Is it REALLY necessary..?

[fletch_belfast]

The whole 'sanitizing' thing that is..? Has anyone ever had the balls just to give their gear a damn good rinsing under the scalding hot bath tap and leave it at that...?

I'm considering only doing this myself on my next brew, partially as an experiment and partially because I'm lazy/cheap. I think all the sanitizing products are a bit of a rip off, and the whole using diluted bleach idea isn't for me at all, I wouldn't have bleach about me for any reason, especially for use in something that is going to produce something I'm going to drink.

[lancsSteve]

I know some people do this on bottles - you only lose ONE bottle if it goes pear shaped and by that point it's alcoholic and less prone to infection.

Your idea however is truly, unquestioningly nuts. Is it less effort to sanitise or to go to the effort to make a brew only to throw it away? Get starsan and it's clean out with oxy from wilcos at under £1 a tub and all sanitised in 30 seconds... (Unless of course this is just a troll thread)

[steve_flack]

Incidently, if your bath hot tap is scalding hot you need to turn your tank thermostat down.

[fletch_belfast]

..what's a troll thread?

I was just thinking about this lying in bed last night. Let's say I want to do a liqueur kit (and I do) at some point, if I'm making 25 litres of booze, I'll have to buy either 25, litre PET bottles, or 12, two litre PET bottles, and each one of those would require one teaspoon of the Ritchies sanitizing powder, ontop of the spoonfuls already used for the demi-johns etc., it just seems all a bit of an expense.

So I'm naturally wondering if it is an absolutely necessary step, and has anyone actually challenged it yet? Or does everybody just blindly do it because they are told to?

My thermostat is set at 65, u know what I mean, it isn't boiling, but it's pretty damn hot, u wouldn't hold your hand under it for too long.

[boingy]

You'll probably get away with it most times, especially if the stuff is really clean.
But the times where you lose a batch will really p1ss you off...

[Trunky]

[Aleman]

Why not just make up 3 litres of sanitiser, and pour 250ml into each of the 12 bottles, fit the lid and shake occasionally over the next 20 minutes? . . . Sorry But I don't see the requirement for total immersion

[JayM72]

(Unless of course this is just a troll thread)

I think that's EXACTLY what it is....

[vacant]

I hot water rinse PET bottles after they're emptied.

Immediately before bottling I make up around 5ml of videne in a 3 litre jug, pour into 4 or 5 bottles, shake each for 10 secs, empty to the jug and do the next batch. Bottles are drained upside down. That way they get the 30 seconds contact time. I can prepare my bottles in 5 minutes. Screw caps are emptied into the videne jug and as each bottle is filling with beer I shake a cap and inject priming sugar solution from a syringe into the bottle.

I can live with that level of work and sanitiser expense (1p). Tried WVP when I started with kits - too expensive. Tried bleach - too much rinsing.

As we're meant to be sanitising rather than sterilising, sanitising is necessary if you want to reduce the chances of infection. I have absolutely no idea what the actual probabilities would be.

[lancsSteve]

..what's a troll thread?

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2] In addition to the offending poster, the noun troll can also refer to the provocative message itself, as in "that was an excellent troll you posted".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

[Jim]

The jury is still out on the OP.

[72mgb73gt]

I'm sure it say's in GW's book that overall cleanliness is more important than the sanitising, so if you make sure your equipment is very well cleaned before you use it, you "might" get away with not using a sanitiser.

Or, a better option IMO is to use a no-rinse sanitiser so it cuts down on the boredom of rinsing everything several times.

[fletch_belfast]

The jury is still out on the OP.

Are you shitting me..? I'm struggling to see what exactly is wrong with my post regarding cleaning and sterilisation, posted in the cleaning and sterilisation forum... or how it could possibly be deemed "inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic", it seems like a perfectly valid question to me.

If this is how y'all welcome new members, then I just don't know.

[Wolfy]

The whole 'sanitizing' thing that is..? Has anyone ever had the balls just to give their gear a damn good rinsing under the scalding hot bath tap and leave it at that...?

I'm considering only doing this myself on my next brew, partially as an experiment and partially because I'm lazy/cheap. I think all the sanitizing products are a bit of a rip off, and the whole using diluted bleach idea isn't for me at all, I wouldn't have bleach about me for any reason, especially for use in something that is going to produce something I'm going to drink.

Yes it is necessary, the risk of infection or other contamination is very real.
I personally put a deal of care, time and consideration into any/every beer I make, and the small additional cost and effort it takes to properly clean and sanitize everything is minuscule compared to the overall effort and cost of making the beer.
I often like to share my beer with friends or family, sometimes I enter them into competitions, there is no way those things would be possible (for me to do with a clear conscious) if i was not pedantic with sanitation.

However, there is no reason why you cannot follow your own suggestion, most likely most of the time you'll be fine, and I know some people who do what you have suggested and claim to have had virtually no problems at all.
However, I also know that even brewers who are pedantic with cleaning and sanitation still get infections, sometimes those beers are shared with others and sometimes (up to 30% of the beer I have opened in a competition situation) they are entered into a competition (and I've seen what that does to their reputation and self-esteem) so if those people who try to be as clean and sanitary as possible can have problems, I can only imagine it will be worse for anyone who does not really care about it at all.

But good luck to you, home brewing is all about doing things your own way, so there is no reason you can't do exactly that.

[fletch_belfast]

...I can only imagine it will be worse for anyone who does not really care about it at all...

Oh it's certainly not that I dont care, it's just in my nature to question things that I suspect might not be entirely necessary to a given process. I don't take anybodies word as gospel, so just because an industry has a certain product for sale, and they tell you that you need it, I think it's totally rational to question it; that's all I'm really doing here.

Only in the event that my first brew turns out to be crap (and I'm really hoping it won't), then I may aswell test the theory out on the second 20 pint tin that came with the ibrew kit; I'll just give everything a scrub with a brillo pad and a couple of rinses straight out of the hot tap.

Hopefully this won't happen though, hopefully my stout will be perfect and I will want to nurture the second batch even better than the first