Airborne Bacteria and General Sanitation

I am new to the forums as well as home brewing. I have found the forum to be a great help with the wealth of information available. I have only boiled 3 batches and bottled one (yet to taste). If I have learned one thing from the books and forums it is sanitation clean sanitation... I have a few questions regarding sanitation.

I currently use B-Brite for cleaning and San Star for sanitation.

1. After using a carboy it is washed out and cleaned. Is it ok to go ahead and sanitize so it will be ready to use for the next batch. Is it necessary to put something over the top such as a piece of aluminum foil to allow it to dry and combat airborne bacteria? Same thing for bottling and fermentation bucket.

2. Last time I made a bucket of san star sanitizer I filled a spray bottle. Does this have a shelf life?

3. I don't have a wort chiller and am using an ice bath in a rubber made container to cool my wort. If I do this outside with the top off the pot am I very likely to get contamination from airborne bacteria?

4. After sanitizing the siphon, spoon or anything for that matter is putting it on the kitchen counter or bathroom sink not advisable? Yesterday when boiling I put my utensils on a clean towel that was laid out over the counter. Is that actually necessary?

Sorry if the questions seem a little silly.. maybe they are. Thanks for any advice.

1.) Clean immediately after use, sanitize immediately before use.

2.) If you made it with distilled or RO water, it's almost indefinite. As long as the pH is below 3.5, it works.

3.) Put the lid on once you kill the flame, or at least once the temperature of the wort drops to 185 or so. Some people will scream "DMS", but that shouldn't be an issue if you boiled long and vigorous enough to remove its precursors from the wort.

4.) Sanitize just before using them. If you need to put a utensil down, put it back in the sanitizer or a sanitizer-coated plate or something.

I sanitize every thing that is going to come in contct with the beer at the time it will come in contact with it, bucket,carboy,bottle,and utensils. As far as where to keep you utensils while your brewing, I fill a bucket up with sanitizer and keep them in there, that way I know they haven't come in contact with any infect surface. As far as something contaminating the wort before it cools is always going to be possibility that is why you want to cool it as fast as possible like with a wort chiller, you don't have to have one on but the faster you get the wort down to temp, the less likely something is going to contaminate. It.

1) answered already, I actual clean and sanitize after, the reclean and sanitze before...yeah overboard but my equipment looks as good as the day I bought it and I've never had an infection

2) I tend to purposefully run through a spray bottle over 2 weeks anyways, keep the bottle size small and between brewing, bottling, secondary (if you use it), I have a nice turnover and dont worry much about it

3) Dont worry about that...I have even had some store bought dirty ice fall into my wort without infection...but then again...see #1. I never cover as I want the steam/heat to rise off and out of my wort

4) I am a little overboard with sanitizing so I actually run through the motions of a brew day as the mash is going, sanitizing everything twice...that way I touch the faucet with sanitized hands and sanitize it as well as give my paper towels a little spray. Its overboard, considering I usually put everything in a 5-gallon bucket of starsan before use. But like I said...closing in on 50 batches without a single infections (knock on wood)

Starsan has to stay wet to work, so sanitize your carboy just before you use it.

I cover my pot when cooling, as much for dust, leaves, bird droppings, etc as bacteria since I am using an IC outside.

I don't believe you risk anything from DMS after the boil is done. It should be pretty much gone by then anyway.

I love this video on sanitation. Check out his other UTube videos too. They're great.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f45/has-anyone-seen-yeast-starter-saga-234201/

Thanks for all the good feedback. Holy Crap... that video is a little overboard in my opinion!

av8er79 said:

Holy Crap... that video is a little overboard in my opinion!

Click to expand...

A little overboard? ya think? That guy is nuts!

ArcaneXor said:

3.) Put the lid on once you kill the flame, or at least once the temperature of the wort drops to 185 or so. Some people will scream "DMS", but that shouldn't be an issue if you boiled long and vigorous enough to remove its precursors from the wort.

Click to expand...

By the time you dropping below 185 (but I think 180 is magic number), DMS is no longer an issue from what I've read in a couple books. Even less of an issue if it is an extract batch.


Also, as far as ice bath is considered, I really would suggest building at least some sort of immersion chiller. Chilling quickly is going to help a lot with preventing infection and any DMS precursors. Buying them already built is expensive, but making one is way cheaper. I usually tell my customers looking for a wort chiller to forget the one I sell and head up to Home Depot, Lowes, or some other store and grab a 50' roll of 3/8" OD soft copper tubing and bring it back to me. I can whip these out in under 10 minutes with tubing and fittings. The rolls usually cost about $35-$60 depending on copper prices and location and my parts tend to be about $15 on top of it. I pretty much just form the coil around a spare corny keg I have laying around at the store which seems to be about the best size for most kettles. Plus people are getting 50' chillers for cheaper than I sell 20' chillers with similar quality.

I do suggest keeping the lid on during cooler to help prevent infection problems and being able to chill faster will mitigate any cooling problems associated with that.