Unnecessary brewing practices

[Brewmenn]

iv'e been doing it for several years now without issue,i still sanitise everything post boil on brewday but the way i see it with the bttles is they never really leave a sanitary state,if stored with a bit of thought.
how do you sanitise your bottles?it used to take me way longer than 5 minutes for around 35 bottles

I was thinking about this a little more.

Why do you bother sanitizing anything that you've used before? If you sanitized it the first time, and washed and stored properly it it should still be sanitized right?

I think the flaw in that reasoning it assuming that washing is perfect. If that was true we would never need to sanitize anything after washing it. The point of sanitizing is to kill off what got missed in washing, or what may grow on what got missed in washing.

 

[Brewmenn]

As a new brewer one think I'm always seeing people post about that seems unnecessary is excessive concern over ABV, especially it being lower than expected. If you like the beer why does it matter? If you're worried about not getting as much buzz as desired after drinking 2 you probably have a different problem.

 

[Gameface]

As a new brewer one think I'm always seeing people post about that seems unnecessary is excessive concern over ABV, especially it being lower than expected. If you like the beer why does it matter? If you're worried about not getting as much buzz as desired after drinking 2 you probably have a different problem.

One of the issues is not directly related to how much alcohol you'll get out of the beer but how the flavor balance will be affected. Underattenuated beer has more residual sweetness than expected. Many people prefer their beer on the dry side.

 

[martinworswick]

I was thinking about this a little more.

Why do you bother sanitizing anything that you've used before? If you sanitized it the first time, and washed and stored properly it it should still be sanitized right?

I think the flaw in that reasoning it assuming that washing is perfect. If that was true we would never need to sanitize anything after washing it. The point of sanitizing is to kill off what got missed in washing, or what may grow on what got missed in washing.

not really,for instance my fermenters get a bit of a scrub etc and i'm pretty sure that wouldn't be sanitary,also,using and storing a lot of equipment so it remained sanitary would be difficult- at least for me.

the reason why i see bottles as being different is if the beer i drank was good(or at least uninfected)then the bottle was a good environment for it and as long as its rinsed and stored upside down will remain so,if the beer in the fermenter also tastes good and also has alcohol in it to give it a level of protection then theres little, if anything to go wrong.

many will disagree,its the first time iv'e mentioned it on a forum as i knew it would go against the grain for many but i've done it for years now without issue and will continue doing so,at least until i start kegging-soon hopefully!

 

[deBrouwer]

Sanitizing is not the same as sterilizing. Sanitizing leaves a small amount of bacteria (and wild yeast, etc.) behind. This amount is inconsequential in the short term, especially since alcohol creates a hostile environment for baddies to grow. But if (for example) you left a carboy with trub residue sitting for a long time, the small amount of baddies left after sanitizing may grow into a not-so-small amount. Same would go for bottles that were merely rinsed after use.

So to answer "If you sanitized it the first time, and washed and stored properly it it should still be sanitized right?", the answer would be "not necessarily."

 

[deBrouwer]

Olive oil instead of wort aeration seems to have enough research around it to answer my questions, so that is what I do, and that is why I don't invest in aeration equipment or spend my calories shaking 5-10 gallons of sugar water.

How much olive oil do you add, how do you mix it in, and at which stage(s) (starter, primary, both)?

I'm definitely interested in trying this out.

 

[fearwig]

Airlocks and secondaries are obviously unnecessary.

It's not exactly something that's unnecessary, but there are lots of things people say you can't do that you should and can (like squeeze the grain bag):

I brew and mash 9-14 gal recipes of smallish beers in a 7-gal kettle and dilute to fill 2-3 5-gal bucket fermenters, which definitely confounds the traditionalists ("But you're WATERING down BEER! With WATER!" --like you would in lautering?). I love it, tons of volume, cheap equipment, no change in quality.

I ran out of starsan several batches ago and have been using bleach and thorough rinsing from tap on my buckets and tubes for several batches, and everything has been just gravy. People are so scared of their water, but if it's carrying enough bugs to demonstrably (reproducably) cause infection I would not drink it anyway.

The riskiest thing I've done is grind near my fermenters. In hindsight that was totally foolish and I'm not repeating it. Still, no infections.

 

[fearwig]

How much olive oil do you add, how do you mix it in, and at which stage(s) (starter, primary, both)?

I'm definitely interested in trying this out.

My recollection is that the pioneer of this (whoever it was, don't have the link) says you should not simply add olive oil to your water and that there's a consensus the findings have been misinterpreted, or misapplied, or whatever. They also said the amount involved would be less than one drop. So don't go pouring oil in your beer, oil of any sort, unless you want it to look like still water with a sheen on top. "Mmm, that slick mouthfeel!"

If you do add one drop of olive oil to your wort, you should really aerate too, unless you're doing a side-by-side simply to disprove it.

Update: I think it's a fool's errand so I'm not going to read it thoroughly enough to figure out if I "recollect" it properly, but here's a 27-page thread about it. If I'm wrong do let me know. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/using-olive-oil-instead-oxygen-47872/

 

[kharper6]

How much olive oil do you add, how do you mix it in, and at which stage(s) (starter, primary, both)?

I'm definitely interested in trying this out.

Based on the research I add about 3mg per 100 billion cells. I measure it using a scientific scale. You must add it to the starter. You cannoy just simply toss it into your wort. The environment is too large for all of the yeast to find and consume it. A stir plate is perfect for this. I have done a side by side. The yeast fermented out the same. The beers were identical in taste, head retention, clarity. My friend did the aerated batch. We split a ten gallon wort batch. This is anecdotal and shouldnt be the only evidence you use in determining if this is for you. Read the research I posted on the prior page. It is page 274. Not 217 as I mistakenly posted.

 

[kharper6]

The document you linked to started at page 268 and went to page 284. There was no page 217.

P 274 sorry!

 

[dstranger99]

It's been brought up a few pages back, but "long ferments" should rank in the top 10. When I was a noob I'd ferment 4 weeks before I bottled, Now I go no more than 10 days and it's ready to go.....

 

[h22lude]

It's been brought up a few pages back, but "long ferments" should rank in the top 10. When I was a noob I'd ferment 4 weeks before I bottled, Now I go no more than 10 days and it's ready to go.....

This (along with most of what others are saying) are great but are for people that have good procedures. If you don't get enough O2 for the yeast, pitch enough yeast and the right temp or ferment at the right consistent temp, 10 days isn't long enough. That is when you need longer time to let the yeast clean up after themselves.

If you have all 3, 2 weeks is definitely long enough for average OG beers. High gravity beers will need longer time.

 

[fearwig]

Depends on strain and everything else, too. Clean US strains, at right temps, right aeration and pitch, under say 1.060, sure, you're fine after ten days. Half the time I leave it in three weeks because I don't have time to bottle. I think three to four weeks is good advice for someone who won't buy a hydrometer, but such a person may not be worth your good advice.

 

[Schreiner]

It takes me about 5 to 7 seconds to sanitize 1 bottle. Anything longer than that, you are doing it wrong. 4 or 5 pumps in the vinator, dunk the top in and the let it sit on the bottling tree until I use it. Very easy. That is the easiest part of my bottling days. Sanitizing bottles for a full batch won't take more than 4 to 5 minutes.

This is exactly what I do! Plus you need less than a quart of Star San solution to treat all of your bottles!

 

[masonsjax]

I guess the chances of infection are small and could be limited to only a handful of bottles, but the guys that just rinse their bottles and think they are forever afterwards protected from infection clearly don't understand the risks. Even a freshly sanitized surface is susceptible to unintended microorganisms as soon as the sanitizer dries. There is wild yeast and bacteria throughout our air, constantly touching everything. Sure, beer is a hostile environment for most of them, but there are plenty of things that can ruin, or at the very least change your beer that have certainly made their way into your bottles, upside-down or not. Unless you somehow store and bottle your beers in a vacuum, there is a risk that can be mitigated by a quick dip into an inexpensive mild acid mixture just before bottling. Where's the downside to that?

 

[h22lude]

I guess the chances of infection are small and could be limited to only a handful of bottles, but the guys that just rinse their bottles and think they are forever afterwards protected from infection clearly don't understand the risks. Even a freshly sanitized surface is susceptible to unintended microorganisms as soon as the sanitizer dries. There is wild yeast and bacteria throughout our air, constantly touching everything. Sure, beer is a hostile environment for most of them, but there are plenty of things that can ruin, or at the very least change your beer that have certainly made their way into your bottles, upside-down or not. Unless you somehow store and bottle your beers in a vacuum, there is a risk that can be mitigated by a quick dip into an inexpensive mild acid mixture just before bottling. Where's the downside to that?

That's what I don't understand. Sanitizing bottles adds at most 5 minutes to your bottle day and costs less than $1 in sanitizer. There is no point in chancing it in my opinion.

 

[kylegjohnson]

Sorry but I have to add a comment. My wife (OR nurse) and myself were chatting. We have both been in medicine for 20 plus years. So when I see "sanitize"and the like I cringe. We are used to completely sterile fields. So when I see the YouTube guru doing a video about "sanitizing" I chuckle. My first brew is cooking now so maybe I am full of crap but one thing I know is that I won't get a contamination. Lololol


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[Owly055]

Really depends on your definition of "necessary." If you have to have clear beer for some reason (doesn't matter what the reason is), then maybe you have to use gelatin or cold crash or use whirlfloc...or whatever. I certainly wouldn't call those steps necessary. (But I don't care about clear beer.)

It was alluded to before: strictly speaking, the only absolutely necessary step is mashing. After you have sugar, wild yeast or bacteria will contaminate it (in fact it would be pretty well contaminated just from the grain without a boil) and ferment to give you some form of beer.

Edit: regarding the spirit of OP's post - I would add chilling. I would say it approaches 100% in America, but elsewhere in the world it is common to seal up a brew after boiling and let it cool overnight to pitch yeast in the morning. Never tried it, but I've heard that if done correctly and carefully it produces a nearly identical beer to one that was cooled very quickly. As such, I think it perfectly meets the criteria of the original post.

The one big plus to NOT cooling is that the wort goes into your fermenter hot enough that it creates a sterile environment...........The only risk of contamination then is when you pitch the yeast.......

H.W.

 

[brandonman]

Clean is good, but clean and sanitized would be better. I mean, I bet you get get away with brewing and not sanitizing anything at all for a while, as long as everything was clean. But it takes about 5 minutes to sanitize, and is good practice as I'd rather prevent an infection than have to dump out a bad (expensive) batch that would have been cheap and easy to prevent.



Yeah, me too. I almost never rehydrate dry yeast.

Or if you're lucky like me, you've got a dishwasher that has a sanitize setting. It's like a fire and forget missile! Fill that sucker up with them facing downwards on bottling morning, let it do its thing, then bottle that evening, drawing them straight out of the dishwasher :rockin:

 

[brandonman]

Longer than necessary fermentations.
I am typically grain to glass in 8-10 days unless I'm aging something or secondary fermenting on purpose.

8-10 days? Teach me your secrets.

 

[dkevinb]

Sorry but I have to add a comment. My wife (OR nurse) and myself were chatting. We have both been in medicine for 20 plus years. So when I see "sanitize"and the like I cringe. We are used to completely sterile fields. So when I see the YouTube guru doing a video about "sanitizing" I chuckle. My first brew is cooking now so maybe I am full of crap but one thing I know is that I won't get a contamination. Lololol


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Do bear in mind that brewing beer is food prep, not brain surgery. If you go to a restaurant and you get a glass with lipstick on it or a fork with residual cheese it's a bad thing. But you shouldn't expect them to be at several hundred degrees fresh out of the autoclave.

Back in my college day I was a "professional dishwasher" one summer. I took pride in the fact that my work was both clean and sanitized. It certainly wasn't sterilized.

 

[kirbcheck]

I generally skip the step of slaying a virgin by the light of a full moon over the base malt 17 days prior to mashing in... sometimes, it's just not worth the struggle... other than that, I try to avoid most shortcuts...

 

[jekeane]

I generally skip the step of slaying a virgin by the light of a full moon over the base malt 17 days prior to mashing in... sometimes, it's just not worth the struggle... other than that, I try to avoid most shortcuts...

I try to avoid most virgins

 

[Owly055]

Do bear in mind that brewing beer is food prep, not brain surgery. If you go to a restaurant and you get a glass with lipstick on it or a fork with residual cheese it's a bad thing. But you shouldn't expect them to be at several hundred degrees fresh out of the autoclave.

Back in my college day I was a "professional dishwasher" one summer. I took pride in the fact that my work was both clean and sanitized. It certainly wasn't sterilized.

I can only imagine the reaction of some folks to the microbial adventures I engage in all the time....... kombucha being one, Kefir being another, making vinegar, sauerkraut, sourdough bread..... etc. What is "sterile"? and is it desirable? Look at the array of organisms that grow in real lambic? I live in ranch country.......in the mud, blood and ****. Your cut yourself and if it happens to be handy, hose the cut with a syringe of combiotic before wrapping your bandana around it........... but you know... everybody here lives into their 90's in good health up to the end! I have long suspected that people who live in sterile environments suffer far more illness than those of us who are exposed to everything all the time.
Sanitary is in the eye of the beholder............... I slosh starsan in my bottles....but I don't really think it's necessary.

H.W.

 

[SavaShip]

Never sanitize your boil pot, or anything before that... just clean them normally. The beer will be boiled which more than pasteurizes the whole pot and the contents inside.

 

[fearwig]

8-10 days? Teach me your secrets.

Brew at 75F! :rockin:

No, don't. But for real, people who really keg in 8 days are not generally brewing at the cleanest temps (low 60s) or cold crashing for two days, etc.

 

[Gameface]

8-10 days? Teach me your secrets.

I call them the BIG 3:

Proper aeration

Proper pitch rate

Proper fermentation temps

 

[Gameface]

Brew at 75F! :rockin:

No, don't. But for real, people who really keg in 8 days are not generally brewing at the cleanest temps (low 60s) or cold crashing for two days, etc.

It is said that the best ESBs are cold crashed on day 10. You might want to look into it.

 

[Hello]

Well some of the things people skip horrifies me; namely sanitization. I would rather "waste" my time sanitizing bottles and such than to risk an infection. There goes my hard work down the drain if I do.

From day 1 I have skipped secondary unless necessary. If I need to get something off of an adjunct (like strawberries) or in another case I wanted to get the beer off the large yeast cake because I had a stuck fermentation and re-pitched, added other things to help, and just created a huge layer of yeast and trub. It was more or less just for peace of mind.

I tend not to touch my beer for 7-10 days, I take a gravity reading, wait another couple of days and take one more as I prepare to keg or bottle. I do skip three readings over three days and have since the 5th batch. I read up on my yeast, I know what to expect from it and I know if I am at 1.026 on a beer that started at 1.055 and it is US-05 yeast, then it is hugely possible that it is not yet done. I give yeast their chance to work, I am not desperate for beer.

 

[dstranger99]

Actual sterilisation for me starts after the wort chiller, into the bucket, pitching the yeast, put the top on with airlock. EVERYTHING is sprayed with Star-San. Easy really, I just use an old windex bottle. 50% Star 50% water...

 

[SavaShip]

Well some of the things people skip horrifies me; namely sanitization. I would rather "waste" my time sanitizing bottles and such than to risk an infection. There goes my hard work down the drain if I do.

Why is it horrifying? Why would you sanitize the boil pot or anything beforehand? Think about it... Boiling kills all the bacteria, wild yeasts... It's total devastation for microbial life. By only sanitizing the gear after the boil you're not risking infection, you're simply applying knowledge of science to save time, because by boiling it you are sanitizing everything just by your actions. Even for the mash tun, 150 F water will kill bacteria in 25 seconds according to food science journals.

There was a recent experiment where they brewed beer with water from a coliform bacteria ridden duck pond, brewed beer the way it was brewed in the Middle Ages, and because of the boil it tested negative for all bacteria. Science... Use it!

 

[troy2000]

Why is it horrifying? Why would you sanitize the boil pot or anything beforehand? Think about it... Boiling kills all the bacteria, wild yeasts... It's total devastation for microbial life. By only sanitizing the gear after the boil you're not risking infection, you're simply applying knowledge of science to save time, because by boiling it you are sanitizing everything just by your actions. Even for the mash tun, 150 F water will kill bacteria in 25 seconds according to food science journals.

There was a recent experiment where they brewed beer with water from a coliform bacteria ridden duck pond, brewed beer the way it was brewed in the Middle Ages, and because of the boil it tested negative for all bacteria. Science... Use it!

He said 'bottles and such,' not brew kettles.....

 

[kharper6]

I call them the BIG 3:

Proper aeration

Proper pitch rate

Proper fermentation temps

YES this.

And this is how you join the grain to glass in 7 days club. I've done less on 1.040 and below gravity beers.

 

[kharper6]

Brew at 75F! :rockin:

No, don't. But for real, people who really keg in 8 days are not generally brewing at the cleanest temps (low 60s) or cold crashing for two days, etc.

I ferment at the lower temp range for 3 days, then ramp it up to the upper temp range for 3-4 days. Fermentation is done, I keg, force carb and cold crash at the same time. Pour a few filfthy yeasty beers out, then i'm pouring crystal clear beer, cold and carbonated, in about 8 days.


No "unclean" fermentation temps in my house. Not since I got myself a mini fridge for fermentations

 

[SavaShip]

He said 'bottles and such,' not brew kettles.....

Thanks! Sorry I missed that in my typical morning haze. The best thing I did for bottles was buy a cornelius keg... because bottles are terrible. If I insisted on bottling, I used to have a dishwasher that was guaranteed to heat sanitize, that saved a lot of time, but it wasn't cheap.

 

[mtnagel]

I ferment at the lower temp range for 3 days, then ramp it up to the upper temp range for 3-4 days. Fermentation is done, I keg, force carb and cold crash at the same time. Pour a few filfthy yeasty beers out, then i'm pouring crystal clear beer, cold and carbonated, in about 8 days.


No "unclean" fermentation temps in my house. Not since I got myself a mini fridge for fermentations

Do you find that they taste the same as ones that have aged a little? I can't say it's every time, but many times I will try a beer that's only been bottled for 2 weeks and it's just off for whatever reason and then it gets much better around 4 weeks after bottling.

I also just kegged my first beer and after a week in the fridge it just wasn't very good. After about 3 weeks, it's really getting better. This was after 10 day fermentation period.

 

[broadbill]

airlock

+1 to this....often times I merely use it to plug up the hole in the lid of my ale-pail, which rests loosely on top of the bucket for the duration of the fermentation.

 

[Jonell]

Actually, a pressure washer sounds like a good idea - if you happen to have one handy.

The first time I used my mini-fridge fermenter after adding a ceramic reptile heater bulb to it, the hot air pooled at the top and I got a ring of crud in my carboy that was no fun to get rid of. I finally filled it with water, added an obscene amount of Sun Oxygen Cleaner, and let it set for 24 hours. I'll bet a pressure washer would've worked a lot faster....

By the way, I solved that problem by adding a Radio Shack fan, that comes on along with the heater.

Replying to this so I can find it later to try with my mini fridge

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[broadbill]

Brew at 75F! :rockin:

No, don't. But for real, people who really keg in 8 days are not generally brewing at the cleanest temps (low 60s) or cold crashing for two days, etc.

I can keg in 8-10 days, and I use "clean" temps 60-64. In fact, proper temp control is the reason I can do this.

 

[Brewmenn]

It's been brought up a few pages back, but "long ferments" should rank in the top 10. When I was a noob I'd ferment 4 weeks before I bottled, Now I go no more than 10 days and it's ready to go.....

Brewing beer seems to be very forgiving as far as time in fermentor goes, so excessive obsessing over time in fermentor either way seems to be unnecessary.