How sanitary/aseptic are we?

Well, I am a microbiologist by trade, so I might know a thing or two. On brew day when the wort is ready I sanitize just like anyone else I suppose. I'll use a cleaner then a sanitizer. While I'm doing it I'm always wearing non-latex gloves and I have a spray bottle filled with 70% alcohol. I use the alcohol to sanitize my gloves for final prep of all fermenting equiptment, funnel, bubler syphon. I've never had a contaminated batch, and I still consume while doing all this. Does anyone else out there take similar measures?

I know yeast is a hearty SOB, but I don't want to run the risk of introducing any anerobes or spoilage organisms into my batches.

Thoughts? You can tell me I'm a crazy anal SOB if you want, I don't mind.

:rockin:

You're a crazy anal sob...but if it makes you happy, and feel confident, then go for it.
I take reasonable sanitary precautions, but that's about it.

I usually wear non-latex gloves also when handling sanitized stuff. I dip my gloved hands in Starsan before handling stuff.

Sanitize, not sterilize.

As long as the bacteria count is low enough, the yeast and hops can handle them.

Still better safe than sorry.

One thing I do is test my sanitation by taking a little of the pre-pitched wort (500ml or so ) in a sanitizes flask covered with foil, and set it beside my carboy in the fermentation cabinet. if it takes less than a week to start having noticeable activity...Houston we have a problem.

You're saying you spray things with isopropyl alcohol? Why not use starsan or something you wouldn't mind having in your beer?

Certainly the better the sanitation, and the less dust you get in the beer (you will get some), the more generations the yeast will go. Don't bacteria reproduce a lot faster than yeast? It would seem that even a couple of cells will compromise the repitch after some time. Mutations aside....

70% IPA seems to be the industry standard in the bio/pharm labs.

Next thing you know we will be brewing our beer under HEPA laminar flow

billdog, I'm pretty much with you. I have a biology background, plus a food safety background, so I probably know too much when it comes to microbes and food. I use 70% iso on some small items, but generally use Iodophor on everything else. I use nalgene gloves when kegging to handle the keg parts.

I'm fully aware of the difference between sanitization and sterilization, but touching something with bare hands (that will come into contact with beer) pretty much negates the sanitizing IMO. We carry way too much bacteria on our skin. I put too much time and money into brewing to risk even the slightest chance of infection.

Sure, I might be a little excessive, anal, etc... but we all have our quirks.

Oxygen based cleaner, then star san, bare hands, but I get plenty of star san on them...

DeeDub76 said:

70% IPA

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Now that's a big beer!

DeeDub76 said:

70% IPA seems to be the industry standard in the bio/pharm labs.

Next thing you know we will be brewing our beer under HEPA laminar flow

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I don't think he stated it was isopropanol. I've always used 70% Ethanol in the labs I have worked in, but that can be expensive. For brewing I like to use Heat, Caustic solution and an acid rinse (Fire,Oxyclean and star-san)

I use gloves and think that is the #1 thing most brewers could do to improve sanitation. Given that they protect your skin and cost about nothing I don't see why they are not more commonly used.

I thought I had never had a contaminated batch, until I read the book Yeast by Zainasheff and White. They go into great detail about contaminants and the resulting flavor. I started thinking back to some of my old batches and realized that I had probably a small infection in some of them, and i revisited my sanitary procedure. I don't think your procedure is outrageous, and probably helps you make better beer. Plus, its pretty ****ty to get an infected batch and a little preparation goes a long way.

I worked in a lab too, and we always used 70% ethanol, not isopropyl. It can get expensive after a while, so now I just use starsan at home. I did work with a few people who said that they worked in labs where they just washed like surgeons (up to the elbows) and they were fine to work in the hoods like that. So I think that gloves help, but aren't necessary. To each their own right?

Personally, I just dip my hands/arms in starsan and call it a day.

All I use is oxygen based cleanser (easy clean)...it's what came with my brew kit from Midwest and hasn't failed me yet.

at work we use 99% Isopropanol so im able to snag some of that for sanitation of small parts, but in all reality I'd rather use star san, havnt had any issues with infections using it and it doesnt have stinky vapors like the isopropanol.

Gloves have always bee a no brained for me as well. It actually feels weird to touch things without them on. I store my salts in 50mL conical vials and I'm so used to having gloves on when touching lab stuff it feels like I'm raw dogging for the first time.

For sanitizers I'll use 10% bleach, rinse with tap water and then follow up with either Starsan or Iodophor. I rotate so I don't build a resistance in the brewery. (I know it's silly so no need to flame). In 15 years I've only have one batch go bad and it was because I got complacent. Oh, and when I do bottle, I autoclave them. That is sterile, until I open them in my garage.

Whether you use Isopropyl or Ethyl alcohol, the alcohol evaporates off in seconds or minutes... so no worries about toxicity (for isopropyl alc.). Just let it air dry for a minute or two.

70% is actually better at killing than anything higher. Although, since we're just sanitizing and not necessarily disinfecting, 90% would be fine too. But it's worth noting that when it comes to killing microbes, higher concentrations aren't always more effective.

I'd always heard more isn't better in terms of IPA as above 70% will form spores.

Wow.... that's some pretty insane measures. I just wash my equipment out which is usually clean anyway because I clean after every batch as well. Then I fill up the fermenter I'll be using full of a starsan solution. I mix it around then dump the starsan solution into another bucket and use it to sanitize anything else I'll be using in the brewing process.

Concentrations above 70% tend to dry out too fast. The alcohol needs time to penetrate into the cell walls of the baddies to blow them up. Yes it does feel weird to not use gloves but you really don't have to go lab crazy with beer. I actually did use a laminar flow hood for my first couple batches but have since done everything wherever it is convenient. Just make sure to spray/soak everything you use in your sanitizer and everything will be fine.

HH60gunner said:

Wow.... that's some pretty insane measures. I just wash my equipment out which is usually clean anyway because I clean after every batch as well. Then I fill up the fermenter I'll be using full of a starsan solution. I mix it around then dump the starsan solution into another bucket and use it to sanitize anything else I'll be using in the brewing process.

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You don't have to fill it up just wet it with a spray bottle. Saves a lot of solution.

Sanitation, like most things, is only as strong as the weakest link. Since we are only boiling and not killing spore-producing bacteria it seems a little over the top to drag out the 70% ETOH and start autoclavong bottles.

At the end of the day though, whatever let's you sleep at night.

I autoclave bottles because I can. I don't bottle that often for long term storage and it's actually easier in my opinion than buckets of sanitizer. Plus they hold longer.

Yes our processes are not foolproof or perfect when you really understand things but it's no reason to not try to limit the risk. Gloves and solid cleaning practices seem like a no-brainer.

If I could autoclave I'd do that in a heartbeat. It's so easy

I autoclave bottles because I can.

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Do you seriously have an autoclave set up within your home?

Hey, whatever makes one happy, right? I do find this humorous, though. Consider the sanitation techniques used throughout history, and how much better we have it with some Oxi-Clean and Star-San. They made beer before anyone even understood germ theory.

What kind (mat'l) glove would you recommend? (I use star-san to sanitize)

I only occasionally will autoclave bottles, but often autoclave kegs Obviously I work in a lab and do the whole sterile technique thing there. I'm careful when brewing but certainly not close to anal. I mostly do NOT wear gloves. I am however very selective about what surfaces my hands touch and am always on the lookout for ways to be as clean as possible.

I DO wear gloves however at a time when many would not bother, namely all of the grain handling steps. I had some problems with Lactobacillus contamination (luckily I like sour beers) and systematically went over my process to reduce any possible contamination points. We've all heard about avoiding crushing grains near where you brew and I might not have been quite far enough in this respect. However, I noticed an even more problematic step - mashing in!!!! I had simply been pouring the crushed grain into the mash tun while stirring. I noticed that this produced quite a dust cloud and afterwards noticed that my ARMS were covered in grain dust. Fast forward to wort chilling and one could easily have dust fall off the unwashed arms (how many of us wash our arms?) into the cooling wort. I now wear elbow length gloves for all grain handling steps. Plus I no longer dumps the grains in. I add them scoop by scoop to minimize the dust clouds. I also removed/remediated all surfaces above where I brew so they won't collect any dust.

I was just doing some reading of a few brewing science journal articles and read that one of the recent advances that has resulted in better quality malts is the use of starter cultures during the malting process, yes malting. Apparently this is sort of a probiotics thing to out-compete harmful microbes, and provides a few other benefits, like increased lauter effieciency. We'll some of these "probiotics" are lactobacilli!!! So not only is there natural lactobacillus on the barley, but the maltsters are actually adding more of it to the malt.

RocketBroom said:

Concentrations above 70% tend to dry out too fast. The alcohol needs time to penetrate into the cell walls of the baddies to blow them up.

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Sounds logical, but more so is that because microbes have a mechanism to exchange fluids in and out of their cell membranes, they can turn this off if they detect something toxic to protect themselves. The 70/30 mix of alcohol and water gives plenty of alcohol to kill it with enough water to "trick" it into letting it through.

For those that use non-latex gloves, are you using nitrile? Are you using non-latex for a specific reason? Allergies?

I'm just wondering if there's a latex reaction to some sanitizing agent or other brewing agent.

mixedbrewer said:

Oxygen based cleaner, then star san, bare hands, but I get plenty of star san on them...

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Same here..

pjj2ba, I think thats a very good Idea to be mindful of where your contamination sources are, like dust from grains and wind.Wearing gloves and washing up well after milling will reduce your risk of bringing some thing over from the grains to the cooled wort. And like you I don't wear gloves when I brew, though the Bilchmann brewing gloves I've always wanted to get a pair to protect my hands during brewing.

I also work in a lab, and work using sterile techniques, like the OP. But one thing that always gets me, is that when people who have not been acquainted with sterile techniques used for working with biologicals tend to think of the latex glove, and other pieces of personal safety equipment as a shield from contaminating their work.

Gloves are only more sanitary than your hands when they are first put on and before you touch anything. It always fun to watch some one walking around the lab with their gloves on, and go straight in the the hood to do tissue culture work with out changing gloves or spraying them down with 70% EtOH, and the next day they are confused why some thing other than their cells is growing in their flasks.

I think my point here is for all the people who are thinking about incorporating gloves into their brew day. Gloves are to protect you not your work. If you use them, change them often. be mindful of what you touch and when you are touching it, and wash your hands and arms frequently, just like you do with out gloves...right. Determine when and where your most sensitive steps are in the brewing process. ie, post boil, pitching, racking, packaging and dispensing (if you are kegging) and be extra diligent at these points. Incorporate a mandatory hand washing after the boil, and before pitching.

I brew sour beers, so contamination comes with my "brewery territory." I basically just try not to sneeze on the beer.

J/K. I actually start with Oxiclean to clean/get the chunks out, then Iodophor, then re-sanitize AGAIN with Star San. I don't use gloves, but I don't touch anything with my hands unless they've just come out of the bucket of Star San solution themselves.

DeeDub76 said:

Do you seriously have an autoclave set up within your home?

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Not in my house, at my place of employment. We're talking large too, not the little countertop dentist office ones.

They would go stupid here (my employer) if I toted in a few cases of bottles to run through the autoclave. But that is awesome that you can!

billdog said:

Thoughts? You can tell me I'm a crazy anal SOB if you want, I don't mind.

:rockin:

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I actually wanted to ask this a while back. I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe myself and guard myself against putting anything in a fresh brew so I go to these extremes too, nearly to the 'T' as you. I even wear a bandana to prevent any stray (balding) hairs from falling in.

But it tastes good!

HH60gunner said:

Wow.... that's some pretty insane measures. I just wash my equipment out which is usually clean anyway because I clean after every batch as well. Then I fill up the fermenter I'll be using full of a starsan solution. I mix it around then dump the starsan solution into another bucket and use it to sanitize anything else I'll be using in the brewing process.

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+1 on that

DeeDub76 said:

They would go stupid here (my employer) if I toted in a few cases of bottles to run through the autoclave. But that is awesome that you can!

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So would mine. That's why I make sure they don't know about it. It pays to know the guy who runs that service. Back in college, it was the guy who taught me to brew and we autoclaved everything we could. I used to have a Pyrex carboy and we'd do that, the tubing and racking cane. Not that it mattered but because we could.