Sanitizing a plastic fermenter after a long-term brett fermentation

[tyrub42]

Hi,

I'm planning to do a brett saison over the winter (primary with t58, transfer to secondary and pitch a bunch of brett b. and age for 4-5 months). I have a plastic bucket that I was going to use, but I have a larger PET plastic fermenter with a screw top that seals better and can also hold an extra 10 liters of beer. I don't use that fermenter for fermenting anymore, but I do use it for bottle cleaning with PBW, and would like to be able to continue to do that if possible.

Wondering if it would be reasonable to think I could get it back to safety by giving it a bleach soak after the brett fermentation is done (could also do bleach and then iodine or whatever else), or if it would be good for brett only afterwards. It is a solid plastic fermenter with no spigot and smooth surfaces. It was used for about 20 batches of regular sac fermentation before I retired it and started using it for cleaning and delabeling bottles.

I don't use it often, but if I need bottles, it's very convenient to have because I can get about 36 12oz glass bottles in there to delabel.

Again, I'm not planning to do any active fermenting in it except for brett, but since I'm using it to clean bottles, I suppose there still is some risk. What do you think?

Thanks,
Tyler

 

[RPh_Guy]

There's absolutely no way Brett will transfer to bottles you have soaking in there with PBW. The hydrogen peroxide released by the sodium percarbonate in the PBW is a powerful anti-microbial.

Bleach is not helpful.

Before use for fermentation, I would rinse the vessel thoroughly with an acid wash like Star San, citric acid, or distilled vinegar to remove the PBW residue.

Hope this helps.

 

[tyrub42]

Helps a lot, thanks! Was going to starsan it, but didn't think about the residue issue, so I'll give it several rounds of starsan rinsing with fresh starsan to make sure it gets out.

Out of curiosity, why isn't bleach helpful? Thought it was a stronger oxidizing chemical than percarbonate. Is it just ineffective on Brett?

Thanks again!

There's absolutely no way Brett will transfer to bottles you have soaking in there with PBW. The hydrogen peroxide released by the sodium percarbonate in the PBW is a powerful anti-microbial.

Bleach is not helpful.

Before use for fermentation, I would rinse the vessel thoroughly with an acid wash like Star San, citric acid, or distilled vinegar to remove the PBW residue.

Hope this helps.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Out of curiosity, why isn't bleach helpful? Thought it was a stronger oxidizing chemical than percarbonate. Is it just ineffective on Brett?

Bleach doesn't penetrate biofilms.

 

[tyrub42]

Bleach doesn't penetrate biofilms.

Very good info, I had no idea. Thanks!

 

[piteko]

Hi everybody! Just my 2 cents:
I usually clean first with sodium hydroxide (also known as lye and caustic soda) and then I sanitize with sodium percarbonate and hydrogen peroxide (they both produce hydrogen peroxide). Never had a problem since I accidentally had a wild fermentation into the fermenter that ruined a 70 shilling batch. After that I cleaned again very carefully and sanitized very carefully with an extra dose of sodium percarbonate and hydrogen peroxide and the wild fermentation wasn't gone (ruined a second AIPA batch). Used again sodium hydroxide to clean and used bleach this time to sanitize: problem solved.
Bleach kills spores which hydrogen peroxide doesn't (learned the hard way). You may kill bacteria but if you don't kill their spores you may not solve the problem. In doubt, I would use bleach or both, but only after cleaning.

Cheers from Italy!
Piteko

 

[RPh_Guy]

Sporulating bacteria are rare contaminants in breweries, not something you need to cover.