re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread

It may not quickly become noticeable, but I would think that at some point it would.

I have had multiple beers go bad in my kegerator due to bacteria

I used to not worry about it, but I've gotten a little more diligent since I had some cross-contamination while bottling from the kegs for competitions. I now keep two clean taps and two funky taps. If a keg has funky beer in it and I go to put clean beer in it, I'll heat treat it first. I haven't had to do that yet, but that's my new protocol. If I didn't ever intend on bottling from the keg, I'd probably be more relaxed as far as brett is concerned.

As Frat said, there are some bacteria that can work in cold temps and hop-heavy environments, though brett isn't a bacteria and doesn't do any work at cold temps. According to the sour book I've been reading, New Belgium harvested some of their first bacteria from dirty beer lines.

I may do just that, one clean tap and one for the funk.

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Apparently they liked it because it was IBU-tolerant lacto.

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As long as they keep making LeTerroir I'm ok with wherever they got that strain from.

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If I wanted to no-chill, what kind of container would I drain the wort into after the boil?

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I just use my kettle, cut the gas and have a homebrew.

This is what I use.

I sanitize. I've read some people don't, but I can't shake the boogie man.

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I've got some from NB that are big enough for auto siphons to fit though.

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I did some looking around, and AHB was the only place that sold buckets with large holes punched in the bucket lids. NB, Midwest, and the other big guys all had tiny holes for an airlock. I ordered a couple from AHB and they showed up with tiny holes and grommets.

I emailed them and asked them to ship the other lids since that's not what I ordered. They said they didn't have any larger holed lids, and then this cheese dick tried to sell me on the small holes saying the smaller holes performs better than the larger hole. I explained that I ordered them specifically because the picture and description mentioned a large hole and that I needed the large hole for using my wine thief, and that the small hole would definitely not work better from that standpoint. I'm still trying to get them to cover shipping to return them. I'm not a satisfied customer with them incorrectly representing a product and then wanting me to pay to ship it back for a refund. It'd be cheaper for me to go buy a large plastic drill bit and do it myself, but I'd prefer to have a lids that's been punched for sanitation purposes.

Anyways, enough bitching. If anyone knows of a source for buckets with large, punched-holed lids, let me know.

In slightly related news, I received the plastic Big Mouth Bubblers late last week. Bottomland mentioned that the glass ones were really thin glass which was nerve racking. The plastic ones are the thinnest plastic bottles I think I have ever seen, which shouldn't be an issue it is still odd. Like cheap 2 liter bottle thin. Makes a bunch of crinkling noises when you just move it around. I also realized that I will have to buy an auto siphon as my racking cane doesn't work the same way since the carboy cover doesn't fit over the opening (obviously)