sterilizing and stuff

[the Baron]

G'day, I have been brewing small scale on and off for a few years now, and my girlfriend, in an act of kindness bought me a so called scratch free scubber that was made out of plastic, however, when I used it to clean out my fermenter it scratched it to buggery, will this still be ok as long as I sterilize. Also I have been dying to add a mango or pineapple to a brew (probably some sort of ale), should I do this as it is fermenting or when I bottle, and should I just dump a whole fruit in or add the juice??
Thanks Peace

[Dogger Dan]

Ok,

Number 1

You can't sterilize your beer stuff, well you can if it is glass and you have the right piece of equipment which hospitals have and dentists have and the rest of mere mortals don't have. The rest of us just sanitize which is way different from sterilizing. (God I hate nomenclature) Sterilizing means there are exactly 0, NAUGHT, NADA, THE BIG BAGEL, BUGS ATTACHED TO YOUR EQUIPMENT. In this lifetime it won't happen. you will always carry critters but at such a low load, they won't affect your brew.

Number 2

Scratches in plastic are bad especially since you can only sanitize plastic, not sterilize it cause it would melt. The theory is that the the critter (microscopically) is small enough to hide in the scratch and your sanitizer molecule is so large that it doesn't come into contact with that critter. I have brewed in the same plastic primaries for 15 years and I am sure there are others out there that have done it longer. Try it, keep it clean, sanitize. Look at the results. If you have a suspect, ditch the primary, they are what 10 bucks?

Number 3

Fruit additions should be done at the boil or just after in order to pasteurize the fruit (need a sustained temp over 130 for a bit (10-15 min depending) otherwise all bets are off (I scared a couple of folks with E-Coli so nuff said). You also need to decompartmentalize the sugars from the fruit and it is best achieved by either heating or freezing

Dogger

[the Baron]

Thanks Dogger, I feel about as usefull as a one legged man in an arsekicking contest, you have certainly shown me a thing or two

[Dogger Dan]

Nah don't be feeeling like that, you caught me on a bad day and some times I rant more than I should. Never like you can't tell me to get stuffed.

I work in the food industry and these things come up all the time from supposed professionals, some days there aint enough Homebrew to make it good and right.

As an aside, my primary is about 15 years old, scratched like the dickens and I am not seeing any contamination in my brews but I do stick to cleanliness being next to godliness ( I must be the only person whose basement is cleaner than their kitchen).

Sorry Again,

Dogger

[the Baron]

No hard feelings over here mate, or as my friend Ray would say "everythings as sweet as a cat-fish doing the backstroke down the shallow end of the kiddie pool", whatever that means.
Thanks to you and everyone else on here for all the info and tips, learnt more here than my poor brain knows how to remember (hopefully my tastebuds will forgive me, actually most are not all that bad.)
Once again thanks to all the members for teaching me how to assinate my brain cells more enjoyably

[Dogger Dan]

Thanks, speaking of which, it is time for a jar or 10. Remember, anything less than full is empty and there is no such beast as 0ne beer, thats why they only come in multiples of six.


Dogger