Is Cleanliness Really Important

[Moonshyner]

I've been watching the 'Moonshiners' show on TV.
They get their water from mountain streams with mosquito larvae, frog shit and bird droppings, use somewhat cleaned plastic barrels for the fermenters, dirty bilge pumps to transfer liquids, lengths of wood with paint on them to stir the mash...etc.

They never seem to wash or sanitize anything, just a hose-out.

Yet they have a steady stream of clients buying their 'shine' at up to USD $150/gallon. (USD $39.70/Litre) That's AUD $58.50 per litre. That's bottle shop prices without the frog shit.

So....Is there a real need to pay particular attention to cleanliness?

For beer brewing....YES
For hooch....Anyone's guess

I've got a 3000 litre water tank that catches the rainwater off my roof together with the bird crap, dust, jettisoned fuel from aircraft and resident mosquitoes. Had it for a few years. Never use it for anything...been too slack to connect the pump.

Will try a sugar wash using the tank water. Can't be any worse than the Moonshiners.

What are your thoughts on cleanliness?

Cheers,

[Wellsy]

Cleanliness is important mate and considering water is the largest raw ingredient you put in. shitty water in will equal shitty water out, imo you are best off only using water you would happily drink.

As for moonshiners , this might come as a surprise but not everything on television can be believed. Probably like not all murders being solved in a 1 hour show. It is entertainment mate not a documentary.

[BigRig]

I've been watching the 'Moonshiners' show on TV.
They get their water from mountain streams with mosquito larvae, frog shit and bird droppings, use somewhat cleaned plastic barrels for the fermenters, dirty bilge pumps to transfer liquids, lengths of wood with paint on them to stir the mash...etc.

They never seem to wash or sanitize anything, just a hose-out.

Yet they have a steady stream of clients buying their 'shine' at up to USD $150/gallon. (USD $39.70/Litre) That's AUD $58.50 per litre. That's bottle shop prices without the frog shit.

So....Is there a real need to pay particular attention to cleanliness?

For beer brewing....YES
For hooch....Anyone's guess

I've got a 3000 litre water tank that catches the rainwater off my roof together with the bird crap, dust, jettisoned fuel from aircraft and resident mosquitoes. Had it for a few years. Never use it for anything...been too slack to connect the pump.

Will try a sugar wash using the tank water. Can't be any worse than the Moonshiners.

What are your thoughts on cleanliness?

Cheers,

Distillation process will clean everything up. Different if using the water for dilution after distillation.

Think of muck / dunder pits. That shit is mankier than your water tanks and it gets put in rum runs all the time.

[Moonshyner]

I've been watching the 'Moonshiners' show on TV.
They get their water from mountain streams with mosquito larvae, frog shit and bird droppings, use somewhat cleaned plastic barrels for the fermenters, dirty bilge pumps to transfer liquids, lengths of wood with paint on them to stir the mash...etc.

They never seem to wash or sanitize anything, just a hose-out.

Yet they have a steady stream of clients buying their 'shine' at up to USD $150/gallon. (USD $39.70/Litre) That's AUD $58.50 per litre. That's bottle shop prices without the frog shit.

So....Is there a real need to pay particular attention to cleanliness?

For beer brewing....YES
For hooch....Anyone's guess

I've got a 3000 litre water tank that catches the rainwater off my roof together with the bird crap, dust, jettisoned fuel from aircraft and resident mosquitoes. Had it for a few years. Never use it for anything...been too slack to connect the pump.

Will try a sugar wash using the tank water. Can't be any worse than the Moonshiners.

What are your thoughts on cleanliness?

Cheers,

Distillation process will clean everything up. Different if using the water for dilution after distillation.

Think of muck / dunder pits. That shit is mankier than your water tanks and it gets put in rum runs all the time.

So, I can use my tank water for the fermentation, dirty as it may be?

[bluc]

Give it a try. I would cut hearts with bought spring water.
You may or may noght get nice spirit fro your rain water but as you say minimixe harm. No lead solder paint or other crap in water path....

[RuddyCrazy]

Just do a steam cleaning run and get the distilled water for diluting the hearts, best of both worlds

[OccultSynthetic]

Hey Matey,

Forgive me if I'm a noob here, but I come from a food science and beverage background.

The trouble with most things is that humans want to find the easiest and simplest way to understand something, sometimes at the expense of factual understanding.
In this case sanitation is like an iceberg, on the surface it seems like you must do it 100% of the time, and certainly for beginners as well as most commercial circumstances it is quite important, but after you gain more scientific knowledge and experience you may well recognise the times in which you can be lax in certain areas.

It heavily depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Honestly, if I was trying to capture the nature of the input water I would not pasteurise, but you may well need to do so given the nature of microorganisms to produce certain molecules or enzymes to effectively fight with one another. (Google "killer yeast")

If you are aiming for 100% consistency, you should clean and sanitize all equipment preferment.

A good example:

I want to brew a Bohemian Pilsner, every step I will make sure that everything that touches beer (fermenter, lines, scissors that cut the liquid yeast pack, exterior of hop packet, keg, etc...)
is sanitised.
I pitch brand new yeast every single time to ensure the consistency of ferment.

In this case the purity of ferment as well as the ingredients is the overall focus, so I will ensure to make it difficult for there to be issues with ferment, storage, lagering.


Another example:

I want to brew and then distill a bourbon.

I care mostly about the input grain/s and want to ensure that I have a quick and thorough conversion of starches to sugar, as well as a very quick ferment.
I have a leftover portion of the undistilled mash leftover to innoculate my new mash with, of which will be rich with the yeast + bacterial culture that ferments my mash, in this case think of sourdough bread. Therefore I care considerably less if there are less sanitary conditions as I will be introducing a population if yeast + bacteria that will outcompete whatever is able to survive past the mash process.

TLDR:

Unfortunately there aren't broad strokes that you can apply to the logic that you use when approaching sanitation and cleaning with brewing/distilling. But moreso that there are reasons for approaching certain styles with more or less based on intent.

[The Stig]

It’s a TV show not a documentary
Stop taking the show as gospel

[Moonshyner]

It’s a TV show not a documentary
Stop taking the show as gospel

An old saying, "Never believe anything you hear and only half of what you see".
I do not take that show as Gospel.
But then again, those folk are genuine/fair dinkum moonshiners....or so they lead us to believe. They all wear bib and brace overalls, so they gotta be the genuine thing.
And those stills they have....surely not 'props'. Wish they had a shop in Australia.
All in all, a very entertaining TV show.

Cheers,

[Roddersvb]

Just a noob!
I come from a dairy food background and for us sanitation is everything, in saying that most cheeses were born from unsanitary conditions, the caveat here is that local produce was consumed locally and locals grew a natural immunity to local flora, if you and your friends like and survive your produce then it’s all good!
In my opinion, while it’s great to get back to basics and go raw there are serious risks.