Is a little speck of dust really going to infect my beer

I am very careful about sanitation. But after spending the week driving around MO for work and listening to pretty much every episode of Brewstrong on podcast Jamil has me worried that I am not careful enough.

Jamil makes it sound like that one little tiny speck of dust in your beer after the boil is going to infect your beer with bacteria and wild yeast. He goes as far to say he won't brew in the wind. Now I understand you want to take precautions and prevent this as much as possible but is he being a little anal about the whole thing?

Yes. Some people can't help it. They're anal. Most people who think they know everything usually are.

99.9% of the time a speck of dust will be insignificant. You are (hopefully) inoculating billions upon billions of active yeast cells, into their prime environment, and they will take charge and overwhelm the intruders.

I think sanitation is extremely important but anyone who has brewed a few dozen batches has had some pretty unsavory things fall into the fermenter, with little or no effect. I personally have had a grungy baseball cap fall in, a shattered broken lightbulb, and a half of an egg roll that was thrown at me. All turned out fine.

Shoot for perfection but don't lose sleep when you miss the mark.

skmo said:

99.9% of the time a speck of dust will be insignificant. You are (hopefully) inoculating billions upon billions of active yeast cells, into their prime environment, and they will take charge and overwhelm the intruders.

Click to expand...

+1

bendbrewer said:

yes. Some people can't help it. They're anal. Most people who think they know everything usually are.

Click to expand...

:d

SKMO said:

99.9% of the time a speck of dust will be insignificant. You are (hopefully) inoculating billions upon billions of active yeast cells, into their prime environment, and they will take charge and overwhelm the intruders.

Click to expand...

That's kind of what I was thinking. He was even talking about flaming the carboy opening when dry hopping or something. Palmer never seems to chime in and agree with him but he never argues either.

Agreed.

HOWEVER:

It's not the airborne goop on dust that will cause most home brewers problems. IMO, it's the hoses that aren't totally cleaned out, or the ball valve you forgot to rinse, or that scratched plastic bucket. All the little sanitation errors are cumulative, and I have had to dump beer because of sanitation-related off-flavors that were truly awful.

So, Sanitize as best you can, and figure out how you can do it better, but don't freak out about it if there's a mistake. I've reached my entire arm, hair and all into cooled wort to unclog a drain tube before, and the beer turned out OK.

jds said:

Agreed.

HOWEVER:

It's not the airborne goop on dust that will cause most home brewers problems. IMO, it's the hoses that aren't totally cleaned out, or the ball valve you forgot to rinse, or that scratched plastic bucket. All the little sanitation errors are cumulative, and I have had to dump beer because of sanitation-related off-flavors that were truly awful.

.

Click to expand...

YES ! Well stated. Most sources of infection arise on your own equipment, not bacterial paratroopers that are coming in from your household air.

BendBrewer said:

Yes. Some people can't help it. They're anal. Most people who think they know everything usually are.

Click to expand...

So well said, I want to send you my last paycheck. HAHAAHAHAH!! Good one...

" Is a little speck of dust really going to infect my beer ?"

that depends. did horton really hear a who?

do the best you can, and if something DOES get germy, get medieval on your whole system right away. it saves worrying all the time.

The correct and honest answer to the question posed is, "Most likely not". The threat is real but very much overemphasized. All the comments about equipment sanitation are very much more pertinent than worrying about what's in the air.

I have grown mushrooms for over a decade on a commercial scale and I can tell you firsthand that microscopic dust from the air can and will completely contaminate virgin substrate that wasn't colonized by the intentionally inoculated fungus quick enough. Granted, beer and mushrooms have some significant fundamental differences in regards to sanitation (basically most of mushroom work requires sterile conditions).

Even a contaminated block of shiitake maintains a significant population of shiitake mycelium and will most likely produce healthy fruits. In mycology the concern is with the contamination spreading in your workspace. This is not generally a concern with homebrewing. The concept applies, though. A contaminated batch of beer will most likely be proportionally more beer than contaminant and the resulting beverage may only exhibit some slight off-flavors as evidence of the presence of a competitor. What would be catastrophe in mycology is typically merely inconvenience in homebrewing.

A speck of dust can represent many things. Here is a recent electron scanning microscope image of a speck of dust:

Household dust: includes long hairs of cat fur, twisted synthetic and woolen fibers, serrated insect scales, a pollen grain, and plant and insect remains
http://www.rense.com/ScanningElectronMicrosc.html