Brett beers on tap?

An special considerations to make?

I have a carboy of an orval-esque beer that's been sitting around for 14 months, and I'm not keen to bottle it.

I know some folks are paranoid about brett contaminating their equipment, but I personally can't see how it would survive a good cleaning and star-san flush through the lines after the keg kicks..... right?

It will infect any plastic it touches. Anything metal can be cleaned. Besides...beer lines are cheap...why risk it?

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

It will infect any plastic it touches. Anything metal can be cleaned. Besides...beer lines are cheap...why risk it?

Click to expand...

It's yeast. Brett is yeast. A proper cycle of oxyclean and starsan will kill it just fine. There is no boogeyman inside this closet.

Yes, brett is yeast. I brewed a lambic a few years ago that I fermented in a plastic bucket. I soaked it in oxyclean for a day before using it again and my next batch got infected. I ended up throwing the bucket out.

Wow, that's surprising, and scary. Did you sanitize it too, or just use the oxy?

I am somewhat concerned about the lines - there are plenty of nooks and crevasses in the fittings that aren't easily cleaned out, and if any of that pellicle gets in, I could see how it could protect some bugs from contact with sanitizer.

The metal bits are easily disassembled, scrubbed, or boiled but the vinyl is harder to clean.

or I might not worry about it at all. At kegerator temperatures, I can't see Brett being very active. It takes a long time to make a flavour change under favourable conditions; a miniscule amount kept at very low temps - the keg would probably be empty before anything happened.

/shrug

I use the same kegs for Brett and sour beers as normal beer, and the rest of the equipment is the same as well.

I'm just careful to fully disassemble my equipment, wash in hot oxyclean solution, and sanitize with StarSan. I do this with all of my equipment whether it's a sour beer or not. About 25% of what I brew is either sour or funky, and I haven't had a cross-contamination yet. I've had one infection- a mild lacto that happened because I wasn't careful with some added ginger.