added fruit to secondary - sanitation question

hi,

I brewed up a cream ale recently, 2 weeks in the plastic fermenter, than racked to secondary, put 1 oz isinglass and zest/peel from 1/2 a lemon into the secondary. Cleaned/sanitized the carboy, and soaked the peel in sanitizing solution for 10 minutes. Did not add the solution, just the peel. Would there be any issues with mold/bacteria getting in the beer? It's only been 2 days, and don't notice anything visible. Also, I plan on leaving it in for 1 week, bottling it this Saturday. Would I have any issues with this? Thanks in advance!

 

Soak the peel in vodka next time and add the liquid as well. I don't want to drink sani , even if it's OK. I would think you are fine though.

 

I don't think you'll have any issues...what you see a lot of on the forums is people putting their fruit additions in vodka in order to sanitize their secondary additions. You can also freeze/heat (pasteurize) and that will do the trick.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks! I did read alot about soaking peels/fruit in vodka overnight then adding; I don't have any vodka on hand, and didn't feel like driving out 10 miles to the liquor store for some, so thought the sanitized water solution should be good enough. Plus, the alcohol in the beer already should inhibit any mold/bacterial growth I'd think?

 

About the vodka thing. Can't that kill off the yeast that you may need for conditioning?

 

I don't believe the small amount of vodka will hurt anything...it's not like you're using all that much to begin with. However, even if you dump the vodka in I don't think the yeast will be affected Ina negative manner but could add to the ABV if a lot is added.

Cheers!