Are you plating samples/incubating?

[omearabros]

I'm a new brewer who has learned a lot of his techniques from a couple of small brewpubs locally and of course, by study and trial. One thing I've never done is "plate" samples of wort/yeast or take swabs from vessals/equipment for incubating to check for bacteria or unwanted yeast.

I recently spent some time at a small 3bbl operation and the brewer could not stress enough the importance of plating your wort, before and after pitch, and throughout the process to check for bacteria, etc. He does this for almost every batch. My question is -- does everybody our size (5bbl and under) do this stuff? It seems a little over the top to me if you're paying attention to your sanitation and technique.

How many small brewpubbers out there do this kind of lab work? I can see doing it every few batches to make sure everything is on the up and up, but every batch?

Cheers!
Tim

[d_striker]

We swab and plate equipment such as kegs and BBT's to prove out new cleaning processes such as cleaning BBT's under pressure and washing kegs using our cart pump.

Plating wort prior to pitching has been done a couple times initially again to prove our cleaning and sanitation regimen. We do not do it every batch, though it can't hurt. Your only cost is time and plates.

[polynomial]

I can't find anyone in the area thats doing that regularly(I've been asking around ever since I read: http://www.springer.com/food+science...-0-306-47288-6 !). I did a bunch of plates initially to prove out process in the new brewhouse, and I have a set of plates that I use from time to time to 'spot check' (using the yeastman testing plates/media). I do however count yeast twice for every batch. For me, the amount of time and prep work to do the lab tests really made it prohibitive on a regular basis.

I'm a new brewer who has learned a lot of his techniques from a couple of small brewpubs locally and of course, by study and trial. One thing I've never done is "plate" samples of wort/yeast or take swabs from vessals/equipment for incubating to check for bacteria or unwanted yeast.

I recently spent some time at a small 3bbl operation and the brewer could not stress enough the importance of plating your wort, before and after pitch, and throughout the process to check for bacteria, etc. He does this for almost every batch. My question is -- does everybody our size (5bbl and under) do this stuff? It seems a little over the top to me if you're paying attention to your sanitation and technique.

How many small brewpubbers out there do this kind of lab work? I can see doing it every few batches to make sure everything is on the up and up, but every batch?

Cheers!
Tim

[a10t2]

Routine testing *is* paying attention to your sanitation and technique. Otherwise you're just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

At a minimum, I would plate a knockout wort sample from every batch, store it somewhere warm (no need for an incubator - on top of a compressor works well), and visually monitor it for a week or so. If you're filtering, do the same with a bright beer sample. That takes just a few seconds per brew/filter day, plus an hour every month or two to make up the plates. Or just buy them; at brewpub usage levels the expense is pretty minimal, especially when compared to putting a contaminated batch on tap.

[omearabros]

Thanks for the responses everyone! We appreciate it.

Tim

[BugHunter]

We have a 20bbl brewhouse so we're not quite the size you're looking at but the brewery I work at regularly plates and samples our wort throughout the entire brewing process. We take a "sterile" sample off of our strikeout heat exchanger, plate out of our fermenter the day after pitching and then the day before filtering, and then set aside a sample six pack at bottling. This lets us not only see if there is an issue, but also pinpoint at what point in the pipeline the problem cropped up.

Plating and sampling has saved more than one batch of beer and I can't stress how important this practice is enough.