sterilization in general

how do you guys do your sterilization? It just seems weird to me to clean all of my stuff and then leave it setting on a clean dish towel on my kitchen cabinet. Surely the dish towels not really sterile?

Also, how do you get the beer flowing on racking and bottling day without sucking on the tube? I've tried filling it with sterilizing solution, but I always end up with air pockets in the tube.

We're not trying to be STERILE, we are trying to be SANITARY.

Someone else put it well in a previous thread by stating that if we required STERILE conditions, we would all be dressed like surgeons while we brew.

It would be terribly difficult to drink a beer while wearing one of those masks.

It's perfectly fine to clean your stuff and let it sit on a clean dish towel until needed (provided you are going to use it within a few hours.)

Hell, think of what brewing conditions were like in (for example) 1600 AD. They didn't even know what germs and microbes WERE, and the idea of washing your hands was totally alien. They made beer just fine back then.

As for the siphoning question... I can answer this provided I know what kind of gear you are using? Do you have carboys for fermenters and a bucket for bottling?

-walker

actually.. regardless of the type of equipment you have, 9 out of 10 people here are going to tell you to get an autosiphon. You stick it in the beer and pump the handle once and the beer starts flowing through the attached hose. They are fairly inexpensive.

Here's a link:
http://www.beer-wine.com/product_info.asp?productID=1113&sectionID=1

The other 10% of the people (myself included) use various methods to start siphons.

-walker

Yeah, I'll probably pick one of those up. I primary in a plastic bucket, and secondary in a glass carboy. I have been sucking on it and then sticking in a bucket of cleanser.

you can buy a carboy cap for less than $2. This is what I use.



to start the siphon from carboy back to bottling bucket, insert the racking cane through the shorter/wider tube on the cap, place the cap on the carboy, then gently blow through the longer tube on the cap to push the beer up and out of the cane/hose.

edit: same procedure can be used to get from bucket to carboy, but you SUCK on the longer tube and it pulls beer from the bucket through the hose.

-walker

Walker said:

actually.. regardless of the type of equipment you have, 9 out of 10 people here are going to tell you to get an autosiphon. You stick it in the beer and pump the handle once and the beer starts flowing through the attached hose. They are fairly inexpensive.

Here's a link:
http://www.beer-wine.com/product_info.asp?productID=1113&sectionID=1

The other 10% of the people (myself included) use various methods to start siphons.

-walker

Click to expand...

I've been using the ol' suck-the-beer-through-a-tube-until-it-starts-coming-out method. lol. probably not the best.

Walker said:

We're not trying to be STERILE, we are trying to be SANITARY.

Hell, think of what brewing conditions were like in (for example) 1600 AD. They didn't even know what germs and microbes WERE, and the idea of washing your hands was totally alien. They made beer just fine back then.

Click to expand...

THANK YOU!!!!

I've been trying to get this point across for some time now. Most people on here say they would rather err on the side of caution and overkill the whole cleanliness thing. And to some extent I can see their point, but we need to put things into perspective.

cheers, loop

Yup. Let me impart a small story about my VERY first batch of beer.

October 1997; No Fail Pale Ale w/ raspberry extract. Glass primary, no secondary.

Everything went just fine until it came time for bottling. I put my hose into the carboy to start the siphon into the bottling bucket and sucked with gusto. I was nealing over top of the bottling bucket as I did this so I could quickly shove the hose into it when the flow started.

I was slammed with a mouthful of trub, which contained quite a bit of hop pellet dust. I choked. Hard.

In fact, I choked so hard on that mouthful of nastiness, that I spewed it all RIGHT INTO THE BOTTLING BUCKET, complete with my own drool. I then fell over coughing while the siphon continued to flow.

I thought for SURE that the batch was ruined because of this disaster.

You know what? The beer was excellent. EXCELLENT.

I have never worried too much about sanitation since that first experience.

-walker

Maybe you should spit in each batch!

I'm on my fifth batch, but my first two turned out horribly and rightly or wrongly I've blamed it on sanitation.

My wife says that now that I'm brewing again, I'm anal about exactly 4 things, fishing gear, hunting gear, camping gear and beer gear.

billybrew said:

Maybe you should spit in each batch!

Click to expand...

Hey, I'll tell you what... those friends that were present when this happened were not to keen on drinking any of that batch, so I got to keep most of it for myself.

Walker said:

Hey, I'll tell you what... those friends that were present when this happened were not to keen on drinking any of that batch, so I got to keep most of it for myself.

Click to expand...

Weird!! lol.

More beer for you though. :cross:

billybrew said:

My wife says that now that I'm brewing again, I'm anal about exactly 4 things, fishing gear, hunting gear, camping gear and beer gear.

Click to expand...

Tell your wife that you hear her, and you'll be glad to get anal about sex gear too. One way or another, she'll never again bother you about hunting, fishing, camping, or beer gear.

And on a totally off topic note...Hey Bethany! Grew up in Yukon myself.

...Grew up in Yukon myself.

Click to expand...

Ain't that where Tobey Keith is/was from?

Rhoobarb said:

Ain't that where Tobey Keith is/was from?

Click to expand...

You mean little tubby? We used to beat him up for having two first names.

By the way, Yukon, OK is famous for two things...the aformentioned tubby is one, and it is also the home of the last recorded public lynching in the US...happened late in the fifties.

El Pistolero said:

Tell your wife that you hear her, and you'll be glad to get anal about sex gear too. One way or another, she'll never again bother you about hunting, fishing, camping, or beer gear.

And on a totally off topic note...Hey Bethany! Grew up in Yukon myself.

Click to expand...

There's two ways to take that and either one is pretty funny.

Cool on Yukon. It's been growing like crazy these days. You'd have a hard time recognizing it if you haven't been here in a while.

Garth Brooks is from Yukon. Toby Keith is from Bethel Acres, I think. Little community in south OKC.

billybrew said:

Garth Brooks is from Yukon. Toby Keith is from Bethel Acres, I think. Little community in south OKC.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but let's not let the facts get in the way of a good lie (see fishing gear).

Walker said:

I was slammed with a mouthful of trub, which contained quite a bit of hop pellet dust.

Click to expand...

Mmm, trub and hop dust...

Shambolic said:

Mmm, trub and hop dust...

Click to expand...

breakfast of champions....

I use a syphoning hose by filling it with as hot of water as I can get,
holding it in the shape of a 'u', full to both tops,
hook one over the racking cane,
and let the other end run into a bucket or watever...
Down on the floor,
till you see a good brown ale running, a second or two...
then pinch the hose a bit, and move the other end to the carboy,
....or the bucket.
Which I set on a chair,
and you have not got mouth germs in your ale.
Now I have seen those new carboy caps, and am looking into them, but am broke till next month, but I'm kinda old,
and an antique myself.
{I just learned how to use a hydrometer.}


And I don't lay siphoning hoses, reracking canes, or anything else
down on anything. Leave it in the sanitizing bucket or wherever it is, till it is needed. Laying your brewing tools down, and in contact with anything is bad ju ju



Luck Knife

I used that method until I got an autosyphon.