Persistent infection nightmare

[Capped]

This steam-sterilisation stuff has pricked my ears up, particularly wrt bottling. Would it be feasible to adapt the steam outlet so it can be directed inside (otherwise clean) bottles for ten seconds or so to effect sterilisation? That would be neat and save loadsa time and grief. If so, I just need to remember which peasant borrowed my wallpaper steam stripper and 'forgot' to return.

[sbond10]

From what I'm reading ypu can just unscrew the paddle on a wall paper steamer so you just have the hose. I've managed to wangle a free hand held steamer gonna see if I can blast the inside of my boiler tap and hose pipes don't think I'll take it near a drum tap

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

This talk of heat treating vessels is making me interested too. Has anyone considered using a drop in element to heat sterilise buckets etc?

My plastic fermenters would need a good clean, and they can take that kind of heat. They could also allow me to boil bottles in them.

[bigtoe]

I saw a home made bottle steamer on another forum (lost the link now) where a manifold was built to house 20 bottles on 15mm copper tube (bottles dropped onto vertical tubes off the manifold), steam was generated and the bottles were steamed for 20 mins to sanitize them.

I do a similar thing in my dishwasher here, i wash 40 bottles upside down (in batches of 20) on a standard wash then run them thru a steam wash to finish, the steam wash is right at the end of the longest wash cycle on the washer i have here, it sits boiling the water in the base of the washer for 20 mins, as long as the bottles are upside down they get steamed out.
I get the use of the top of the washer for normal plates etc so its not wasting to much in the way of elcy and water. You could also add brew safe sanitiser (no rinse) to the wash if you wanted.

Some dishwashers actually have proper steam washes...might be worth searching one out for bottle and small part washing.

[bigtoe]

here we go, just like this but steam was used to do the cleaning

[jmc]

Have you tried simplifying your process?

Yeast: Use sanitised pack of dry yeast rather than liquid yeast.

Minimise time fermenting: Keep it to as short a time in primary as possible.
Ensure always positive pressure in FV (with airlock) so fermenting environment cannot get in.
You might want to minimise SG checking. Dont add back sample and maybe just a check at kegging time, if possible.

Minimise any transfer to other vessels. Just brew in Primary FV. Skip any transfer to secondary FV or bottling bucket.

Keg rather than bottle?
Keg to have been cleaned with oxy, then bleach soak. I rinse with boiled water then with sod met after bleach to remove traces of chlorine. Then starsan to sanitise if you wish.

If you're OK with the brew from this simplified process then you could then adding back stages that may cause/carry the infection. eg liquid yeast propagation, secondary FV, bottling etc. Add them back one at a time in subsequent brews until you've found the culprit or you're clear of infection

If you're not OK then at least you may have eliminated the skipped stages as sources of infection and you can look at primary FV, and hot side. Maybe skip cooling and try no-chill cubes?

[JonA]

I had a long lasting acetobacter infection a few yrs back. Lost over 200L of beer. Sterilisers didn't do the trick. Heat did. I passed boiling water through anything that I couldn't actually boil. I also used a steamer to sterilise my vessels. I also passed steam through hosing and pipes. It did the trick. I now run a small commercial brewery and use steam (wallpaper steamer) only. Have never looked back. Steam gets into every nook and cranny. Heat kills.

You got me thinking too and so I dug out the ol' wallpaper stripper and connected it to my copper CFC. I'd not had any infection problem with it, but after about 5 minutes connected to the steamer, some very interesting lumps of black crud came wizzing out of the end of the CFC.

Think I'll be steaming it every now and again - yo steam!

[Capped]

This steam-sterilisation stuff has pricked my ears up, particularly wrt bottling. Would it be feasible to adapt the steam outlet so it can be directed inside (otherwise clean) bottles for ten seconds or so to effect sterilisation? That would be neat and save loadsa time and grief. If so, I just need to remember which peasant borrowed my wallpaper steam stripper and 'forgot' to return.

Turned out I had the steam-stripper all along... in my loft. So on Monday I just unscrewed the paddle and fitted a plastic tube to the steam outlet, narrow enough to fit in a bottle's neck and long enough to reach the bottom. As I thoroughly rinse all my bottles immediately after use, all I had to do was assemble the required amount (36) whilst the steamer got up to temp. Plunging the steam outlet into cold bottles is not a good idea as two of them promptly cracked and fell into the sink. The trick is to preheat them slightly by playing the jet of steam around the outide then you can get stuck in. Took 15mins at the most, compared to 1hr+ for conventional sterilising. I'm dead chuffed and utterly convinced it'll be 100% effective - those bottles were way, way too hot to handle without marigolds and there's nil chance of any sterilising stuff remaining. Let y'all know in a coupla weeks when I sample the stout therein.

[Jocky]

I wonder how David is getting along. For what it's worth I'd definitely be suspicious about bottling near rotting cat food. If there's a lot of bacteria in the room then it's going to easily fall into any open bucket, potentially in large numbers.

As a last resort I'd look to do some brewing with your equipment elsewhere.

[floydmeddler]

[quote="jaroporter"]floyd, how long are you steaming your equipment for? is it getting it over 100C that is key?[/quote

Fermenters and plastic firkins get around 20 mins. That's all I steam these days.

[floydmeddler]

Wouldn't it melt the plastic drum taps ?

I use brass taps.

[Capped]

I'm dead chuffed and utterly convinced it'll be 100% effective - those bottles were way, way too hot to handle without marigolds and there's nil chance of any sterilising stuff remaining. Let y'all know in a coupla weeks when I sample the stout therein.

Beer tested and 100% perfect - bye-bye nasty sterilising stuff and tedious hours wasted at the sink.

[Davidman]

I wonder how David is getting along. For what it's worth I'd definitely be suspicious about bottling near rotting cat food. If there's a lot of bacteria in the room then it's going to easily fall into any open bucket, potentially in large numbers.

As a last resort I'd look to do some brewing with your equipment elsewhere.

Yeah. That's literally my last resort. Might have to commandeer my sisters house for a day. Going to replace my boiler tap, although I doubt it will make any difference.

I'm pretty close to flogging all my gear and giving up in all honesty though. Made a dunkelweissen about a month ago, fermented in a carboy. Fermented quick, no sign of infection. This time I literally boiled my bottling bucket and a brand new tap for about 20 minutes, along with the bottling tree. Oxy cleaned all bottles, and even bought yet another auto siphon and bottling wand (must have spent about £150 on replacing equipment in a year). Starsaned the bottles, wand and auto siphon as usual, boiled bottle tops. Result... Massive pelicle in bottles and a tartness that wasn't there at bottling.

I know it isn't happening during bottling as it has shown up in the bucket in previous beers. I've even taken to racking an experimental black saison ipa that got infected into the carboy with some dregs from a few bottles of orval to see what happens.

Either I brew solely sour beers or I'm done.

Again, thanks for everyone's input, it is massively appreciated. Just don't think I can afford to keep replacing gear. Frustration isn't even the word.

[bquiggerz]

Steam the f**k out of everything, if its plasic it can be steamed, boil everything you can too and clean plastic and glass with an oxi cleaner, then a strong bleach wash and after that double strength starsan solution, but remember double strength will need to be washed off and gloves are advised. Basically you need to go nuclear on this, bleach and starsan first will kill 99.999% of things the heat should do the rest. Then simplify the process, one FV, syphon with a new syphon kit right into bottles and prime in the bottle, don't even bother with a bottle wand for now, do it like most do on their first equipment wise. Sanitise bottles on the go as you. Basically have a crate of bottles, sanitise with regular strength starsan from a spray, prime then fill. Take out the tree and anything else in between, if this works then you need to start adding steps in slowly. This should work most of the the time.

[lord groan]

Coming to this a bit late, I have to agree with bquiggerz - go back to basics, brew up, ferment in thoroughly cleaned and sterilised fermenter, siphon into bottles with nothing more than a length of clear tubing, no extra gear at all. Move away from the area you normally brew/bottle in if that's suspect
When sterilising kit make sure you do the outsides as well as the insides and don't forget your hands too. Once your hands are clean don't touch anything non-sterilised. I submerge my siphon tube in hot water with thin bleach added in a pre-bleached kitchen sink. I make sure no air bubbles are in the tube and leave it for about 20-30 mins. That makes sure the outside is sterilised too, I use a clean starsanned plastic tray to put the siphon down on before use. Then I rinse the tube off and through with clean tap water (thats the dodgy bit of my cleaning procedure - non sterilised tap water) doing this with bare hands means they soon look pink and clean having been in the bleached water while sorting the tube out. They smell looooovely!.
I don't really recommend bleaching your hands btw, its just that is how my process ends up. Plenty of soap and water will be fine!
Very best of luck to you