For all you sanitization freaks :d

[shanek17]

I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I SHOULD POST THIS TOPIC , AS I DID NOT SEE A FORUM SECTION FOR SANITIZATION. MODERATOR IF THERE IS A BETTER PLACE TO STICK THIS TOPIC PLEASE DO SO.

I found this video awhile ago and found it interesting. its good to see things from another point of view. this video features bannana brewing in africa! i find it cool how relaxed they are with their procedures and their brewing beer which is generally lower alcohol, which means it would probably spoil before a high alcohol percent wine. i dont know for sure the percentage they are making but w.e their method is , it appears to be working!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fb-JwtE4Lw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I have also heard these things about alcohol from various sources.

Alcohol used to be drank by our ancestors frequently, as it was often times safer to drink than water and it was also used for healing. Alcohol naturally has alcohol in it which keeps it clean. There are also other specific ingredients that can be added to help preserve and keep the integrity of the beer or wine, Such as adding hops to the beer. Honey also has strong integrity as it can last thousands of years on its own without spoiling.

 

[mediaguru]

Yeah, well...

Yes, even kids used to drink beer in medieval times (generally "small beers" which means just a little bit of alcohol to fend off worse things)


However, as for that African banana beer... I have a friend who spent a year traveling around Africa after being laid off. Suddenly he posted on his blog that he was violently ill, deliriously sick. He had gotten amoebic or bacterial dysentery of some sort.

You know what he said did it? The local banana brew because it turns out they are too lax with their safety and sanitation standards when making it...

 

[Kelvin]

Yeah, it only takes one time to get something bad. I'll stick with my constant dip and spraying in starsan.

 

[shanek17]

Yes, even kids used to drink beer in medieval times (generally "small beers" which means just a little bit of alcohol to fend off worse things)


However, as for that African banana beer... I have a friend who spent a year traveling around Africa after being laid off. Suddenly he posted on his blog that he was violently ill, deliriously sick. He had gotten amoebic or bacterial dysentery of some sort.

You know what he said did it? The local banana brew because it turns out they are too lax with their safety and sanitation standards when making it...

Well it sounds like it may have been your friend with the problem , not the beer. Some people have trouble adapting to things and they see things as foreign attackers and get sick. Also you mentioned he was a foreigner travelling in another country which can be hard to adapt to that. I do agree a beer should be clean and you should practice good sanitary beer making but theres no need to be obsessive about cleaning every little thing. I seen a guy on youtube who was spraying down EVERYTHING , he even sanitized the yeast package before opening it.... I wonder if he tried to spray and sanitize the entire atmosphere around him before filming his video.

People like that should just get a big plastic bubble and they can make and drink their beers in there, and try an hide from the world. lol JK

 

[Kelvin]

Yeast package says to sanitize the package before opening using. I'm sure there is a reason for it. Just saying.

 

[wiltshiremead]

I seen a guy on youtube who was spraying down EVERYTHING , he even sanitized the yeast package before opening it.... I wonder if he tried to spray and sanitize the entire atmosphere around him before filming his video.

The thing is you can never get your environment clean enough unless you make your brew in one of those hospital isolation rooms where there is absolutely no germs, fungi, bacteria lives. It's all in the air...on you...everywhere.

 

[shanek17]

The thing is you can never get your environment clean enough unless you make your brew in one of those hospital isolation rooms where there is absolutely no germs, fungi, bacteria lives. It's all in the air...on you...everywhere.

EXACTLY! The yeasties have been adapting and living along side these things in the air and on surfaces for thousands of years. Thats why id be funny if the guy was actually trying to sanitize the air around him lol. Besides air cleans itself because of the way its made. I look at this like the fact that today people obsess over being sanitary and physically clean, and it isnt good for immune system. I recently red an article about how people with allergies would benefit from getting outdoors and garden or go into the woods and adapt to nature, instead of hiding indoors all the time. Theres no need to sanitize every little thing for brewing. Lets give the yeasties and alcohol some credit and let them show their strengths!

 

[shanek17]

Yeast package says to sanitize the package before opening using. I'm sure there is a reason for it. Just saying.

yes.... and they also sell you the sanitizer. See what im sayin here?

 

[wiltshiremead]

yes.... and they also sell you the sanitizer. See what im sayin here?

Good point!

Before I started to study about yeast/mold, I was fearful about fermenting. But since I spent sometime studying, I've come to understand that we live in a soup of both good and bad molds or yeast whatever you wanna call it. Yeast is basically mold. This soup of mold in our environment is a community (or must in our brewing case), all fighting their places. However, for one of the strain to take hold of the community, the condition must be right e.g. nutrients and most importantly temperature because each strain has its preferred temperature so you can control one mold growing from the other by means of temperature alone.

I have like six months old fermented beetroot and lemons in my bridge and they are good!

God knows how many strains of yeast and bacteria we need in our gut to help digestion, to extract nutrients from the food we've eaten. Without their help, we can't extract nutrients.

If you look at how people ferment stuff in a traditional way, they don't sanitize their wear. It's been like that for 100s of years and build up of yeast is the taste.

For example,
- wiltshire cured bacon - temperature controlled room but they dip pork in liquid to cure again and again
- People who makes cider with natural yeast...gosh you should have seen the shed and barrels but that's how they make it. Not like stainless steeled, sanitized factory.
- Soya source, again huge wooden container that never get sanitaized. God forbid, that's like killing the colony! It's the saturation of one strain, when the condition is right, it produce products.

Anyway, some of this stuff isn't about brewing alcohol but it's the same because it's about fermenting.

 

[Kelvin]

OK brew in your bathroom and don't wash your hands and use dirty buckets. Fine by me. Me, I'll stick to taking precautions and trying ot make clean and good brews. Obviously you don't get everything, neither do hospitals yet they still sanitize. I wonder why? Make your stinky no dirty brews all day and drink them til your content. I'll stick with doing it right.

 

[Soyala_Amaya]

OK brew in your bathroom and don't wash your hands and use dirty buckets. Fine by me. Me, I'll stick to taking precautions and trying ot make clean and good brews. Obviously you don't get everything, neither do hospitals yet they still sanitize. I wonder why? Make your stinky no dirty brews all day and drink them til your content. I'll stick with doing it right.

Agreed. I also find it amazing that all of these wine companies that use sanitation and clean methods are the ones who produce and sell massive amounts of wine, while this banana beer is created by a group of impoverished, isolated tribal people who often DO get sick off of what they drink. Bacteria, parasites, plain ol' dirt and germs are everywhere in what you've posted. I don't look at the post and think "Huh, maybe I don't need to sanitize as much" I think "Oh my goodness, what poor people, I wish I could do something to ease their extreme poverty."

Please cease arguing a case that has a very poor base. Do what you want, but I won't trade bottles with you.

 

[Chevette Girl]

I think the point is to do the best you can with sanitation (I've used unsanitized jars for JAO's many times, so even "clean" may be enough for primary, considering that we often put fruit in there that has been touched by our hands which are near impossible to completely sanitize) but also do recognize that you don't work in a clean room setting, and you don't need to panic and toss the whole batch if a speck of dust (or wayward ferret) should settle in your must.

 

[lupilu]

On the one hand, the guy probably got sick because coming from a country that focuses on sanitization, his immune system is not up for protecting him against the nasties in the banana brew, whereas the African's live there, eat there and drink that unsanitized stuff all the time so they have a strong immune system to deal with it.

On the other, western obsession with sanitizing our environment is what made MRSA.

Personally, I'll keep on sanitizing my brew stuff, simply because if I make a batch, I want to give it the best chance of brewing right and because I really don't want to look in my brew bucket/carboy and see mould growing in it. If I make a batch, I wanna be able to drink it.

But I do agree that in life in general, we fear germs too much. Our ancestors lived sanitization free for literally hundreds of thousands of years and as a race we're going strong.

 

[wiltshiremead]

I think the point is to do the best you can with sanitation (I've used unsanitized jars for JAO's many times, so even "clean" may be enough for primary, considering that we often put fruit in there that has been touched by our hands which are near impossible to completely sanitize) but also do recognize that you don't work in a clean room setting, and you don't need to panic and toss the whole batch if a speck of dust (or wayward ferret) should settle in your must.

EXACTLY. I wasn't saying, don't ever sanitize when making brew
I wouldn't wanna go to toilet, not wash my hands or use an unwashed knife that has been used to cut a raw chicken for example. The point is reasonable precaution should be taken for preparing brew but not to let it become OCD.

But I do agree that in life in general, we fear germs too much. Our ancestors lived sanitization free for literally hundreds of thousands of years and as a race we're going strong.

That's right, they didn't have sanitizer and still made mead, wine, cheese etc.
If you look into the history of these fermented products, chances are that when there was no fridge, food were left or even forgotten in a cave storage, months after they've discovered that they have gone moldy but also tasted good and it became cheese etc. So these tasty things have been created by mistake. Later on, it all became science.

 

[mediaguru]

On the one hand, the guy probably got sick because coming from a country that focuses on sanitization, his immune system is not up for protecting him against the nasties in the banana brew, whereas the African's live there, eat there and drink that unsanitized stuff all the time so they have a strong immune system to deal with it.

On the other, western obsession with sanitizing our environment is what made MRSA.

...

Our ancestors lived sanitization free for literally hundreds of thousands of years and as a race we're going strong.

And on the third hand, we have the fact that the average lifespan in the middle ages was about 30-something years old, and it is now more than double that. Hygiene and sanitation have big parts to play in that fact. Our ancestors were not "going strong" -- you don't have to live long in order to reproduce. Insects live a matter of days and yet they are still "going strong"; our ancestors had babies at the age of 14 or 15 and were dead by the time they were 30.

Today, thanks to things like sanitation and modern science's understanding of what germs are, what they do, and how to avoid them, the live expectancy is up to 80-something years old in several first-world countries.

I'm not sure I'd trust drinking an unsanitized banana brew in a country where the current average life expectancy is about 50 years old.

 

[Soyala_Amaya]

Wait…what? I’m sorry, you posted a link about tribal African’s brewing a type of beer by leaving outside in a tree and making comments about “see? We don’t have to be sanitary after all!” and from that we’re supposed to infer that you only meant not to be OCD about sanitation? Nope, sorry, your evidence does not support your conclusion. I agree with your edited conclusion, have for a long time, modern wine yeast is pretty good at kicking the butt of most nasties during primary fermentation, but not the original premise.

All of your evidence, tribal poverty, medieval methods, claiming that the only reason I’d get sick drinking something that’s sat outside for a month is because I haven’t acclimated my body to the bacteria, so on and so forth, is all making false conclusions of CHOICE. The second there is a better option (I.e. refrigeration, sanitation, and yes science) humanity tends to take it. No one puts there food in a cave then eats it when it molds because they want to. They do it so they won’t STARVE.

And yes, I wil get sick if I leave my home country and eat unprocessed food. It's not because I don't go outside and have no immune system. It's because it is literally impossible for me to build up an immunity to diseases in Africa when I live in America! Hell, I could get sick from a mutation of a bacteria driving from New England to California, forget crossing the ocean! Ever heard of smallpox and how it killed 75-90% of the North American population? Are you going to tell me that Native Americans just "didn't bother to go outside enough to build up their immune systems?"

And yes, our ancestors got sick. They died. The discovery of the bacteria and proper sanitation methods has helped with a lot of that, but even today it still happens. Try looking up the debate over selling and drinking raw milk sometime. Or wait for the next batch of e-coli to get through because some farm’s irrigation got the cow’s crap into the water supply.

All of your arguments are based on the idea that all of your out dated methods were perfectly fine and people chose to do them.

Wrong.

 

[wiltshiremead]

mediaguru, I take it you won't be drinking one of those alcoholic beverage where everyone swishes the corn in their mouth and spitting out into a big barrel to ferment ;D

Who said, drink ecoli
Yes, ecoli and other nasties are in our gut but everything is kept in check by other bacteria. Yes, give them the right condition, they will florish and you get sick.

Just put into perspective, bacteria and yeasts serves very important part in our lives.

It amuses me to think that mum's first birthday present to me was a slathering of vaginal microbes.....If I was born via C-section, I would have ended up with a different set of colonisers, from my mum's skin and from the hospital environment.

An American doctor, Alexander Khoruts, has treated people with crippling gut infections by - and brace yourselves if you are a bit squeamish - basically giving people poo transplants.

He has taken the gut bacteria of a healthy person and put them inside a sick person. No-one quite knows why it works, but it seems to. This is really early science, but it heralds a future where we may be able to more deliberately manipulate our gut passengers to improve our health. If I go to a doctor, maybe she will check my gut type as well as my blood type.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15356016

Obviously, you can't just gulp poo, that would make you sick but like this doctor, if procedure is done right, it can cure people suffering from IBS, C-diff type of serious illness. Basically, our gut houses an awful lot of bacteria, it's not a sweage system, it's actually a big part of immune system. If you read the above article, you will understand, anti-biotics kills so many good bacteria as well that people's immune system are destroyed hence more and more people developing allergy and illness.

I think there is lot more to this yeast, bacteria business than just sanitize them all.

If you are not convinced, I think you'd better wear a mask 24/7 because I know you have just breathed in that black mold spore I can guarantee you that there is black mold spore floating in the air where you sit. Yes, it's everywhere but if you are healthy, it is all kept under check.

 

[Vandall]

Personally I try to be as sanitary as possible when making mead, however, the real reason for my reply is to say...

Mediaguru has 3 hands????

 

[Soyala_Amaya]

If you are not convinced, I think you'd better wear a mask 24/7 because I know you have just breathed in that black mold spore

Really...out of everything I just said that's what you brought it down to. Done. Completely done. Over and out.

 

[mediaguru]

Personally I try to be as sanitary as possible when making mead, however, the real reason for my reply is to say...

Mediaguru has 3 hands????

Sorry, I don't have a profile set up with my portrait, but here it is ;D: