A Brewing Hat for Cleanliness?

[rico567]

There is an old article in the Consumer Reports archives somewhere about them analyzing the ingredients in fancy candy (Fannie Mae, etc.). It details the number of "insect parts" and "rodent hairs" to be found in the mix. Not something for the squeamish to read....

Personally, I suppose that a hat may do some good......but why not just go all the way and use one of those dedicated hair net things, that's actually designed to keep the stuff out. Since I sport one of those Old Testament prophet-type beards, I suppose I should be looking for the whole-head model....

 

[TheDom]

While brewing, I always cover up:

 

[TheWeeb]

maybe a full body condom like this wonderful lady is wearing would be perfect for brewing. . .

 

[hal2814]

If you're over 15 years old or so and you've eaten pizza at a restaurant, it's highly likely that at some point your pizza sauce was mixed by hand. That's just the way it was done for a long time. Here in Georgia, the health inspectors started cracking down on it some time in the mid-90's and we had to switch to a paddle.

Having formerly worked in the pizza industry for many years, my take is this: When you sit in that oven for as long as that pizza sits in the oven, I'll take your complaint seriously. We never had a complaint of hair in our food. Ever. We did one time have to ban band-aids on the prep line because one made its way into a salad. Now THAT is disgusting. We also had to fire a guy who kept eating croutons while he was working the salad prep line and pepperonis while working the pizza prep line.

EDIT: Almost forgot the original question. With all the settling and siphoning and everything else that goes into brewing beer, I'm just not that worried that a hair will make it into the finished product. For that matter, has anyone ever found a hair in their beer?

 

[waldoar15]

I don't. More than likely plenty of rat hair and feces in the grains anyway.

 

[Kirbster]

I usually dont wear a hat while brewing, however considering making my wife wear a hairnet at all times. Her long black hair gets everywhere. I do keep a pretty strict cleaning/sanitizing regime but would never worry about my hair getting in the brew unless I was standing over the keggle combing it while I was whirlpooling.

 

[moosetav]

I have a nice Founders hat I wear while brewing. More of a little tradition than anything else really. I guess it helps keep sweat out of my eyes when standing over a boil kettle in August....

 

[l1ranger]

my moustache will filter out any hair that makes it into my beer.

 

[stageseven]

I would imagine that any hair that actually made it into the fermenter would drop out of suspension with the yeast. As for commercial breweries, most of them filter anyway so in the event that any hair did make it into the fermenter, it would be filtered out.

 

[pjj2ba]

No hat, but I do wear elbow length gloves when weighing grain, milling and mashing in. These are some pretty dusty steps. I had a problem with lactobacillus so I went through my process and paid attention to possible contamination sources. I was particularly amazed at how much dust ending up on my arms as I was mashing in. I was just setting my bucket on the edge of my MLT (SS pot) and tipping it as I stirred. The grain was falling 8" tops. I now wear the gauntlets and am a little more gentle when I mash in (gently by the scoop)