Do you need to sanitize?

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LesTom

LesTom

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I'm a bit of a newbie and as such I may have to post some basic or irritating questions [emoji52]
Anyway with my first gallon brew I sanitized everything including the pot for mashing in and the pot I used for the sparge water. Is this necessary? Or would the act of mashing not sanitize the pot.

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No, they're fine. A clean and rinse is enough. You only need to sanitise anything that contacts your wort/beer after the boil.

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Welcome to the forum and the hobby.

The short answer is you only need to sanitise post-boil equipment. The act of boiling the wort will sterilise it which takes care of anything that may have been lurking. You should be trying to keep your mashing equipment clean for obvious reasons, but you don't need to stress about every little bug until after the boil.
 
Just one quick twopenneth worth....

Whilst i totally agree and subscribe to what the others have said, its also important to clean the tap innards on the wort boiler BEFORE you put your wort and subsequent hops in it.....i talk from experience and much frustration.
What I found was although the wort was boiled with the hops and therefore sterilized; i had (in the past) failed to strip the boiler tap and clean it of hop debris etc from previous brews.... the result was that my cooled wort was put through a tap that had all manner of gubbins in it.....infections a plenty:doh:
Good luck with your start on this amazing hobby- it really is rewarding- and no question you ask is a stupid question, we all still make mistakes !!!
 
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I always rinse out my boiler with a kettleful of boiling water before I start, allowing some of it to drain through the tap to flush it out. Hopefully that's enough sanitising for the tap. been ok for over 2 years now.
 
I stand by my original post. :)

Good point though, the kettle tap is the first point of contact for wort post boil, but easily overlooked. I tend to circulate some wort through the tap mid boil, then spray the external portion with starsan before transfer.

Also a bonus as my hlt is my kettle, so the tap gets a pre-wash anyway.

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Sadfield said:
I stand by my original post. :)

Good point though, the kettle tap is the first point of contact for wort post boil, but easily overlooked. I tend to circulate some wort through the tap mid boil, then spray the external portion with starsan before transfer.

Also a bonus as my hlt is my kettle, so the tap gets a pre-wash anyway.

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Click to expand...

.......Im gonna give that a go on my next brew Sadfield- top tip, i'm still learning :)
 
I should have asked this in my original post; what is everyone's sanitizer of choice? I'll need to buy more before I embark on my next brew as I only had enough to do a 1 gallon batch included with my kit.
 
I use a Buffolo boiler as a mash tun and then a 32l wort pot to boil. I always boil some water before using and after and in both cases let the steam clean the inside and the boiling water run through the tap to clean and sanitise it. After using the boiling pot I wash it and then boil water in this with the lid on the same as the mash tun. I just figure that it is worth taking the short time involved to kill anything that might have found a home. As to sanitiser I use Star San which has cut down on the wasted time that is constant rinsing!
 
Lesinge said:
I use a Buffolo boiler as a mash tun and then a 32l wort pot to boil. I always boil some water before using and after and in both cases let the steam clean the inside and the boiling water run through the tap to clean and sanitise it. After using the boiling pot I wash it and then boil water in this with the lid on the same as the mash tun. I just figure that it is worth taking the short time involved to kill anything that might have found a home. As to sanitiser I use Star San which has cut down on the wasted time that is constant rinsing!
Click to expand...
using steam is a very good point, and something I do on a regular basis
 
LesTom said:
I should have asked this in my original post; what is everyone's sanitizer of choice? I'll need to buy more before I embark on my next brew as I only had enough to do a 1 gallon batch included with my kit.
Click to expand...
StarSan! Was one of the first things I bought for homebrewing, after the starter kit I got and I've never looked back. It's a no rinse sanitizer with a pretty short contact time so really easy to use and makes the whole process so much simpler. I normally mix up 10L with some soft bottled water and use it throughout the brew (brew day and bottling) as well as keeping a spray bottle to hand for quick bits of sanitation.
 
johnbarleycorn said:
Just one quick twopenneth worth....

Whilst i totally agree and subscribe to what the others have said, its also important to clean the tap innards on the wort boiler BEFORE you put your wort and subsequent hops in it.....i talk from experience and much frustration.
What I found was although the wort was boiled with the hops and therefore sterilized; i had (in the past) failed to strip the boiler tap and clean it of hop debris etc from previous brews.... the result was that my cooled wort was put through a tap that had all manner of gubbins in it.....infections a plenty:doh:
Click to expand...

Plus 1 (million!) for this. My last two brews have become infected and I think I've tracked it down to the spring in the ball valve on my grainfather. I always clean it with grainfather cleaner after brewing but some hop or grain debris had got stuck in the spring and really gunked up. Stripped it down and given it a proper clean. Just about to keg my latest so fingers crossed that it has done the trick.

KG
 
As side note to this thread, our homebrew club spent yesterday brewing on the pilot kit at RedWillow brewery whilst also assisting the head-brewer on the big kit. Whilst doing the clean down,Toby, headbrewer and ex-homebrewer, jokingly made the observation that ' the difference between brewers and homebrewer is that homebrewers don't clean properly'. The big kit had been jet washed, scrubbed, had an acid wash to remove minerals and then hot water circulated through it, was visually clean and circulating water was clear. He then emphasised his point by performing a hot caustic wash to remove proteins, the water instantly went brown. The benefit of a Clean-in-Place (CIP) System, that you can use more aggressive cleaning products without human contact. There's clean, and then there is clean.

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I did forget to sanitize my fv once however I had sterilised it with wizz ( no to be confused with 'jizz'). You can buy this in pound land. For a pound believe it or not.
I was worried for two weeks but the beer came out fine. And I believe there would have been a coat of the stuff on the fv as the procedure I have is to rinse afterwards.
I believe I'd started drinking half way through the boil.
I would say lesson learned but it came out fine.
So to be fair to maybe ok just to sterilise?

The jury's out
 

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