Steam sterilising

[Drummerbrew1985]

I use 2 electric brew kettles. One as a HLT and the other as the BK.
I tried putting a little water in my HLT and boiling/steaming my fermentation bucket before use.
Seems to be a super way to get things mega clean without any nasty chems or chlorine stuff.
Anyone else done anything similar?


Primary - The wife's birthday EPA
Conditioning - APA
Kegged - Centennial/cascade pale ale

 

[Minbari]

Any crazy sterilization pre-boil seems like a waste of time and effort to me. you arent going to grow anything in the hour it takes to mash and then the boil will kill everything else.

As others have pointed out, there is more bacteria and bugs on the grain you put in the MLT than you would ever have in your pots.

 

[ajdelange]

I do use steam for sterilizing kegs. Pressure out of the boiler is such that the temperature in the keg, vented through a cracked valve on the gas port, is appreciably above 212 so that it does a good job of sterilization. But there are benefits beyond that. When I disconnect the steam I immediately connect CO2. As the steam condenses it is, thus, replaced by CO2. When all is cool (after spraying with cold water) it is a simple matter to invert the keg and use the excess CO2 pressure to blow the condensate out through the coupler's gas port. Result is a sterile keg under positive CO2 pressure ready for counter pressure filling.

Not that I do use a culinary steam filter to clean up the steam before blowing it into the kegs. Also note that I am using Sankey kegs.

 

[IslandLizard]

Any crazy sterilization pre-boil seems like a waste of time and effort to me. you arent going to grow anything in the hour it takes to mash and then the boil will kill everything else.

As others have pointed out, there is more bacteria and bugs on the grain you put in the MLT than you would ever have in your pots.

He's not sanitizing his kettles, he wants to use steam to sanitize his (plastic) bucket fermentors.
I doubt it being sufficient though. And the second you pull that hot bucket off the steam, new bugs (think grain dust!) can drop in. Use Starsan and drain it thoroughly if you fear it.

 

[Minbari]

He's not sanitizing his kettles, he wants to use steam to sanitize his (plastic) bucket fermentors.
I doubt it being sufficient though. And the second you pull that hot bucket off the steam, new bugs (think grain dust!) can drop in. Use Starsan and drain it thoroughly if you fear it.

ah ok, I misread it.

I agree with you though. sanitizing is good enough for what we do and steam can be dangerous.