Get the Brett out

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Owly055

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I just brewed a Brett Saison, and it's bottle conditioning as the Brett does it's work. My concern now is getting the Brett out of the fermenter I used, which rumor has it, can be very difficult. This fermenter is a 3 gallon acrylic Walmart Ice Tea dispenser. My intent is to submerge it briefly in boiling water using a hot water bath canner. I'll remove and disassemble the spigot and gaskets, and boil them also, the lid will be likewise dunked........

Is this a reasonable procedure?


H.W.
 
I've read a 50/50 bleach solution should do the trick. For me, I just dedicated a fermenter and plastic stuff to sours.
 
I would just use that fermentor for wild beers from now on. I only use glass carboys for brett and sours since they can stay in any miniscule scratch in the fermentor for a long time and be hard to get out. It sounds like its not very expensive, so why not just use that one solely for wild beers anymore. Its not worth it to take the risk of infecting a batch or leeching out chemicals from boiling plastic that wasnt even intended for use with alcohol in the first place from Walmart
 
I would just use that fermentor for wild beers from now on. I only use glass carboys for brett and sours since they can stay in any miniscule scratch in the fermentor for a long time and be hard to get out. It sounds like its not very expensive, so why not just use that one solely for wild beers anymore. Its not worth it to take the risk of infecting a batch or leeching out chemicals from boiling plastic that wasnt even intended for use with alcohol in the first place from Walmart

Probably good advice............ Your concerns about leaching do not really apply to acrylic, which is by far the most intert food safe of all plastics.....


H.W.
 
Starsan won't kill brett?

It will. You can find numerous sources to quote on that, including the major yeast labs.

Some people still don't want to risk it. I have separate fermenters for clean v. wild, but reuse the same bottling bucket (but I do swap out the spigot, go figure). I haven't noticed any cross contamination issues.
 
Those that have risked it, do they end up with a brett infection?

I'm not trying to be glib. I've never done any sours or brett beers so I have literally no experience or input. But everyone says "separate plastics" or "separate equipment". Or if you get any type of infection, chuck all your plastics. It makes sense if your plastics get scratched or damaged, but does that make sense in all cases?

I don't know, it just seems like everyone says it so everyone does it. Will we look back on it ten years from now with skepticism like many do now with secondary fermentation?
 
Those that have risked it, do they end up with a brett infection?

I'm not trying to be glib. I've never done any sours or brett beers so I have literally no experience or input. But everyone says "separate plastics" or "separate equipment". Or if you get any type of infection, chuck all your plastics. It makes sense if your plastics get scratched or damaged, but does that make sense in all cases?

I don't know, it just seems like everyone says it so everyone does it. Will we look back on it ten years from now with skepticism like many do now with secondary fermentation?


There is a lot of truth in what you say........ Common wisdom dates from a conclusion someone reached long ago..... correct or incorrect. I'm pretty confident of my sterilization with boiling water....... The immersion time was long enough to have killed any yeast that might have been hiding. Before dumping the next batch of wort in it, I'll fill it with starsan for a few hours while the brew is in progress......... as I always do. The fermenter is quite smooth on the inside........no scratches..... I clean with a Dobie Pad that lives in a container of starsan...... If you are not familiar with a Dobie, it's a sponge wrapped with a pretty agressive nylon mesh..... It doesn't scratch plastic.

I'm not as particular as some brewers, as I seldom repeat a recipe exactly, or try to brew to a specific style....... If brett somehow got started in one of my beers where I didn't intend it to be, I could live with that........ It would just be a different beer than I intended, which is NOT the end of the world when you are brewing 2.5 to 3 gallon brews. I visited with my microbrewer friend this evening, and his latest brew of my favorite (of his brews) APA had gone awry somehow and had some funk.......... He attributed it to fermentation as his chiller had failed during the early stages of fermentation. He couldn't really describe the flavor to me, and unfortunately didn't save any..... I would have liked to have tasted it. Instead he dumped in a bunch of bitter orange peel and some blood orange concentrate, and made it into a completely different beer.......... Quite good actually. That's thinking on your feet! Repeatability is pretty darn important when you brew commercially! It isn't for me. I know I had off flavors last summer when I didn't have a way to maintain temp decently..........An "off flavor" in one beer is a desirable flavor in another beer. I've had a lot of fun with Bell Saison manipulating the fermentation temps to get different flavors... I've fermented it in temps ranging from the low 60's to the high 80's and low 90's......I kind of like the radical "funk" of the higher temps. The low temps produce a subtle funk that can seem like an "off flavor" in a non-saison. When it's intense, there can be little doubt what it's supposed to be.......

Howard

Howard
 

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