CLEANING, STERILISING, SANITISING?

[sparky Paul]

I thought the words meant different things, but maybe you're right...

...what do I know.

Don't you mean "watt" do you know

I'm not even sure about that, now senility is creeping in.

Now it seems I don't know the difference between a bog and VWP.

Having said that, if I throw bleach down the bog... I would still call the bog sanitation, and the bleach sanitisation...

[Aleman]

Sanitisation is such a colonial term . . .shouldn't it be disinfection?

[Graham]

A copy and paste:

Terminology: Sterilisation, disinfection, sanitisation
British home brewers have traditionally used the term sterilisation to mean making equipment microbiologically clean, which is fair enough. Some of the more impressionable British home brewers have adopted the term sanitisation from American home brewing terminology; they argue that sterilisation can never be achieved at home, but as usual the wrong end of the stick has been grabbed. Sanitisation is an ill-defined and rather meaningless term in respect of microbiological cleanliness. In British usage it means little more than cleanliness and pertains specifically to public health issues. It applies to producing a clean environment where pathogenic microbes find it difficult to thrive at levels hazardous to public health. It is inappropriate to use the term if a risk to public health is not involved. Taking refuse and sewage away (and putting it somewhere else) is sanitation. Washing your hands after using the toilet or before handling food is sanitisation. A product termed a sanitiser should be expected to have cleaning power, but not necessarily have much in the way of microbe killing power. Soap is a sanitiser, but it does not kill many microbes; it just assists in washing most of them away, along with their source of food. Sanitisation reduces bacteria to levels that do not overwhelm the human immune system and it then relies upon the immune system to take care of the rest. Beer doesn’t have an immune system. No-one has ever caught a pathogenic bug from beer, so there is not a public health hazard anyway.

We have the term disinfect to mean microbiological cleaning of objects, which is what we are doing. Disinfection is more meaningful than sanitisation because it implies microbe killing power. There are three classes of disinfection: low, medium and high. Low-level disinfection means the killing of most microbes, but not all of them, and not their spores. Some types of disinfectant are not very effective against some types of bacteria and these types of disinfectant come in the low-level category. Medium level disinfectants kill the vegetative forms of all microbes and viruses etc but not their spores. High-level disinfection (HLD) refers to the destruction of all bacteria, viruses, fungi, and most, but not all, spores. Chlorine-based products, such as bleach, are high-level disinfectants.

Sterilisation kills everything including spores (although some spores may still survive). Chlorine at an appropriate concentration and exposure time is a true chemical steriliser. The main difference between a high-level disinfectant and a steriliser is the concentration and contact time. They are usually the same chemical and differ only in the way they are used.

The term disinfection is probably the most appropriate term for what we do, but the term sterilisation is also valid, and happens to be literally true if bleach is being used. It is valid by convention, not only have home brewers traditionally used the term sterilisation, but so have commercial brewers. Indeed, the most recent commercial brewing book in my library (2004) uses the term sterilization (note the ‘z’) all over the place.

[Jim]

A copy and paste:

Terminology: Sterilisation, disinfection, sanitisation
British home brewers have traditionally used the term sterilisation to mean making equipment microbiologically clean, which is fair enough. Some of the more impressionable British home brewers have adopted the term sanitisation from American home brewing terminology; they argue that sterilisation can never be achieved at home, but as usual the wrong end of the stick has been grabbed. Sanitisation is an ill-defined and rather meaningless term in respect of microbiological cleanliness. In British usage it means little more than cleanliness and pertains specifically to public health issues. It applies to producing a clean environment where pathogenic microbes find it difficult to thrive at levels hazardous to public health. It is inappropriate to use the term if a risk to public health is not involved. Taking refuse and sewage away (and putting it somewhere else) is sanitation. Washing your hands after using the toilet or before handling food is sanitisation. A product termed a sanitiser should be expected to have cleaning power, but not necessarily have much in the way of microbe killing power. Soap is a sanitiser, but it does not kill many microbes; it just assists in washing most of them away, along with their source of food. Sanitisation reduces bacteria to levels that do not overwhelm the human immune system and it then relies upon the immune system to take care of the rest. Beer doesn’t have an immune system. No-one has ever caught a pathogenic bug from beer, so there is not a public health hazard anyway.

We have the term disinfect to mean microbiological cleaning of objects, which is what we are doing. Disinfection is more meaningful than sanitisation because it implies microbe killing power. There are three classes of disinfection: low, medium and high. Low-level disinfection means the killing of most microbes, but not all of them, and not their spores. Some types of disinfectant are not very effective against some types of bacteria and these types of disinfectant come in the low-level category. Medium level disinfectants kill the vegetative forms of all microbes and viruses etc but not their spores. High-level disinfection (HLD) refers to the destruction of all bacteria, viruses, fungi, and most, but not all, spores. Chlorine-based products, such as bleach, are high-level disinfectants.

Sterilisation kills everything including spores (although some spores may still survive). Chlorine at an appropriate concentration and exposure time is a true chemical steriliser. The main difference between a high-level disinfectant and a steriliser is the concentration and contact time. They are usually the same chemical and differ only in the way they are used.

The term disinfection is probably the most appropriate term for what we do, but the term sterilisation is also valid, and happens to be literally true if bleach is being used. It is valid by convention, not only have home brewers traditionally used the term sterilisation, but so have commercial brewers. Indeed, the most recent commercial brewing book in my library (2004) uses the term sterilization (note the ‘z’) all over the place.

Aaarrgh!!!

Looks like this section is about to renamed 'Cleaning, Disinfection and Sterilisation'.

All those in favour??

[Graham]

I wouldn't let it bother you. People will be arguing about this for years to come.

[Graham]

The fact that those references use certain terminology does not mean that they are using it appropriately. Certain terms are used inappropriately by convention. For example Brewing Science and Practice uses the term sanitise just three times whereas it uses the term sterilise so many times that I gave up counting them, but sterilise is clearly used very loosely. It also uses disinfect quite a lot too.

Disinfection is a more nebulous [vague] term it may be considered the removal or inhibition of micro organisms that are likely to cause disease. Some groups are at much greater risk of developing infectious disesase....Thus defining disinfection involves defining the group of people at risk

That is a load of rubbish. Disinfection applies to the microbiological cleanliness of inanimate objects, whether those microbes cause disease or not. In the same way as antisepsis applies specifically to the human skin, and antibiotic internally.

I am comfortable with either disinfection or (by convention) sterilisation.

Sanitisation, however, is more concerned with removing the vectors of disease, whether those vectors be dirt, flies, pouring oil on wells or moving your poo out of harm's way. It is only concerned with pathogens anyway, not anything else. Pathogens do not spoil beer - it is the 'anything else' that spoils beer.

As infection is by far the biggest cause of spoiled homebrew, I personally demand something more than mere sanitisation no matter whose definition applies.

[Graham]

When you come round to the fact that disinfection tackles the bugs directly by killing them, and that sanitisation tackles the problem indirectly by reducing the vectors, and that sanitisation is only applicable to public health issues anyway, then perhaps you will get the idea. Sanitisation is used in British English when applied to food establishments because public health is at stake, and cleanliness is the only indicator of good practice in a food establishment anyway. I would suspect that the health police would get upset if they swabbed a commercial kitchen and found large numbers of coliform, because that indicates that someone is not washing their hands properly (get the idea of sanitisation now?), but they would not give two hoots if they found loads acetobacter (in the unlikely event that they bothered to test for it); it isn't a pathogen. Do you think that a yoghurt factory would be closed down because of an abundance of lactic acid bacteria? No! It would be for an abundance of coliform though.

In a brewery, on the other hand, coliform would not be a big problem (although worrying), but acteobacter or lactic bacteria could be.

It is not my fault if you are impressionable and I happened to have put your nose out of joint because of it. For at least forty years the British home brewing hobby has used sterilisation to mean biological cleanliness, and that is fair enough. The term sanitisation only emerged post internet and with the American influence. No matter which side of the Atlantic we reside, sanitation is the bottom level. From the top to the bottom of the ladder goes:

Sterilsation
High-level disinfection
Medium-level disinfection
Low-level disinfection
Sanitisation.

I do not wish my beers to be on the bottom rung - so I do not sanitise.

[Graham]

Apparently it is inappropriate to use the term sanitisation outside of the public health arena, but beer is in a no-man's land whereby it could loosely be described as a food. Therefore in some jurisdictions sanitisation may be considered an appropriate term when applied to brewing utensils as indeed it is in Britain when applied to food premises. Unfortunately the things that are important to food safety are almost diametrically opposite to those things that are important to beer quality.

Although sterilisation is probably too heavy a term in the context of brewing, I am comfortable enough with its use. Sanitisation I am less comfortable with, partly because of its weak definition, and partly because it does not convey enough positivity or importance. It does make me wonder why the term disinfection has been largely ignored by home brewers; it strikes me that it is a term that is difficult to get the wrong impression about.

[boingy]

I think getting the correct title to this forum may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Jim, you need to rename the site "Jim's Beer Kit, Extract Brews, All Grain Brews, Turbo Cider Making, Wine Making, with a Smattering of Barbecue Tips, plus Banter, Jokes and the Occasional Bun Fight".

I might need to buy a wider wide screen.

[Jim]

Where would this forum be without a bit of lively debate, eh?

All interesting stuff, though.

[dwhyte]

Gents, gents....

Let's not get anal about this, as long as we use something that stops the beer becoming infected, does it matter what it's called?

I am all for the use of proper British words/terms and their correct useage but come on

It was called sterilisation when I and many others started on Boots kits and so I am happy with that. We know what we mean by it in terms of beer production at least.
Call it what you will and get on with making good beer!

Dave

[Wolfy]

At the risk of invoking both Graham and Chris-x1's ire - and since I'm comfortable with this Internet thing - I'm happy to turn to Wiki for a couple of definitions:

"Sterilization(or sterilisation) is a term referring to any process that eliminates (removes) or kills all forms of life, including transmissible agents (such as fungi, bacteria, viruses, spore forms, etc.) present on a surface, contained in a fluid."

"Disinfectantsare substances that are applied to non-living objects to destroy microorganisms that are living on the objects.[1] Disinfection does not necessarily kill all microorganisms, especially not resistant bacterial spores; it is less effective than sterilisation."

The issue when this forum was titled "Cleaning and Sterilisation" is that in general home brewing when using chemicals such as bleach or StarSan we are not sterilizing, simply because we do not eliminate ALL forms of life, we only reduce them to manageable levels.
Technically (and as per the chapter in BYOBRA) we are most likely disinfecting instead, and this is the term that I use when I soak/rinse my previously-cleaned items in an acidified bleach solution.
However, when I rinse brewing gear with StarSan just prior to use, I've always referred to that as "Sanitizing" (yes with a z because most likely the reference has come from numerous American sources), 'How To Brew' (page 17) for example: "Sanitize: To kill/reduce spoiling microorganisms to negligible levels."

Luckily I do not need to decide what is the 'best' or 'right' title for this forum - I just get to add my 2c and sit back and watch the fireworks - however, I'm not sure that 'Sterilisation' is any more the correct word than 'Sterilise". Perhaps "Disinfect" is most likely the most 'correct' term, however, it seems to have unwanted associations which means that it's not often used in (American) home-brewing literature that I have read.

[delboy]

Legally a disinfectant must kill a certain percentage of pathogenic (disease causing) micorbes within a certain time frame, a sanitiser is only required to reduce overall bacterial burdern by a set percentage.
The microbes that are an issue in homebrewing aren't generally pathogenic, if i was going to have to go with a definition of what we do in the homebrew context i'd would had to have gone with sanitise. However the stuff chris has brought up about Klebsiella oxytoca which is a pathogen means i might have to rethink that and side with graham and his disinfection definition.

[delboy]

It matters not. If you want to be consistent with standards in a brewery, sanitise or sanitize is the accepted term. Tun is still the accepted term for a vessel used in the production of beer regardless of whether it has a volume of 252 gallons. I wonder if they had a stewards inquiry over that one too when it came into use

In the context of a thread about definitions i rather think it does, otherwise you really have just been wasting your time having a bunfight.

[Graham]

It matters not. If you want to be consistent with standards in a brewery, sanitise or sanitize is the accepted term within the industry - at least according to all the sources I have cited...

No - the whole point of it is Graham is trying to reinvent the wheel again and change accepted standards when they don't need changing

Where is sanitise the accepted standard? Not by tradition in Britain. Sterilise is the accepted "standard" in British brewing.

Ken Shales uses sterilise; Dave Line uses sterilise; Graham Wheeler (until recently) used sterilise; "Brewing" by E.K. Jeffery uses sterilise; "Brewing Science and Practice" overwhelmingly uses sterilize; even "Malting and Brewing Science" which you so conveniently point out has 4 instances of sanitise, actually has a total of 67 instances of sterilize (35), sterilized (14), and sterilisation (18).

The relevant products in home-brew shops are called sterilisers. The heading to this forum uses sterilisation; many posters on here use the term sterilisation until someone else, who thinks they know better, pulls them apart over it. There is absolutely no precedent whatsoever in Britain for the use of sanitise. Even domestic kitchen cleaning products, to which sanitiser would probably be an appropriate term, are generally called cleaners or disinfectants, not sanitisers.

So sterilisation is the traditional term. I would happily use sanitisation if it had true application to wide-spectrum bug killing and relevance to brewing, but it doesn't. To me 'sanitise' is just a comfort word for those that use it as an excuse for sloppy disinfection practices.

If one wished to tackle the inappropriate use of the term sanitise in the context of brewing it would probably be best to address the likes of Murphys and Sons... rather than fighting against the tide.

Murphy's actually call their products disinfectants.