Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Spice additions cold side contamination concerns

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Spice additions cold side contamination concerns

    Hey guys,

    I'm part of a new brewery close to starting it's first batch. One of my recipes that we are using I've developed using spices and whole coffee beans in the secondary. Test "homebrew" batches had the spices thrown right into the fermenter post fermentation as well as steeping the coffee with great success. I do worry about what this means for a product that will be bottled however as I know spices aren't inherently sanitary. What concerns me even more is a spring seasonal i'm thinking of and adding ginger powder to, as I know ginger can be covered in lactobacillus. Should I just move spices to the hot side to alleviate my concerns? What about the coffee beans? I'm building out a lab as part of our start up and have experience making and using media but I probably wont have all the equipment for that for a few months.

  • #2
    I've never had infection issues throwing in ingredients cold side post fermentation. That being said, there are a few other things you can do. One is to deep freeze ingredients for a few days to help kill of bugs and wild yeast. They're durable, and it won't kill everything, but it will certainly lower the cell count. It will also help break down the cell walls of your ingredients for better flavor extraction. You could also boil a small amount of wort/sugar water matching your final gravity and sterilize your ingredients that way. The only thing to consider is that heat may change the nature of the flavors you pull. Overall, the alcohol content and pH of finished beer will be a decent buffer against contamination if you aren't starting with any unwanted organisms in solution. Usually I just throw it into the fermenter though. It's never been a problem so far. I suppose I may just keep getting lucky, but those methods will definitely help if you're weary.

    Comment

    Working...
    X