First kettle sour...need help!

[BrewinSoldier]

Hey guys! I'm doing my first-ever Kettle sour in my grainfather. I basically did and All Grain blonde and used wyeast lactobacillus. I've been reading up a bunch on sours and I'm really worried about contaminating my equipment. I know once I do the final boil in my grainfather it will kill all the bugs from the lacto. The problem that I'm worried about is my pH meter and testing the sample to make sure that my pH is low enough before I start my final boil.

How do I sanitize my pH probe since I can't boil it and I don't want any cross-contamination on my other equipment or future Brews?

I have to check it tonight so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[charger]

What would you be checking with your pH meter post boil that sanitation is absolutely necessary?

 

[Imperator85]

What kind of pH meter do you have? Provided it actually clean, you should be able to rinse it in Star-san or equivalent to sanitize it.

 

[BrewinSoldier]

I have a Mettler Toledo Seven Compact. I know as long as everything is boiled it will kill the bugs from the lactobacillus, but for the things I can't, basically just the pH meter, will star San kill the bugs? I know breweries are all freaked out about doing sours because they say it ruins there equipment. That's why a bunch of them have separate brewing equipment just dedicated for sours.

 

[BrewinSoldier]

What would you be checking with your pH meter post boil that sanitation is absolutely necessary?

I check finished beer pH so when I do the same recipe, I can check to see that everything stayed the same.

But my reasoning is that on the next batches when I check mash pH post boil, I'd have to have several glass beakers on hand because once I use it to dip in the mash and collect a sample, I can dip in it again if I have to make adjustments to the pH and retest..then I'd have to boil all the beakers every time. Just seems like a lot of extra work just because of a contaminated pH probe.

I do have a Milwaukee mw102 that needs a new probe. I guess I could buy a new probe for that and strictly use that one for when I brew sours.