varietes of yeast available that are classified as "Killer Strains" that will also sort out any yeast in a must that are not supposed to be there. I can only assume at this point that brewing yeast would, in many instances, have the same qualities and experience bears this out.

Regards
Dave

 

[devilsaltarboy]

Completely agree with you there, brewers will always have a degree of non desirable organisms but when we pitch gram upon gram of yeast they are just overwhelmed and cant compete. As long as we get rid of enough of the bugs things work in our favour, I havent had an infection yet (touches wood)
Cheers
peter

 

[Kai]

I had assumed that phos didn't kill wild yeast, but as you guys have said, practical application does seem to show that phos is an effective sanitiser as brewers do have success with it. The only lingering concern I have is buildup of wild yeast over time (which I imagine regular cleaning with hot caustic would absolve), or a one-time infection running rampant. However, I guess the proof is in the pudding as no-one seems to have any issues with it. I follow my phos rinse with boiling water and I haven't had any problems to date.

 

[pint of lager]

Thank you Darren, Devilsalterboy and kai for your input on this thread. These people all have microbiology training.

For a bit more reading try this link

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/b...1.2/raines.html