Re: protection against bacteria

Terry,

Keep it simple mate. Off flavours must be eliminated & you need to follow the simple steps correctly to make life bearable & produce sound brews: Practice good sanitation on all items used. Use iodine based sanitisers, peroxide, bleach, or sodium metabisulphite as your bug killing agents. I recommend household bleach 50:50 with hot water. You need to finally rinse clean in hot water &/or cold FILTERED water. "Metabisulphite" is a sanitising solution made up & favoured by many brewers. Available at any brew shop & requires less careful rinsing. Your fermenter must be as sanitary as you can make it, & should be covered every moment until you finally seal for primary fermentation. Always use a bubble trap lock with salty water or metabisulphite solution as the fluid seal. Your bottles & caps must be sanitary also but need not receive meticulous attention, suggest an initial bleach treatment, store dry protected from insect & dust intrusion. Get the yeast culture started in the wort within 4 to 8 hours, should be vigorous at 8 hours. To do this I always use two different but "same style" yeasts. Pitch at controlled temperature (use refrigerated water or hot water to adjust) in range 22-24 degrees, I pitch directly onto the wort foam, I do not favour the starter technique. Use a reliable (& sterile) thermometer & not the stick on strip indicaters. This will pretty much guarantee an infection free fermentation & the rest is relatively easy. Hope this helps & probably confirms what you alredy knew. Pete

"Terry Caton" wrote in message news:VQizd.3007$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...

Greetings, > I'm an aspiring home-brewer, and the two batches I've done so far > haven't quite lived up to my expectations. They seemed to have a "skunky" > flavor to them, and I'm thinking it might be due to insufficient > sanitization. I know one of the best ways to protect against bacterial > contamination is to get the yeast active as quickly as possible, as the > resulting alcohol will help kill any resident bacteria. That being said, > has > anyone ever tried adding a half-shot or so of grain alcohol to the wort, > to > provide a bit of protection until the yeast gets going? Obviously, the > real > solution is to sanitize everything better, but this would serve as another > layer of defense. My concern is that it might stunt the yeast growth (the > amount necessary to prove fatal to bacteria would also prove fatal to the > yeast), so I wanted to get a professional opinion first. Thanks, > > Terrence > > >
Reply to
peterlonz
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Household bleach can be a two edged sword. Although it will work, it requires, as you noted, LOTS of rinsing. Also, it is just to easy to buy the scented stuff which is bad.

A 50:50 mix is WAY WAY WAY too much bleach. We used to put just a few capfuls of bleach into a military water buffalo (holding several hundred gallons) to reach the appropriate amount to sanitize the inside of the thing.

Agreed about keeping the fermenter as sanitary as possible, but you seem to go a little overboard. I've never used anything except plain old water in my airlock with no problems or infections to date.

Just tone down the amount of your bleach mix and I agree.

Depending on the type of yeast you are using, a starter may or may not be necessary. I've never used two different kinds, nor have I ever had fermentation producing bubbles at only 8 hours. Yeast need some lag time to use the dissolved oxygen in the wort to reproduce before they start fermenting the sugars - and that takes several hours.

Reply to
NobodyMan

sodium metabisulphide, ammonia and bleach and iodine are actually all poisons. i got off that years ago. my failure rate is usually 1 in 20 batches.

i chalk that up to maybe the helper crew was not washing their hands properly. But they enjoy being put into a slavery work gang. and what the hell, they make drudgery and tedium into a bit of fun. (don't tell them that.)

cleaning techniques discussed on earlier pages.

Reply to
dug88

I've never had a problem using plain tap water to rise & for wort. As long as the bottle is clean after you rinse, you will be fine. In my experience, I have not needed to sanitize and I get good beer naturally.

Reply to
James Rowland

i like pete loads of good info out of him.

only comment is personal sanitary situations while you make beer. sanitize this sterilize that. so you washed your last tuesday, and make beer, and went to the bathroom five times, and shoved your finger up your n ose 4 times. the weakest link. the easiest way of infection is not boiling the hell out of anything, but just simple sanitary rules. hand cleaners are, things like, scented oranges, maybe fruit essence. Perhaps, it is skin moisturizing, delicate. You wash your hands but you still have fingernails fuill of black grease and grine. but you want to be clean? Sing the happy birthday song 3 times while you wash your hands, and use a nail scrubber if you need it. actually when some opf my helpers show up on beer day. i just send them down to the sauna and the pool with a good quality cleaner. wow they almost look human.

Reply to
dug88

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