using brettanomyces

[sodevo]

I'm planning on brewing a beer with brett yeast. my question is about sanitation. I understand the need to keep all tubing seperate than the ones in my brewing process using other yeast strains, but what about the yeast starter process. Do you think I need to designate a 1000ml flask just for this use, or can I just clean it and use it again. What's your thoughts about stainless steel as well.

Thank you very much

[wrplace]

Brett or Dekkera can form spores that are very tough to destroy. I'm not sure how tough without doing a little research, but I wouldn't be too worried about contamination of your glassware if you are able to boil it (fully submersed in water) for 20 min. I use a pressure canner or autoclave for Pyrex glassware to be sure nothing survives, but not having such equipment wouldn't deter me from making lambics. In addition to tubing, you'll want seperate racking canes, bottles, stoppers, air locks and carboys too.

[Lufah]

I'm going to disagree with some of that. The glass stuff, in my experience, can be cleaned and sanatized. I have reused bottles and carboys that have had brett in them. You just have to be really carefull to get them clean of everything and then a long soak in sanitzer(I use starsan). I have baked the bottles before and that seemed to work well also. If you want to use the same racking cane get a stainless steel one and bake it after use.

Having said all that, I've found it's easier to just have dedicated stuff so you don't have to go through a bunch of crap and worry about it. The plastic and tubing has to be for just brett after you have used it once.

Well that my two cents.

Travis

[wezil]

My opinion is that glass and stailess are fine. Just wash and sanitize. I have seperate equipment for anything that is plastic. Hoses, buckets, stoppers, and fementation locks.

Brad

[Dogger Dan]

I like the seperate format, it just makes life easier, that being said I haven't had any issues using cross over pieces (glassware primarily) either. Mind you I am a bit anal about the cleaning but not to the autoclave level, sterilised may be to far

Dogger

[wrplace]

you're right, Lufah. I didn't mean to imply tht anybody should autoclave their carboys and such! I'm just saying that starters are important to be clean nd an easy way to make sure that they are very sanitary is to boil them. That is also a workble solution because the containers are much smaller than most other fermentation vessels. Never add hot water to a carboy unless you want to have to replace a cracked carboy. I stuck a carboy in an autoclave once as an experiment and it shattered. I was old and suspected to be contaminated with toxic chemicals so it was no loss to me.
While I sterilize my starter flasks, I have been using my sanitized carboys for beer, lambic, ciders, mead, sake and wine without any brett contamination problems.

[Dogger Dan]

How big is that autoclave?

Dogger

[wrplace]

How big is that autoclave?

Dogger

Yep, I was amazed when I first saw it too! There another one in the building that is used for autoclaving soil. It looks like you could fit at least 6 carboys in it (2 wide and 3 deep).

I didn't mention before, but I have autoclaved 1 gal glass wine jugs also. When I was an extract/mead brewer I used to autoclave a few gallons before each brew to dilute my high-gravity boil. Never broke a jug but YMMV.