Why am I bothering to sanitize my primary fermenter ?

[chonn]

I use stainless steel primary fermenters and I always carefully wash them and then sanitize with star-san.

....and then we immediately dump in earwigs and leaves and spiders and cobweb and ants and probably at least one feather.....

(don't get me wrong--we harvest carefully and get clean clusters but there's always a few leaves that show up when we start punching the cap down)

So why am I bothering to carefully sanitize the primary vessel??

I guess if I was doing a pre-fermentation soak ? Or fermenting with natural yeast ? But I am pitching commercial yeast AS I CRUSH and fermentation is rocking and rolling in an hour or two and I don't see what could be on the (newly clean) walls of the fermenter that is nearly as bad as what is on even a single large cluster of grapes....

If I pitch immediately can't I just clean the primaries with soap and water?

 

[Rice_Guy]

... If I pitch immediately can't I just clean the primaries with soap and water?

On a numbers basis canned food has been treated to kill nine log cycles of organisms. (1000000000) it is commercially sterile. ,, ie you can eat it and nothing ever would make you sick.
Cold water washing removes five log cycles of bacterial contamination. Adding hot does six. Hot and soap can get up to seven. ie you are pretty close to sterile / nothing is left alive.

As an industry person, you are wasting effort trying to sterilize a primary.
My view of wine is that there are natural fences that keep infection from growing. ex pH below 4.0 eliminates food poisoning organisms. pH below 3.5 (which country wines use as a rule) prevents most infections (but not Acetobacter / vinegar). Reading journals wild lactic bacteria will normally be about 100,000 (5 log cycles) on the crop you are harvesting. This is where your risk is.
,,, I would spend more effort checking sugar and pH and headspace.

 

[Garagista]

I like your thinking on this. I have asked myself the same question. I have heard of people finding a pack of cigarettes in the grapes (probably from a migrant worker).

 

[Sage]

Personally, I cleaned well when I empty, put away dry and covered. Next use, swish with sanitizer and go for it. So far, never had a problem with that system. My $.01 worth.

 

[Obbnw]

I use stainless steel primary fermenters and I always carefully wash them and then sanitize with star-san.

....and then we immediately dump in earwigs and leaves and spiders and cobweb and ants and probably at least one feather.....

(don't get me wrong--we harvest carefully and get clean clusters but there's always a few leaves that show up when we start punching the cap down)

So why am I bothering to carefully sanitize the primary vessel??

I guess if I was doing a pre-fermentation soak ? Or fermenting with natural yeast ? But I am pitching commercial yeast AS I CRUSH and fermentation is rocking and rolling in an hour or two and I don't see what could be on the (newly clean) walls of the fermenter that is nearly as bad as what is on even a single large cluster of grapes....

If I pitch immediately can't I just clean the primaries with soap and water?

I was pondering this same thing yesterday as I started to dump the crushed destemmed grapes into a not so clean fermenting bucket. I ended up rinsing the bucket and wiping off some grim.

Then I pressed a previous batch and did the same thing but thought maybe I should've put the pressed wine into a truly cleaned container.

On a related note, I also wondered how much YAN is in spiders and spider webs.

 

[chonn]

As an industry person, you are wasting effort trying to sterilize a primary.
My view of wine is that there are natural fences that keep infection from growing. ex pH below 4.0 eliminates food poisoning organisms. pH below 3.5 (which country wines use as a rule) prevents most infections (but not Acetobacter / vinegar). Reading journals wild lactic bacteria will normally be about 100,000 on the crop you are harvesting. This is where your risk is.
,,, I would spend more effort checking sugar and pH and headspace.

Thank you---appreciate your insight.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I also wondered how much YAN is in spiders and spider webs.

Spiders and other insects have some, webbing a trace. ,,, Basically this fits in the background. Red juices I have looked at were 150 to 250ppm. (mine and club). What was interesting is that the YAN was double in our local winery & vineyard since they fertilized the vineyard.

 

[winemaker81]

So why am I bothering to carefully sanitize the primary vessel??

Sanitizing is reducing hostile microbial life to below a threshold so that it's not a danger to the must/wine.

By sanitizing the primary, you are reducing the amount of potential contaminants. Does it make a difference? There's only one way to find out ...

 

[Rojoguio]

As I wash up equipment after use it gets a Star-San final bath. If a container, it is turned upside down to dry then sealed with plastic wrap. When I need a carboy or big mouth fermenter I just remove the plastic wrap and use the equipment. Never had a problem and I like having my equipment ready when needed. Bungs, measuring tools, air locks, etc are sanitized before use each time. At the end of the fermenting season and all my wines are bottled I sanitize everything and seal in new Zip-Loc freezer bags. Since my hands are not sanitized every time I open a Zip-Loc I follow the additional sanitizing treatment.

 

[Garagista]

As I wash up equipment after use it gets a Star-San final bath. If a container, it is turned upside down to dry then sealed with plastic wrap. When I need a carboy or big mouth fermenter I just remove the plastic wrap and use the equipment. Never had a problem and I like having my equipment ready when needed. Bungs, measuring tools, air locks, etc are sanitized before use each time. At the end of the fermenting season and all my wines are bottled I sanitize everything and seal in new Zip-Loc freezer bags. Since my hands are not sanitized every time I open a Zip-Loc I follow the additional sanitizing treatment.

Interesting thanks. Your method leads me to a question @Rojoguio . Does sanitizing a surface with something like Star-san last forever? Suppose 6 months goes by after sanitizing. Can organisms carried through the air and landing on that surface contaminate enough to pose a risk to wine?

 

[QuiQuog]

As I wash up equipment after use it gets a Star-San final bath. If a container, it is turned upside down to dry then sealed with plastic wrap. When I need a carboy or big mouth fermenter I just remove the plastic wrap and use the equipment. Never had a problem and I like having my equipment ready when needed. Bungs, measuring tools, air locks, etc are sanitized before use each time. At the end of the fermenting season and all my wines are bottled I sanitize everything and seal in new Zip-Loc freezer bags. Since my hands are not sanitized every time I open a Zip-Loc I follow the additional sanitizing treatment.

I do it the same way. Wash and sanitize when I'm done, then seal it up. When I need to use it, I just unseal and use.

Interesting thanks. Your method leads me to a question @Rojoguio . Does sanitizing a surface with something like Star-san last forever? Suppose 6 months goes by after sanitizing. Can organisms carried through the air and landing on that surface contaminate enough to pose a risk to wine?

Maybe? Since it's closed up and not exposed to free air, personally I see the risk as minimal.

 

[QuiQuog]

I use stainless steel primary fermenters and I always carefully wash them and then sanitize with star-san.

....and then we immediately dump in earwigs and leaves and spiders and cobweb and ants and probably at least one feather.....

(don't get me wrong--we harvest carefully and get clean clusters but there's always a few leaves that show up when we start punching the cap down)

So why am I bothering to carefully sanitize the primary vessel??

I guess if I was doing a pre-fermentation soak ? Or fermenting with natural yeast ? But I am pitching commercial yeast AS I CRUSH and fermentation is rocking and rolling in an hour or two and I don't see what could be on the (newly clean) walls of the fermenter that is nearly as bad as what is on even a single large cluster of grapes....

If I pitch immediately can't I just clean the primaries with soap and water?

This question has more relevance when you consider methods used by the old timers that make wine in their garage with questionable tools, as in the videos from this post. Stomping grapes with dirty boots, disgusting looking tools, dirty clothes, etc. I remember another made in Italy that was arguably worse.

There have been lots of posts that recommend or feature bench trials to determine how to get the best results. Maybe someone has the time to try a different kind of bench trial. How dirty can you get before it affects the finished product?

 

[Rice_Guy]

. Does sanitizing a surface with something like Star-san last forever?

Depends, , , the plastic wrap method should work well as long as the kill step was in a clean environment.

Our lab method is to wrap the mouth of a beaker / carboy with aluminum foil and then steam autoclave. The assumption is that nothing will crawl under the foil. This also goes for lose fitting covers as long as they are stored upright / so dust doesn’t get into the container. Tools as scalpels, tweezers or forceps also get the aluminum wrap. , , , In the lab we don’t really worry about the exterior surfaces. The humidity is low / its pretty far away from a moldy basement where the walls and ceiling shed.

In the micro lab fans are turned off so we don’t kick dust into the air. Basically something like a quiescent kitchen works. The next level up at university was to steam the whole micro room. Above that would be done in a glove box.

Risk? Wine is a preservative system. is the pH below 3.5? is the alcohol above 10%? on a starting ferment is the sugar over 1.060?

 

[winemaker81]

Does sanitizing a surface with something like Star-san last forever? Suppose 6 months goes by after sanitizing. Can organisms carried through the air and landing on that surface contaminate enough to pose a risk to wine?

Sanitizing lasts until the sanitizing agent is gone (e.g., evaporation) and hostile microorganisms land on the the surface. Sealing equipment inside a sanitized container prevents contamination, and a brand new ziplock bag should be considered sanitized.

That said, as a group, home winemakers are overly paranoid about sanitation. There's 2 things to consider:

1) as I said in a previous post, sanitizing is reducing the amount of hostile microbial life to below a threshold where it is not a danger to the wine. This combines with #2:

2) As @Rice_Guy often says, wine is a preservative system. The low pH and relatively high ABV make it proof against most microorganisms.

After each use I clean all equipment to ensure there is no foreign matter remaining, and ensure they are dry. Microorganisms need moisture and/or material upon which to grow.

The next time I use equipment, I douse it with K-meta or Star San, shake off excess, and let it rest until I need it (typically 5 to 15 minutes). Using this method ensures it's as sanitized as it's going to be. I don't have to trust that the equipment has not been contaminated since the last use, which is typically 1 to 365 days, depending on equipment and the season.

Based upon a lot of reading, it's very likely that a good cleaning is all that is necessary. I use a sanitizing agent as additional insurance.

 

[Chateau Crowdini]

I wash with cold water and a nylon brush for the caked on bits. That's it. In 10 years only one case of bacteria that made the wine fizzy and I had to bin it.
I use a pair of conical fermenters. Cab Sauv only.

 

[anthocyanin]

I was much more fastidious about sanitization before I transitioned to winemaking from fresh grapes. Now, seeing how the grapes come in off the vineyard, often with tons of earwigs, spiders, being picked into non-sanitized buckets, etc. I pretty much only care about equipment being clean. With that plus good fermentation management and keeping vessels topped up and sulfited I'm not too concerned about contamination ruining a batch. If I make another batch from store-bought shelf stable juice (eg apple wine), I'll be more careful about sanitization, since you're actually starting with a sterile must, and if you sanitize well you don't have to worry as much about things like unwanted MLF if you're behind on your sulfites.

 

[winemaker81]

Now, seeing how the grapes come in off the vineyard, often with tons of earwigs, spiders, being picked into non-sanitized buckets, etc.

This statement says it all.

 

[Rojoguio]

winemaker81 has me pegged. I hate to waste my fruit, sugar, yeast, time. etc. Mainly the consumables. We were very poor growing up, I was second to last with all of us 4 years apart. You here people say, "you better get what you want to eat on the first pass" well being the runt (still 6'3" @ 210#'s) I didn't get as much to eat as the rest. To this day I can't waste food, @ 63 it would just kill me to loose a batch of wine. Maybe I will overcome it some day but for now paranoid of contamination over sanitation is always me. My wife says I am a freak over cleanliness too.

 

[ChuckD]

I am generally a clean freak with all my winemaking equipment but for picking and crushing I go with a good washing with dawn dish soap and hot water. After crush everything is sanitized.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I disagree, there is a major difference between sanitizing and sterilization. None of us has the tools where we can pressure steam all equipment.

as I said in a previous post, sanitizing is reducing the amount of hostile microbial life to below a threshold where it is not a danger to the wine.

If I am micro testing used equipment I can probably find every organism that is capable of causing an infection. The risk is what barriers (or process rules) am i following. ,,,, ex I am running more apple since trees started producing. This typically finishes at 5 to 8% ABV. ie I have a reduced barrier to infection. As a result the height of other barriers needs to be adjusted. We can then choose do we want to be squeaky clean with low pH of 3.3 max, or pasteurize after fermentation, or refrigerate, or add Bactiless, or set up a Velcorin process, or be squeaky clean on oxygen exclusion, or use killer yeast that out compete bacterial infection, or say a little VA tastes good, or a little Bret tastes normal. etc.

The risk is always there.