should you pasteurize your homebrew?

[beerandguitars]

Should you pasteurize your homebrew or is the 1 hour boiling of the wort enough? I didn't think you needed to until I was asked about it today.

 

[CTR08]

You don't need to (I never have), and if you choose to do so, don't do it until after properly bottle conditioned (heat pasteurizing will kill yeast, you're priming solution will not ferment, and there will be no carbonation).

Short answer: No, don't.

 

[Polboy]

no dont, unpasteurized beer is beautiful living thing(?) so dont kill the yeasts

 

[boydster]

You don't really have anything to gain by pasteurizing. During fermentation, the yeast ate all of the sugars from the wort they could digest. When you prime, you give them just enough additional sugar to carbonate your bottles. Once they eat their way through that, they will go dormant and do nothing at all. No need to kill them. If there are any other microorganisms in your beer worth killing, your beer is already infected and most likely it is too late for pasteurizing to do you any good.

 

[beergolf]

No need to pasteurize.

Why do you think that beer was much safer to drink than the water in the old days. The boil killed everything off, and then the yeast made alcohol so it was safe to drink.

 

[unionrdr]

Besides being stored in a sealed container after brewing & fermenting. About the only "pasteurizing" I do is after late extract additions. They're stirred in while the wort is still boiling hot. And pasteurization happening @ 162F happens in seconds while steeping covered after the late additions.
No need to pasteurize beyond that. Just make sure bottles or kegs are clean & sanitized as well as any wquipment touching the beer while processing & it'll be fine.