Keep it clean?

Hey there brewers!

I was thinking a lot about this, I sanitize all equipment and fermentor, wait untill worth it is cooled down, and then pour some yeast. But, yeast is not sanitized, it may contain some bacteria? Also, if I add hops to fermentation and other ingridients, they to contain some bacteria?

So is it possible to ruin beer quality?

Best regards!

 

Commercial quality yeast is effectively bacteria-free. You are more likely to get a bacterial infection from the scissors used to open the yeast package rather than the package itself.

Hops pose absolutely no threat for bacterial contamination. Alcohol and the acidic compounds in hops are what preserve beer from spoilage.

 

A couple of things, buy a pair of scissors that become your brew day scissors. After getting a single infection from a can opener, I immediately bought certain household items that are used during my brew day only. The scissors are pretty inexpensive and they come apart for easy cleaning. I drop them into my sanitizer just before I'm ready to pitch yeast.

Dunk the yeast package into your sanitizer. It won't hurt it at all. Maybe it's all paranoia, but I do that as well. I do it with vials as well.

Finally, hops. Keep them frozen. I don't know if hops that aren't frozen will form some kind of bacteria. The guy above is right and science suggests that they won't; however, they will keep fresher longer and it's easy enough. The hops also get the sanitizer dunk treatment.

As a last precaution, I use a spray bottle of sanitizer to spray the mouth of the carboy after dumping everything into it. Again, easy to do and really if it is unnecessary, then it's no harm no foul.

Finally, relax. People have been making beer and wine in less sanitary conditions for eons. We're quite lucky to have such wonderful things at our fingertips such as star san and PBW.

 

Ha. I don't even sanitize my secondary vessel.

That is crazy sanitation. I guess an infection will do that to you, huh?

 

Dry hopping bags or adding fruit & the like can bring infections &/or wild yeasts. So simmering fruit first & boiling/sanitizing hop sacks helps a lot. I've even pureed fruit & strained a lot of the solids out to add to secondary.

 

Nah, I did it all before. I just bought specific things like scissors and such after the infection. All I'm talking about is dunking stuff in star San for a second. It's seamless to my process.

 

I'm out of step with just about everybody else, but I never dry hop. I see nothing to prevent wild yeast from being on the hops. I know it's a very small risk, but...

 

I don't know, I can't see eliminating an entire process that is used industry wide, both commercially and home-brewing, due to a potential risk of infection. If you don't like dry-hopped beers, that is one thing, but if you are avoiding dry hopping only because you are worried about an infection, I can't imagine I would be home-brewing at all if I were that risk-averse, with all the other ways things can go wrong....

 

Don't fear the dry hop.

Hops have natural anti-bacterial qualities. If you add them directly from their package into the fermenter, your chances of introducing infection is so small it's not even worth worrying about.

 

I think people are forgetting that the initial reason hops were ever introduced was to prevent spoilage bugs from contaminating it. Before the widespread use of hops, strong herbal and spice agents (gruits) were used to mask off-flavors from spoilage. Otherwise, old beer was sour beer. Old wine was vinegar.

 

When you add hops to the boil, any wild yeast that could be present would be killed off. When you dry hop in the secondary, the good yeast have used up the available fermentables so even if there are wild yeast present, there is nothing left for them to take hold.

 

Can opener? How did that happen?

 

My friend got an infection from dry hops. We did a 10 gal batch and spit it. The recipe was given to us and the citra hops that were given to us for dry hopping came from an open un refrigerated package that I watch the LHBS guy measure on his scale. They didn't smell good, so I didn't dry hop. His infected mine didn't. Could be something else of course

 

I'm trying a bit of an experiment now with my Hellfire IIPA. I usually boil muslin hop sacks, sanitize, then let'em float in primary to dry hop. But, since getting a 2 gallon pail with 2-2 gallon nylon bags of fine mesh from home depot online, I decided to dry hop in one of those. Soaked it in Starsan, with a clean shot glass in it. Then added the hot peppers & dry hops, tied it shut as far down as I dared. Dropped it in. Next Saturday, we'll see if it's infected again or not.

 

^ where does the 2 gallon pail come into this?

 

That's 2 gallon bag in a 6.5 gallon bucket. No 2 gallon pail? I'm sinking it this time to see if infections are better avoided that way vs floating the bag. Also, this one's made of nylon vs muslin/cheese cloth in the usual hop socks.