Can Brett Infect My Gas Line?

[DPlan00]

I am about to foray into brewing with Brett. I use a kegging system to keep 3 kegs on pressure in my kegerator. I have been warned to keep soft tube and plastics for brewing with Brett separate from my other brew materials for regular sacc fermentations. My question has to do with the gas line I use to force carbonate my kegs.

Is there a risk of infecting the gas line running to the Brett keg, and could this spread to the other two kegs on the line? Also, if I use the Brett keg gas line to carbonate a non-Brett beer, is there a risk of infection? If so, is there a solution other than a separate tank and line for my keg of Bretted beer?

 

[barrooze]

People often talk about sometimes getting beer in their air lines, and if that beer has brett in it, it could infect your air gas line. I haven't had any been in my gas lines before, but I guess it could happen.

The question would then be, could an infected gas line contaminate a keg? I'd think not unless you have beer getting into your line a lot and then getting pushed back into the keg. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[moti_mo]

I use a splitter in each one of my kegerators, and I always have one brett beer going on one of the lines. I haven't had any problems with cross contamination of the other beers.

I could see it potentially (but not probably) being an issue if you keep your kegerator temperature above the mid 40s, since the brett may still be active above those temperatures, although they still won't be incredibly productive until the low to mid 50's, which is well above the temperatures at which most people hold their kegerators. This is one of the strategies the wine industry recommends to reduce spoilage by Brett - reducing the aging temp of the wine by 5 to 10 degrees (from the recommended ~55 F)...although this also decreases the rate at which the wine develops.