question about introducing brett and other bacteria

[bernardsmith]

Very new to brewing but have been wine making for many years so this may be an incredibly naive question to those on this forum. I am really very interested in brewing my first lambic. How concerned should I be about introducing brett and other bacteria into my plastic hoses, fermenters, carboys, testing equipment etc? Do those who brew lambics keep a separate set of equipment dedicated only to sour beers or in your experience do normal routine sanitization procedures take care of this. For the record, wine makers scrupulously avoid any contact with brett... Thanks

 

[jnacey]

I imagine that you'll get a variety of answer on this one, but most people (myself included) use a separate set of gear for funky/sour beers. When you need to get a new bottling bucket, siphon, hoses, just hand your old ones down to your sour program.

Anything that is scratchable like plastic fermenters and hoses have a higher probability of hiding microbes in scratches, where sanitizer can't get to them. Stuff like a glass fermenter, if cleaned well, should be fine. These microbes die like any others with proper cleaning, but it's a pretty low expense to just hand down equipment.

 

[edroberts]

Some people and breweries go extreme and separate out equipment (Boulevard goes so far as to rent out another bottling space apart from the brewery to add brett to Saison Brett at bottling). In reality, brett yeast and souring bacteria can be handled on the same equipment as regular yeast, so long as they are cleaned well.

Brett, for starters builds a protective barrier from oxygen, which makes it difficult to clean. However, very hot water will take care of this barrier and do a good job in killing off brett (as well as most brewing bacteria). However, a lot of plastics are simply not able to handle near-boiling water (such as siphon tubing). In addition, it's porous nature can make proper cleaning more of a challenge. As such, it may be best to separate out this gear.
Otherwise a prolonged soak in this hot or boiling water, plus a PBW clean and a soak in warmed StarSan can easily do the trick for the rest of your equipment.

 

[bernardsmith]

Thank you edroberts and jnacey. Very helpful indeed.