30 batches never used sanitizer!

[bkvanbek]

But it was by accident. I bought a kit from Midwest Supplies, that has "everything you need". So I used the "easy clean" that came in the kit. When I got low I went back to Midwest Supplies and asked for a sanitizer and they sold me more Easy Clean and some oxi type cleaner.

Now one year to the month from my first batch, low on the Easy Clean, I asked for sanitizer. I didn't ask for Easy Clean, as I was always suspicious. They sold me Star San.

How have I not had a problem, unless I have one in the 6 or 7 batches in the works?

 

[CJ1]

Beer was made for thousands of years with nothing close to the sanitation we expect today. Yeast are pretty awesome, and if you pitch enough of them right after the boil, they are likely to produce alcohol faster than little bacteria on your equipment can infect your brew.

 

[Yooper]

Easy clean is a cleaner, and not a sanitizer by technical standards. However, it still does the job even if not FDA approved as a sanitizer. There are some standards for calling a product a sanitizer, and that involves money, so some companies don't chose to that route. That doesn't mean it's not a sanitizer, just that it's not characterized legally is one.

I've used One Step in the past, which is similar to Easy Clean, without any issues at all. Once the One Step was gone, I bought Star-san, but the One Step was fine for years and years.

 

[bkvanbek]

Easy clean is a cleaner, and not a sanitizer by technical standards. However, it still does the job even if not FDA approved as a sanitizer. There are some standards for calling a product a sanitizer, and that involves money, so some companies don't chose to that route. That doesn't mean it's not a sanitizer, just that it's not characterized legally is one.

I've used One Step in the past, which is similar to Easy Clean, without any issues at all. Once the One Step was gone, I bought Star-san, but the One Step was fine for years and years.

I remember now, the Midwest guy said something similar.

 

[smccarter]

I've used one step for 12 years. I've never had a problem. I didn't start using starsan until I began kegging. I still use one step as my main sanitizer. Nothing at all wrong with one step. It does a great job.

 

[Cyclman]

I heard the owner of Five Star, who makes StarSan, in an interview say that a very thorough cleaning can in fact sanitize something. Sanitizer is just a more effective killer.

 

[jiggs_casey]

From the perspective of the beer, for everything preboil to boil, dawn dish soap. For everything postboil, dawn dish soap followed by a warm water, one step bath.

 

[podz]

How have I not had a problem, unless I have one in the 6 or 7 batches in the works?

In addition to what Yooper said about things being legally classified as sanitisers, I would add that contracting a bacterial infection is about as likely as getting struck by lightning. It's not the sort of thing that will definitely happen if you don't use a sanitiser; you really, really need to go out of your way for it to happen.

 

[Maylar]

In addition to what Yooper said about things being legally classified as sanitisers, I would add that contracting a bacterial infection is about as likely as getting struck by lightning. It's not the sort of thing that will definitely happen if you don't use a sanitiser; you really, really need to go out of your way for it to happen.

Really? I'm not doubting you podz, in fact I'm REALLY interested in pursuing this topic. As a beginner I've been taught to be anal about cleanliness. I use One Step followed with a rinse (it leaves a film), then StarSan. Every time, with every piece of equipment that will touch the cider. I won't even let tap water touch my equipment after StarSan unless it's been boiled first.

The process of cleaning / sanitizing takes me 5 times a long as actually working with the cider. If i can skip some of those steps safely it would dramatically improve my productivity in the brew room (kitchen).

Your thoughts on this, please.

 

[Shred]

Cleaning does 99% of the job. The santizer finishes the job. It's not worth the risk. Clean your equipment as you have been and mix StarSan with distilled water. It will keep for months in distilled water. All you need to do is fill a spray bottle with it and your sanitizing will take a couple seconds.

 

[podz]

Really? I'm not doubting you podz, in fact I'm REALLY interested in pursuing this topic. As a beginner I've been taught to be anal about cleanliness. I use One Step followed with a rinse (it leaves a film), then StarSan. Every time, with every piece of equipment that will touch the cider. I won't even let tap water touch my equipment after StarSan unless it's been boiled first.

The process of cleaning / sanitizing takes me 5 times a long as actually working with the cider. If i can skip some of those steps safely it would dramatically improve my productivity in the brew room (kitchen).

Your thoughts on this, please.

I've never used sanitiser in my life, only disinfectant. Main difference between the two is that sanitiser works in like 30 seconds and disinfectant works in like 10 minutes. That said, I don't leave the disinfectant on for 10 minutes - more like 30 seconds.

My cider process goes like this (done in my shower room / sauna):

1. weigh 750 grams of sugar into a glass bowl (straight out of my bowl cabinet).

2. fill up a 10 litre rinse bucket with hot water and a few drops of disinfectant. it makes a pretty good foam.

3. pour half the contents of the rinse bucket into my 20 litre demijohn.

4. toss my airlock, rubber cap and funnel into my rinse bucket.

5. pour contents of the demijohn back into my rinse bucket.

6. rinse demijohn out with water from the shower faucet.

7. rinse funnel with shower faucet.

8. funnel on top of demijohn.

9. cut open boxes of apple juice with scissors.

10. pour 5 litres of apple juice into demijohn.

11. pour half sugar into funnel, then 1 litre of juice.

12. repeat step 11.

13. add nutrient, rinse down with 1 litre of juice.

14. add remaining juice.

15. rinse airlock and rubber cap with shower, then pop it onto the demijohn.


That's it. Entire process takes less than 15 minutes. I've made batches into the triple digits and never had a single infection.

 

[eric19312]

In addition to what Yooper said about things being legally classified as sanitisers, I would add that contracting a bacterial infection is about as likely as getting struck by lightning. It's not the sort of thing that will definitely happen if you don't use a sanitiser; you really, really need to go out of your way for it to happen.

I disagree. Think of the number of gushers that show up to homebrew competitions and club nights.

I think some level of contamination is a virtual certainty with or without sanitizer, brewing consistently good beer requires keeping the level of contamination low enough that the contaminant is unable to compete with the chosen yeast. Some contaminants are more of an issue than others, with those able to grow in fermented beer being most concerning.

I see the effort local breweries go to reduce sources of infection and understand I can't match the level of environmental control they achieve in my garage. But I can sanitize my equipment effectively so that is what I do.

 

[podz]

I disagree. Think of the number of gushers that show up to homebrew competitions and club nights.

The overwhelming majority of those can be attributed to improper carbonation, not contamination.

Reviewing my steps above, a lot of people might classify my sanitation methods as substandard. However, I've never had a single infection in hundreds of batches. I do what works for me. We aren't talking about performing kidney transplants here, we're talking about doing something that people did for thousands of years before things such as star-san were invented.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

The overwhelming majority of those can be attributed to improper carbonation, not contamination.

Reviewing my steps above, a lot of people might classify my sanitation methods as substandard. However, I've never had a single infection in hundreds of batches. I do what works for me. We aren't talking about performing kidney transplants here, we're talking about doing something that people did for thousands of years before things such as star-san were invented.

Yeah, imagine starting fermentation with a "magic wand" or a stick that has a bunch of dried yeast from your last successful batch all over it in a big vat that the only sanitation it's received is having boiling hot sugar water dumped into it and letting it cool. Read the closet of sir kenelm digby opened sometime. Scary stuff for the modern homebrewer. At one point, for an ale, they recommend "stopping the bottles up close with wire" and burying them in the sand until they're ready to drink for fear of explosions.

 

[Yooper]

If you look at a yeast cake or your beer under a microscope, there will probably be some bacteria in there. We aren't dealing with sterilizing things here, but instead sanitizing things.

Still, if something is cleaned it's just a quick step to sanitize. Sanitizing kills many of the microbes that can ruin your beer or cider, but not all. It allows the yeast to outcompete those other microbes.

Anyway, I"ve been making wine a long time (20+ years at least). I always use tap water, I always have topped up tap water in winemaking in brewing, and I never boil my tap water. I even drink my tap water. I know that some water supplies are not safe, but that is something that I've never been concerned with in my winemaking or brewing.

When I press cider apples, I'm as clean as I can reasonably be. Commercial juices use preservatives and things that I don't, so I'm careful to use a clean press and clean and sanitized equipment. Still, my cider press is outside as are the piles of apples. Being as clean and sanitary as possible is good practice. But you will never, ever, kill 100% of wild yeast and bacteria.

 

[BrewSavage]

I've had some great farm house ciders when i was in Somerset (England), and I've seen the conditions these ciders were made in: pretty loose. There was care to make sure things were wholesome, but nothing approaching the good laboratory practice preached in the home brew world.

So I'm not surprised the OP is happy with their cider despite never using sanitizer.

They are some artisinal cider makers in the West Country as well, with fancy bottles cider and even some of single varietals and maybe they pay closer attention to sanitary procedures or maybe they don't but who cares since their cider is boring.

 

[kh54s10]

Podz, to say that because you don't use a sanitizer and haven't had an infection, that someone else's beer won't get infected is poor advice. I agree that if you are very clean the odds are lower. But when seeing multitudes of pictures of infections on this forum. It is not as rare as getting struck by lightning.

Why take the risk by not using a recognized sanitizer?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[bu_gee]

Yeah, sanitiztion is fine and all, but you're only looking at getting rid of only 99.9% (disinfectants only get 99.999%) of microorganisms. That means that 1 of every 1000 survive. That is a large number. In essense you're talking about reducing 1 billion cells to 1 million (10,000 for a disinfectant), but that is enough for a few billion yeast cells to overpower.

If your environment is relatively clean and your cleaning procedures are thorough, there is no reason why you shouldn't expect to have reasonable results without using a product specifially marketed as a sanitizer.

 

[podz]

But when seeing multitudes of pictures of infections on this forum. It is not as rare as getting struck by lightning.

After peer review, the overwhelming majority of those pictures do not turn out to be infections, rather paranoid folks who don't recognize normal fermentation surface activity. When people are scared silly into believing that they need to operate a clean-room grade laboratory environment then no wonder they are paranoid. If one posesses a mind that is capable of it's own critical evaluation, then after a sufficient level of experience one will establish that there is no need for operating a surgical theater just to make homebrew.

 

[kh54s10]

After peer review, the overwhelming majority of those pictures do not turn out to be infections, rather paranoid folks who don't recognize normal fermentation surface activity. When people are scared silly into believing that they need to operate a clean-room grade laboratory environment then no wonder they are paranoid. If one posesses a mind that is capable of it's own critical evaluation, then after a sufficient level of experience one will establish that there is no need for operating a surgical theater just to make homebrew.

I agree that you don't need to be "surgical theater" sterile. Also that most of the posted pictures are not infections. But I took your reply to say that you don't need to use a sanitizer and that your likelihood of problems was virtually nil. That I do not agree with. I apologize if I mistook your meaning.

I just think using a proper sanitizer is a small thing to safeguard your investment in ingredients, time and labor brewing a beer that you will eagerly await.

 

[JPrather]

After peer review, the overwhelming majority of those pictures do not turn out to be infections, rather paranoid folks who don't recognize normal fermentation surface activity. When people are scared silly into believing that they need to operate a clean-room grade laboratory environment then no wonder they are paranoid. If one posesses a mind that is capable of it's own critical evaluation, then after a sufficient level of experience one will establish that there is no need for operating a surgical theater just to make homebrew.

We really just need to let Finland run the world already. Or at least every internet forum.

 

[podz]

I agree that you don't need to be "surgical theater" sterile. Also that most of the posted pictures are not infections. But I took your reply to say that you don't need to use a sanitizer and that your likelihood of problems was virtually nil. That I do not agree with. I apologize if I mistook your meaning.

I said that I use disinfectant instead of sanitiser. The reason for that is because it's what's available at the hardware store, and it's cheap. Disinfectant should do a better job than sanitiser, if used properly. I stated that I do not use it properly. That probably makes it even less effective than sanitiser.

I believe in a common-sense approach to germ killing. Inside of my fermenter, yes. Funnel, bung, and airlocks, yes I toss them in my rinse bucket because it really doesn't take any extra time. But I'm not snapping on gloves and wiping down my yeast packet before opening it. I'm not boiling top-off water. I'm not boiling sugar when making cider, it comes straight out of my kitchen container. If I do happen to rehydrate a dry yeast, it's in a drinking glass that I take out of my cupboard and a spoon that I take out of my drawer - no further cleaning.

Almost every time I've seen a photo of a real infection, there has been a hop bag involved. Almost every time.

 

[kh54s10]

I said that I use disinfectant instead of sanitiser. The reason for that is because it's what's available at the hardware store, and it's cheap. Disinfectant should do a better job than sanitiser, if used properly. I stated that I do not use it properly. That probably makes it even less effective than sanitiser.

I believe in a common-sense approach to germ killing. Inside of my fermenter, yes. Funnel, bung, and airlocks, yes I toss them in my rinse bucket because it really doesn't take any extra time. But I'm not snapping on gloves and wiping down my yeast packet before opening it. I'm not boiling top-off water. I'm not boiling sugar when making cider, it comes straight out of my kitchen container. If I do happen to rehydrate a dry yeast, it's in a drinking glass that I take out of my cupboard and a spoon that I take out of my drawer - no further cleaning.

Almost every time I've seen a photo of a real infection, there has been a hop bag involved. Almost every time.

Well, I wish you continued luck.

Maybe your disinfectants are different than ours. Most of which should not be used brewing.

I do not agree with you that you can disregard sanitation so much and suspect that if you do things like rehydrating in a glass straight out of the cupboard you will have an infection sooner rather than later.

So, since this is off topic I will leave it at that.

 

[bu_gee]

No matter what you do, it is a numbers and waiting game. If you're looking at a several month brew process, you need it to be cleaner than if you're brewing, bottling, and drinking in 6 weeks.

Saccharomyces does a good job of eating most of the available food and leaving a hostile environment (i.e. full of alcohol) for anything lurking about. Given enough time, nasties who can handle that environment (e.g. Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus) will take up residence and change the nature of your beer. But that will happen regardless of the sanitizer you use. You'll just get a longer time before you notice when you sanitize.

 

[bu_gee]

I should note that I use bleach because it is a disinfectant (more on this later), not because I don't think my beer won't turn out if I only clean thoroughly, but because I want repeatability in my beer-making "experiments." I'm only trying to mitigate a variable. I am certain that this makes my beer somewhat boring, but that is the kind of guy I am.

I know I'll get yelled at for using bleach, but it is the only disinfectant that I feel safe using because, in the end, it breaks down into salt (NaCl). But like most things biological, it is more complicated than that: If you use bleach at a concentration of 1 tsp per gallon (roughly 1.25ml per liter) for 30 seconds, you have a sanitizer (99.9% kill rate). If you use 1 Tbsp per gallon (roughly 4ml per liter) for 15 minutes, you have a disinfectant (99.999% kill rate).

So the lesson here is that you have to know how to use your sanitizer/disinfectant as much as you need to remember to use it. I would venture that most people just make a batch and say it is good enough and have no idea if they are following the instructions to get the results they think they're going to get.

Pretty much anybody who says they got an infection also says "but I used StarSan."

Also, let's not forget the sense of complacency that using a sanitizer/disinfectant can create. There is less incentive to clean all of your tools and vessels properly if you think you have a chemical solution just around the corner. No amount of sanitizer is going to get into a drop of goo in a nook of a tool or container and kill everything in there.

 

[Maylar]

I'm just trying to reduce the time that I spend cleaning stuff but I don't want to compromise my cider, so I'm looking at whether I've been going overboard or not. But after reading the different opinions here, I think I'll stick to my regimen except maybe not bothering to boil rinse water.

Thanks all for the insights.

 

[bu_gee]

I'm just trying to reduce the time that I spend cleaning stuff but I don't want to compromise my cider, so I'm looking at whether I've been going overboard or not. But after reading the different opinions here, I think I'll stick to my regimen except maybe not bothering to boil rinse water.

Thanks all for the insights.

If your tap water is chlorinated, you definitely don't need to bother with boiling rinse water. If you have well sourced or other untreated water, I would boil.