lactobacillus Life Span and Brew Day Processes

[Bassman2003]

Hello,

I wanted to ask some questions to the forum and hopefully this will help everybody overall.


How long does lactobacillus from grain live outside of its host? Or does it have a host?

Like many, I have some brew buckets that I use during the brew day. These either have grain in them or touch wort. So I have some questions and please try to reply to keep the educated guesses down as this stuff is at the microscopic level!

1) If a bucket has grain in it, how long will it stay "contaminated"?

2) If a bucket has had wort in it, how long will it stay "contaminated"?

3) How far will the contamination spread? For example, if you put water in that bucket and dump the water in another vessel, do you count the 2nd vessel as contaminated?

4) If you have buckets that touch grain/wort, will a simple soak of Star-San give you the confidence to think of it as "clean"?

5) Are separate buckets for touching grain and never touching grain the only way you would feel confident to put chilled wort into?

I am thinking of going the separate bucket route to only put water in my HLT with "clean" buckets to know the HLT is Lacto free. Just wondering how everybody else thinks of it.

Thanks for your input!

 

[wilserbrewer]

Breweries typically separate hot side and cold side activities and equipment.

A bucket to add water to your HLT need not be sanitized as it is hot side.

Milling grain into a bucket, then using it as a fermenter is not advisable imo, even if sanitized prior.

This comes up occasionally as some suggest to sparge a BIAB bag of grain in their fermenter bucket, not best practice imo.

I feel cold side, or post boil (really post chilling of the wort) should be kept as clean as reasonably possible.

Save your energy, devote your sanitizing efforts and equipment use to cold side caution.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your reply. Just to clarify, I am not using any buckets for fermentation, but am trying to track what touches grain and what does not. I am asking about the HLT because it also might be used to feed vessels that would touch post boiled & cooled wort. (to make Star-San water).

I have an e-mail in to Five Star asking if temperature (low temperatures) affect the effectiveness of Star-San. If so, then I might want to warm up the Star-San in the HLT during winter months. If not then no worries.

But the life of the bacteria questions remain and I have wondered about this all the years I have brewed.

 

[RPh_Guy]

How long does lactobacillus from grain live outside of its host? Or does it have a host?

Lactobacilli are bacteria capable of living and growing on their own. Bacteria are not parasites or viruses, so there's no "host".

Grain has many types of yeast, bacteria, and mold on it, just like basically everything else. Lactobacillus is just one of many, and it may not even be the most common. Microbes float around in the air and cover every surface around you (including you and your brewery). If you breathe on something, it's contaminated.

1) If a bucket has grain in it, how long will it stay "contaminated"?

Indefinitely. There's no period of time after which things are automatically sterile.

2) If a bucket has had wort in it, how long will it stay "contaminated"?

This question doesn't make sense. Wort doesn't "contaminate" things. Microbes contaminate things.
The number of microbes in wort is low to none because it's heated above pasteurization temperature.

3) How far will the contamination spread? For example, if you put water in that bucket and dump the water in another vessel, do you count the 2nd vessel as contaminated?

If you have microbes in Bucket A and then transfer them to Bucket B with water .... Yes, both buckets are "contaminated" with microbes.
Bucket C is also "contaminated" unless it has been cleaned and then sanitized within the past few minutes.

4) If you have buckets that touch grain/wort, will a simple soak of Star-San give you the confidence to think of it as "clean"?

No.
Cleaning and sanitizing are separate processes. Star San is a sanitizer; it doesn't clean, and it doesn't sanitize a surface that's not clean.

5) Are separate buckets for touching grain and never touching grain the only way you would feel confident to put chilled wort into?

Everything that touches the wort after it's chilled should be cleaned beforehand and sanitized right before use. Also, plastic should be treated with special care since it is prone to micro-abrasions that can harbor microbes, making it difficult to clean.

Anything that touches water, wort, grain, etc before the end of the boil does not need to be sanitized. Boiling kills all the microbes that contact the wort before that point.

I agree with everything @wilserbrewer said.

Cheers

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your detailed reply. I apologize for making some poor choices of words like "clean". I know the difference between cleaning and sanitizing. #4 should have been worded: "If you have buckets that touch grain/wort, will a simple soak of Star-San give you the confidence to think of it as "safe"?

I do not use the word sterile as I know Star-San only sanitizes.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Surfaces need to be clean in order to be sanitized.
If it's not sanitized, it's not "safe" for touching chilled wort.

 

[Bassman2003]

No worries but I think you are missing my question. Been brewing for 16+ years. Just asking your opinion.

 

[RPh_Guy]

What am I missing? I want to help.

"If you have buckets that touch grain/wort, will a simple soak of Star-San give you the confidence to think of it as "safe"?

The answer is no, in my opinion as a brewer who frequently uses wild microbes and as a scientist with lots of training in microbiology.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks. This is more along the lines of my questions. So as a brewer like myself who brews in the garage, what is an improved method over just Star-San? I am looking at my new setup and trying to simplify it down to what touches grain and what does not. My method going forward would be to:

Fill my fermenter with water from the garden hose & add Star-San.
Keep the Star-San in the fermenter until right before transfer.
Run boiling wort through the kettle's valve to sanitize.
Transfer out of my boil kettle's valve via silicone tubing that is only used for this transfer and soaked in Star-San.

Simple and basic. Is there a better way or any improvements?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Sounds good to me!

My process is basically the same as that.
I run boiling wort through my tubing, pump, and chiller toward the end of the boil.
After chilling, wort flows through the (heat-sanitized) kettle valve, through clean heat-sanitized silicone, through a heat-sanitized pump, though a dedicated cold-side length of clean silicone tubing sanitized with Star San, into a clean fermenter sanitized with Star San.

I don't entirely fill my fermenter with Star San. I use a spray bottle (filled with 1/4tsp Star San in 800mL RO purified water) to spray in enough to form a puddle and I rotate it around to be sure it touches all the surfaces.
Filling it is fine too. Whatever is easiest is fine.

Cover the kettle while chilling. You can heat-sanitize the lid by putting it over the kettle a few minutes before the end of the boil. Be careful of boil-overs.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for your input. My setup has become more compact over the years and I realized with pumps, I was maybe making things a bit too complicated.

With this simple setup, I am considering using IO Star instead of Star-San as it is cheaper, some think it kills more and the staining will be limited to a couple of short hoses. Any opinion about Star-San vs IO Star (iodophor)?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Either sanitizer works perfectly fine. It's a myth that Star San doesn't kill yeast.

Keep in mind that iodine sanitizers lose their potency over just a couple days, so they need to be made fresh each time.

If sanitizer cost is a concern, making smaller batches is a good option, or re-using Star San since it generally doesn't lose potency over time.

Cheers

 

[Bassman2003]

The IO Star is half the price of Star-San which I mix up each brew day anyway. I like the no foam aspect too. Will need to deal with the staining on my driveway though. Dilution is the solution...