How hard is it to contaminate?

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tom_m

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So being really paranoid...how hard is it really to contaminate your beer?
When's the highest risk? What part of the process?

I always boiled water that I used to clean with or added PBW. Cleaned out bucket/carboy with Star San...

But let's say what happens if you clean with just tap water? Or boiled water? Or bottled water? How bad is tap water? I assume depends on many conditions, pipes in building/house, well/city water, etc.

I guess basically reading a thread about how screw ups can yield good beer I see people dropping phones into wort and all sorts of stuff...A cell phone must be pretty greasy and full of contaminants... So how hard is it really to screw up?

haha, I guess to put my mind at ease.

Thanks!
(Everyone here has been awesome with other questions I've had.)
 
RDWHAHB. I don't boil the water I clean with, sometimes it's not even hot. Just make sure that you've saoked or sprayed anything that comes in contact with the post-boil wort with Starsan or BTF and you'll be fine
 
I've accidentlly spit into my fermenting bucket while siphoning and still never had an infection. It can happen though. I think you are probably at greatest risk around yeast pitching time through the 1st few days of primary.

No need to boil the water you clean with. I use a garden hose to rinse my gear after use. Just be sure to sanitize it prior to usage and you should be ok. You don't want to use abbrasive scrubs with your plastic buckets either. Little scratches become hiding places for bacteria.
 
here is a little secret, but keep this down or people will freak out.

all beer is contamanated. unless your do your boil in a clean room with gama iradeated hops. ect...

but its like a WAR!
and the yeast are your toops. ever played age of empires, or star craft or populace if you are really old,
the thing about war is its over if there are no more resorces(ie food cant make new soldurs with no food)

so the trick is to flood the battle field (your wort) with so many troops ( your liqud yeast starter or properly hydrated dry yest) as to over welm the enemy so thay cant get a foot hold , and too consume all the food so thay have nothing to launch an offence with even if a few hold up in some crag.


i only keg and store my kegs in a huge refergrator,
most of my beer gets drank within 30 to 45 days of taping and when kept cold
thats all i have ever need to keep my beer good. the most i age low point stuff is 90 days , but i am sure there have been lots of great beers i drank that if had sat
untaped in the keg a year would have been more suited to be poured on a fish plank (think long johns) rather than a pint glass

so long as you have a really good yeast pitch it takes along time for beer to go bad even if you did contamanate it with something bad like spit, money or a cell phone,
so in closeing if you think you screwed a batch , ferment it a the optmale temp for your yeast type and then Keep it cool and drink it fast and will most likely be ok
 
only things that will toutch your beer after the boil need to be sanitized. Carboy, siphon, airlock, stopper, wart chiller, bottle filler, bottling bucket, bottle caps, bottles. all you really need to do is rinse everything your worried about in some StarSan on brew day. StarSan is non toxic in its recomended dilution.

your wart is at most risk after the boil because the boiling is what kills any microorganisms thats in your wart. generaly anything below about 180 or so is prime bacteria territory.

tap water is AOK for brewing just boil it and drop in a campden tablet. i assume your not doing all grain yet. if and when you do then you need to worry about the condition of the tap whater it will affect the taste of your beer.

PBW is used after you are done brewing and want to get the wart residew off the item in question. dont put PBW in your beer or beer water. i dont think it will kill you but it will probably affect the quality of your beer.
 
It's one of those things....it can be incredibly hard to get a bad enough infection to cause off flavors.

But then again it can be so easy if you didn't fully clean a racking tube or something and let it get nasty for a week. Lots of diligent people can end up with infections.

But adding tap water and stuff like that? I put the risk very very low. Look at my previous replies, I dropped a nasty gunked up pot holder in my cooled wort and that beer came out just fine.

The yeasties are a force to be reckoned with. They just have to out compete any bacteria before the bacteria live long enough to cause problems, and they're very good at doing that (this is why lag times scare me. It's like expecting a Zerg rush ^-^).
 
I've not read all the new posts today, but I'll wager Clayton's reply to this topic is among the best not only today, but this month.

Edit: And I bet he buys at High Gravity too.
 
I'm still fairly new at this, however I had an incident 2 brews ago that has convinced me its pretty hard to infect beer. Make a long story short, my wort sat outside on the deck, wind blowing like crazy with an unsanitized lid halfway on top for almost 2 hours before I was able to pitch and rack. Broken Nose Ale is finished and in the keg carbing. Tasted the beer during racking and it was just fine. I'm convinced at this point that unless I carefully place bacteria in my beer while racking to secondary, it will be fine.
 
oh. I used PBW to clean my stuff first. Then Star San. I didn't realize PBW was for tough scrubs... the kit I got didn't say that. Now I want my starter packet of PBW back...

Even the book I got didn't go into much detail.

Thanks guys. REALLY helpful.

I know I'm not brewing in a clean room =)
So let me get this straight...the yeast will kill off or eat all food for bacteria to thrive on?
So consider the foaming out the top, active fermentation I've had the first day, day and a half... I'm probably pretty good even if I did spit in there? (not that i spit in there)

...and then even if contaminated, it takes a while to go bad? so if you drank it fast, you'd never know? But then later grabbed a bottle a few months old, then you'd notice?
 
I've not read all the new posts today, but I'll wager Clayton's reply to this topic is among the best not only today, but this month.

Edit: And I bet he buys at High Gravity too.
thanks
ya i love thoes guys thay are great
and there bird :)
the Marshall Brewing Company is kick ass too
i met them last weekned and was very impressed.
 
Not easy to infect beer .... When I started using Starsan for some reason I was mixing it at 3ml per gallon -1/2 of the recommended amount . I would say I did this for 8 or 9 batches all came out fine . No wonder I didn't get a lot of foam .:drunk:
 
lol yeah star san is good stuff,
if i remmber right its mostly phosphoric acid
soda makers add loads of the stuff to soda to balence the sweetness
and stablize the product and increase shelf life,
who knows mabey the star san foam
keep your beer fresher longer ;)
 
Seriously, it is really difficult for a new brewer to get an infection anyway.

Believe it or not, it is really hard to ruin/infect your beer, especially if it is your first batch, and you took even the most rudimentary sanitary precautions....It is actually more likely for an experienced brewer to get an infection- Perhaps they let something slide in their cleaning/sanitization process and something from their previous batch got nasty between brewing sessions, and infected their latest batch- It sometimes happens that small matter gets lodged in a hose connection and doesn't get cleaned out or zapped with the sanitizer....Or perhaps over many uses a fermenter or bottling bucket develops a scratch in it, which becomes a breeding ground for contamination.....but with brand new, cleaned and sanitized equipment...highly unlikely.

What you more than likely have is NORMAL, and which is butt ugly.

If I can impart one bit of "wisdom" for you on your journey as a brewer it is this;

If you brew from fear, you won't make great beer!

You might make drinkable beer, or you might make crap...but until your realize that your beer is much hardier than you think it is, you won't do some basic things, (like using your hydrometer) to make your beer great.

You have a typical new brewer fear that your beer is somehow weak, like a new born baby..and will be ruined or die of you look at it wrong...I want to put it into perspective for you, and save you a lot of new bewer nerves...

Beer has been made for over 5,000 years in some horrific conditions, and still it managed to survive and be popular....It was even made before Louis Pasteur understood germ theory....

If beer turned out bad back then more than it turned out good..then beer would have gone the way of the dodo bird, New Coke, or Pepsi Clear...:D

It is very very very hard to ruin your beer....it surprises us and manages to survive despite what we do to it...

And doing things like taking a hydro reading, or racking a beer (if you choose to) will not cause more harm to your beer..if you are careful.

I want you to read these threads and see..

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/has-anyone-ever-messed-up-batch-96644/

And this thread to show you how often even a beer we think is ruined, ends up being the best beer you ever made, if you have patience....
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

There is a saying we have in the homebrewing community...RDWHAHB...make that your mantra and you will be a successful homebrewer...
Yodardwhahb.jpg


Oh this thread is really good too...if you adopt the mindset in here you will do well...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/youre-no-longer-n00b-when-24540/

It's not brain surgery, it's a hobby...it's supposed to be something fun, not something we stress out on.

Just relax.....
 
I contaminated my beer once. I boiled the priming sugar.. let it cool of in my freezer.. then put it in the bottling bucket.

Bad idea.

Had to throw the whole batch.

I sanitize everything.. even boil water to sanitize that, but thats probably going overboard
 
I contaminated my beer once. I boiled the priming sugar.. let it cool of in my freezer.. then put it in the bottling bucket.

Bad idea.

Had to throw the whole batch.

I sanitize everything.. even boil water to sanitize that, but thats probably going overboard

Why is this a bad idea? Why would you be more apt to get contaminated? :confused:
 
Why is this a bad idea? Why would you be more apt to get contaminated? :confused:

Your fridge/freezer probably has more bacteria in it than your bathroom.

Leaving an open pot of water with sugar in it invited a whole slew of bacteria to get in there.

That is why so many people use wort chillers.. keeping anything out in the open like that is just asking for it.
 

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