Sanitation in the "old days"?

McKBrew said:

Damn, this thread has really "evolved" over the last few days. In regards to the safety of Star san, McDonalds, genetically modified whatever, I believe faithfully in the logic "That which does not kill me, will only make me stronger".

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Yes, I'm sure that is what the Romans said as they drank their wine out of lead-laced cups.

Seriously, I'm pretty anal when it comes to cross-contamination/food handling while cooking and when sanitizing to make beer, but I'm not going to worry about the miniscule risk coming from the sanitizer I might be using at the time.

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Funny since a contaminated batch of beer (though it might taste overly sour/tart) will only gives you beneificial pro-biotics such as lacto-bacillus. On the other hand, the consequences of consuming star sans are potentially fatal:

STAR SAN is a blend of phosphoric acid and dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid.

DANGER: Corrosive to skin and eye, contains Phosphoric Acid. Harmful if swallowed. Do not get in eyes, on skin or on clothing. Wear protective goggles and clothing when using. Avoid contamination of food. DO NOT MIX STAR SAN WITH CHLORINATED CLEANERS AS CHLORINE GAS WILL RESULT. Do not use or store near heat or open flame. See label for more precautionary information.

FIRST AID:
For Eyes: Hold eyes open and rinse slowly and gently with water for 15-20 minutes. Remove contact lenses, if present, after the first five minutes. Then continue rinsing. Call Poison Control Center or doctor for treatment advice.

If Swallowed: Call Poison Control Center or doctor immediately for treatment advice. Have person sip on a glass of water if able to swallow. Do not induce vomiting unless told to do so by the Poison Control doctor. Do not give anything to an unconscious person.

If on Skin or Clothing: Take off contaminated clothing. Rinse skin immediately with plenty of water for 15-20 minutes. Call Poison Control Center for treatment advice.

If Inhaled: Move person to fresh air. If person is not breathing call 911 or an ambulance, then give artificial respiration, preferably mouth-to-mouth if possible. Call a Poison Control Center or doctor for treatment.

NOTE TO PHYSICIAN: Probable mucosal damage may contraindicate the use of gastric lavage. Measure against circulatory shock, respiratory depression and convulsion may be needed.

How can you worry about the small risk from brewing sanitizer and not be concerned about the alcohol in your 9% imperial IPA?

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I AM concerned about the alcohol. I know that it is both beneficial and harmful in its own ways, and I try to be conciouss of these effects in my consumption.

I am also concernd now that this thread will get abrubtly cut short the same way the previous thread of this topic was, because I directly quoted (as lfark did) the health risks of a widely accepted dogma of conventional home-brewing.

Observe:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=61832&page=6

Do you now understand why I am so skeptical? You only shoot yourself in the foot by censoring such things, whoever the supposed "moderators" (i.e. thought-crime police) here are.

p.s.

Please don't focus on arguing with my most recent reply, even though it might enrage the more conservative brewers. I really am more interested in the hard facts about the santiziers/cleaners. (see my post before the previous one)

Revvy said:

It's used as a cleaner not a sanitizer (and technically onestep is not a sanitizer either.)

It is like PBW, professional brewery wash, only much cheaper. The fizziness really helps break stuck on gunk free in every aspect of brewing, it's really good for dried krauzen rings in fermenters, and a soak anywhere from 2 hours to overrnight will remove most labels from bottles....

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Wow! That is good to know. I will try it out on my carboy next time. Sounds much better than using a bottle brush.

Q: Is it corrosive to metals?

You have to rinse thoroughly, since it is "soap" afterall.

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Its a "soap." Does that mean it is the saponified salt of a fatty acid? Is so, what fatty acid is it derived from, and what is the process for producing it?

starsan doesn't leave a coating, nor does it leave off flavors at the proper concentration, any remainder (which like iodophor there should be remainder since they are both "wet contact" sanitizers) becomes yeast food.

If starsan or iodophor were "bad" for brewing (because they affected the taste of the beer, for instance) then why would the majority of the brewers on this site, and professional craft brewers use and recommend both of them so highly?

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Again, the whole "yeast food" thing strikes me as propoganda. I'm not denying that it might be true in certain circumstances, but the fact that 99.999999% of craft/homebrewers approve of it does not impress me. If anything, it makes me more spetical. But I am willing to withhold judgement until I know the facts.

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THANKS!

Brewmonger, those warnings are for the UNDILUTED starsan. Yes, star-san is highly corrosive UNDILUTED. I've burned myself spilling it on myself accidentally. It felt like a mild rash and that's about it because I washed it off right away. And for the link you supplied, lfark was a troll that was banned, and you are a troll as well. You don't want people to get enraged at what you say? Don't say inflammatory thing. Your last few posts have been nothing but inflammatory. Calling the moderators "thought-crime police" isn't a way to make friends. Also calling people that don't agree with you being friends with the microbes anal-retnentive techno-science-fanatics doesn't sit well with me. Phosphoric acid breaks down into phosphorus, which is a yeast nutrient.

You don't want to sanitize with 'chemicals', fine. Be friends with the microbes. They're just using you for your sugar, you know. Use an autoclave for all your sanitation. Or don't at all.

Um... ok, I apologize for distracting this thread by protesting censorship of differing viewpoints about homebrewing. Like I said I really am more interested in the facts about these sanitzers. If a troll is someone who expresses disagreement with you, then I don't know what to tell you. I guess I am a troll because I have a different opinion and I say so. Maybe I should be banned because of my thought-crimes. Its not like I'm not a homebrewer myself. (double negative there)



Back to the issue at hand:

Thank you for the factette about phophorus. Here's the thing: Even my friends who use StarSan tell me that the dilluted solution dries out thier skin pretty bad.

I'm still wondering about Oyxclean. Is a true "soap" (aka the sapponified salt of a fatty acid) or simply a cleaning detergent of some sort, an oxidizing agent like cholrine bleach? Is Oxyclean corrosive to metals (as both bleach and starsan are)? Can it be used as a sanitizer with sufficient contact time?

brewmonger said:

p.s.

Please don't focus on arguing with my most recent reply, even though it might enrage the more conservative brewers. I really am more interested in the hard facts about the santiziers/cleaners. (see my post before the previous one)

THANKS!

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Brewmonger, what is your real reason for being here? Every post you have made has been in this thread, and while you continue to debate every bit of information given to you you expect us not to argue with you. You've even went so far as to refer back to another thread with the same argument and bash the moderators for closing the thread.

What facts are you looking for? The manufacturer says it's safe, it's an FDA approved sanitizer. If you can't trust either one of them, don't use it and quit looking for explanations about it's "true" content from us. Most of us aren't chemists either and aren't going to be able to give you anything more. None of us have the time or financial resources to test the manufacturer's claims on our own and have to put our faith in someone else to let us know if something is safe. How do I really know that the groceries I buy off the store shelf are safe if I can't trust someone, still I have to eat. Just about all of us are fine with that. We trust the FDA and the manufacturer on a daily basis to keep us safe. Do you also stress about all of the other possible issues that your brewing equipment might pose?

1) Leaching from plastic
2) Potential lead or other metals in overseas manufactured glass carboys
3) Grain contaminated with pesticides or fertilizers
4) Possibility even after numerous studies that their might be some health hazards from aluminum or stainless steel that we don't know about yet.

Take bleach for example. It has been diluted and used for years as a method of making water safe to drink, but if you drank a cup of bleach you will probably die.

Regardless of what we tell you, you are looking for an answer we can't give. Either you get onboard and use commercial sanitizers, or find your method of sanitation and go with it. Whatever works for YOU. Don't continue to criticize us for "blindly" pushing the I Believe button when it comes to these products, we are comfortable with our choices as you will be with yours.

If you don't know the answer, that is ok. I'm not going to berate you for it. I just am trying to get a better idea of the nature of each sanitizing method, beyond the cliche "its FDA approved and everyone else does it, so it must be safe, besides its yeast food."

I do share the concerns you listed above, but as you say, I don't have the means to test everything. Ideally I would source all my ingredients from local farms and small producers, but this isn't always possible.

Does Oxyclean corrode metal? Do you know if it is it effective as a sanitizing agent with sufficient contact time? Is it a true soap, or is it oxygen bleach (as opposed to cholrine bleach) or something else altogether?

Oxyclean is not a soap by definition. Looks like it fits the profile of Oxygen bleach.

http://oxygenbleach.homestead.com/files/

Here is the MSDS.

To get a little bit back on topic:
Ancient beers being a bit beyond my scope, I'll describe some of the techniques used in early modern (pre-pasteur) European and British breweries.

1) Quick consumption - most beer made was household ale brewed and consumed well inside a week as a source of safe hydration. This meant that they drank their beer after the good yeasts in theirSacch. dominated cultures did their thing and before the bad bugs had much of a chance.

2) Selective harvesting - re-use yeast from successful batches. If all your batches are spoiled, get yeast from the brewer down the street. Natural selection of brewing cultures on the one hand, and perpetuation of 'healthy' yeasts (because not every brewer in the country's going to get swept by lacto at the same time).

3) Getting a taste for it - British 'stock ales' (beers kept for a long time) derived most of their character from the Brettanomyces (British-yeast, etymologically) in their storage casks. (The lack of this character in pure-cultured beers is precisely why there was initial resistance to Pasteur-Hanssen brewing techniques in Britain). They'd discard casks that turned the beer excessively sour. There were also lots of folk-methods for 'recovering' soured beer, like adding lime, or blending with fresh running beer for a more palatable mix. I needn't bring up examples like lambic or Berliner Weisse.

There are lots more techniques they used (cold fermentation in caves!), but these are some of the big ones.

edit: PS phosphoric acid is used in colas for tanginess

Thanks McKBrew. I will take a look over the links.

Kai said:

To get a little bit back on topic:
Ancient beers being a bit beyond my scope, I'll describe some of the techniques used in early modern (pre-pasteur) European and British breweries.

1) Quick consumption - most beer made was household ale brewed and consumed well inside a week as a source of safe hydration. This meant that they drank their beer after the good yeasts in theirSacch. dominated cultures did their thing and before the bad bugs had much of a chance.

2) Selective harvesting - re-use yeast from successful batches. If all your batches are spoiled, get yeast from the brewer down the street. Natural selection of brewing cultures on the one hand, and perpetuation of 'healthy' yeasts (because not every brewer in the country's going to get swept by lacto at the same time).

3) Getting a taste for it - British 'stock ales' (beers kept for a long time) derived most of their character from the Brettanomyces (British-yeast, etymologically) in their storage casks. (The lack of this character in pure-cultured beers is precisely why there was initial resistance to Pasteur-Hanssen brewing techniques in Britain). They'd discard casks that turned the beer excessively sour. There were also lots of folk-methods for 'recovering' soured beer, like adding lime, or blending with fresh running beer for a more palatable mix. I needn't bring up examples like lambic or Berliner Weisse.

There are lots more techniques they used (cold fermentation in caves!), but these are some of the big ones.

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Any idea how were yeast cultures captured to begin with?

edit: PS phosphoric acid is used in colas for tanginess

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Yeah... another reason I don't drink Coke. Did you know that highway patrols often use Coca-Cola to clean up blood on the road from car accidents? Its also good for cleaning toilet bowls.

Getting back to what acient people may have done is most likely nothing. If you listen to Charlie from Five Star talk about sanatizing, you don't have to do it as long as you clean well. Sanatizing is like insurance. You don't really need it but its nice to have.

By the way, some written history is half made up and pre-history is mostly made up. Dating prehistory is no where near an exact science and should be taken with a grain of salt. They just don't really know.

You are partially correct, but there are scientific ways to determine when (for example) barley was first domesticated. Barley is believed to be the first crop domesticated by humans. Carbon dating items from arceological dig sites, and tracking the rates of genetic mutation in various domesticated plants vs. their wild relatives are common ways that modern anthropologists use to determine the onset of agriculture and plant domestication in various regions. It follows to reason that the brewing of beer coincided more or less with the earliest examples of grain cultivation, which first took place in the fertile crescent ~10,000 years ago.

Some of the evidence for mead making comes from pre-historic drawings showing a human harvesting honey from a bee's nest. These can also be dated through various methods. One such drawing dates to over 40,000 years old.

You have to be careful with carbon dating too. They will retest samples until they get results they think are right.

When they date things in prehistory, its only dating based on what a bunch of people think built on what other people think, built on what other people of what they find around, like pottery. They are making a hugh assumption that the pottery or whatever was dated correctly in the first place.

I don't think anyone has mentioned that ancient brewing actually depended on a certain LACK of sanitation. Yeast wasn't discovered until very recent history, so wild yeast and/or even bacterial infections were REQUIRED at some point in brewing's past.

Brewing in ancient Ireland, including the brewing process.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6941951.stm


After achieving an optimum temperature of 60-70°C they began to add milled barley and approximately 45 minutes later simply baled the final product into fermentation vessels.

"It tasted like a traditional ale, but was sweeter because there were no hops in it."

jlanier01 said:

Brewing in ancient Ireland, including the brewing process.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6941951.stm


After achieving an optimum temperature of 60-70°C they began to add milled barley and approximately 45 minutes later simply baled the final product into fermentation vessels.

"It tasted like a traditional ale, but was sweeter because there were no hops in it."

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Ain't beer history cool?

Great article and great question, btw...

Look up gruit, fyi

I do not think it was mentioned but brewing WAS the sanitation. The ancient Egyptians make so no difference between grain and beer. They would make beer from gain just as naturally as they made bread from it (it actually is the basis of Egyptian beer).

The beer we drink today, that is fermented malt with flowers (Hops) added is Celtic in origin. The Celts would add flowers to the beer (it can only be guessed why, but they made tea from them too). This was mostly Heather and Mugwort (yes I have tried it, it is nasty).

It was not until the Romans came along that they introduced Hops. They were included in Pliny the Elders Natural History ""Naturalis Historia". Beer at that time was still made bitter by adding more accessible flowers and roots. It was not until about 1100AD that the actual preservative qualities of Hops were observed (at least this is when it became a standard pratice). This is when they added a flower, that is not native, and intentionally started to cultivate it for preserving beer.

Ancients probably did not know why vinegar, alcohol and salt preserved foods. They knew it did though. I am nearly certain at least some cultures believed it was A Gift from the(a) God(s), why else would He/She/It/They have given us a substance that makes it so we do not starve in winter. If you do not know how it works then it must work by magic.

Revvy said:

It's been weeks...WEEKS since I got to do this

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Now zombified in a whole new way!