Allergies

[dietz_james]

This is a general cleaning question, although I am more worried about a beer I made than my wine and I hoped you could help. I just finished bottling a chocolate peanut butter beer from Midwest that my brother got me. As I was cleaning my equipment I got to thinking about peanut allergies and was wondering if there was anything special I needed to do to clean my plastic primary and glass secondary carboy to make sure I don't have to worry about someone having an allergic reaction to my future beers due to an earlier batch containing peanut butter powder.

Any suggestions?

 

[TonyP]

I suspect others may disagree with me, but I'd say you have a significant problem, not with the primary but with everything else, including tubing. Unless you're able to test the equipment after cleaning to determine you don't have residue, I doubt you can be certain you don't have any contaminant. The amount remaining is obviously minute, but I doubt that matters unless you can determine how much it is.

It's interesting to note that Midwest now sells the kit without the peanut butter powder, probably for a reason.

 

[dietz_james]

For those interested, this was Midwest's reply.

Thank you for contacting us.

When you clean them, be sure to use the same sanitizer. There should be no residual peanut oil, but that will help ensure there is nothing left behind.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.

Cheers

 

[TonyP]

For those interested, this was Midwest's reply.

Thank you for contacting us.

When you clean them, be sure to use the same sanitizer. There should be no residual peanut oil, but that will help ensure there is nothing left behind.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.

Cheers

I doubt sanitizer will have any impact. My understanding is that the allergic reaction is caused by proteins in peanut oil, not some microbes. In fact, tests with hand sanitizers showed them to be ineffective.

Having said that, cleaning agents are effective in removing peanut residue. The only issue I have is in determining the amount remaining.

 

[dietz_james]

The kit is made with peanut butter powder, which has had most of the oil removed. This is important because the oil will spoil much more quickly than the beer and could ruin it. Perhaps this is why cleaning after using peanut butter powder is not as high maintenance as I expected.

 

[WI_Wino]

Would you be concerned about sharing a knife you used to spread peanut butter 2 weeks ago with someone with a peanut allergy (I'm assuming you cleaned the knife...)? I would say anything that can easily be cleaned is 100% fine. My only concern would be stuff like tubing and the siphon itself. Tubing is dirt cheap, siphons aren't terribly expensive.

 

[Pumpkinman]

Peanut allergies can be fatal...not that I want to over react, but I would use a different carboy and new tubing, a few dollars spent can remove any doubts and possibly save a life, worst case scenario.
When I was a chef, we had a separate set of pots pans and utensils for special needs such as allergies.

 

[TonyP]

The question to me is one of risks. I am confident knives, dishes, and other kitchen tools would be cleaned sufficiently in a dishwasher for there to be no meaningful levels of peanut oil. Thus, there the risk is insignificant. In the case of tubing and similar equipment where cleaning is difficult, I see no reason to take a risk. The prudent thing would be to either get new stuff or find a way to test it.