Infected, but not dry hopped yet!

Hi All-

Not exactly the noobiest of noobs, but new to infected beer. Mods feel free to move it to equipment/sanitation if you think that's where this belongs.

Anyway, I have two batches of APA fermenting right now, both are ready for dry hop. Batch 1 is Da Yoop's house pale and batch 2 is a victory malt pale I made while introducing my brother to brewing. The idea was that he would get a case of bottles of that batch, but now it's clearly infected. Nobody seems to agree on what each pellicle means, so I can't identify exactly what's in it, but trust me on this one, it's infected. I'll post pictures if you don't, but that's a lot of work- trust me, I know what infected looks like, and it's not krausen or yeast rafts.

I'm obviously bummed because I would call my sanitation process thorough, moving through fastidious bordering on OCD, but these things happen. I'm ready to move on and get these fermentors free.

Anyway, I can rack this to a keg, get it cold, and drink it, but my brother was supposed to get half. I could give him half of Da Yoop's pale (bottling that and kegging the victory pale), but neither one has been dry hopped yet.

What should I do? At the moment, I'm thinking of starting dry hop on da yoop pale, racking the infected one to my keg and tossing some dry hops in it even though it's going to be at kegerator temps. Is dry hopping an infected batch at fridge temps just a waste of hops, and if so, should I just drink it as is with no dry hop?

The gravity of the infected batch hasn't dropped since the last time I measured (~1.5 weeks ago) and it was not VISIBLY infected then. Will the bacteria continue to grow and funk up my beer even at fridge temps? The beer has a noticeable funk (it's not strong enough for me to say whether it's lacto cheesy, pedio foot-y, or just brett-funk-y yet) but I definitely wouldn't call it undrinkable, just different, at the worst it's a little odd (or off). I don't expect it's a beer that will take well to long term infection- it's a medium body medium gravity, well hopped beer (1.060, ~45 IBU)

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks again all.

I dunno, if its not bad enough to taste the type of infection, if its still drinkable-I wouldn't call in infected. Maybe something else got screwed up.

If its infected it will be undrinkable (or near it). In this case don't dry hop it (waste of hops) and dump (waste of time you can use for better beer).

I disagree. It's common practice to rack out from under a pellicle and drink a beer quickly if it's still good.

Anybody have some advice?

daksin said:

I disagree. It's common practice to rack out from under a pellicle and drink a beer quickly if it's still good.

Anybody have some advice?

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yeah, its a common practice when you make a sour beer...

So if you are correct and its a common practice (I've never heard of anyone doing it, but whatever), then you have answered your own question...you don't have time to dry hop and should drink it quick.

I guess my feeling that sometimes its best to admit when you you f*cked up instead of wasting time making a silk purse out of a sow's ear....again my 0.02.

I don't want to argue here, but I've seen it posted numerous times by respected brewers here that if an infected batch doesn't taste bad it's perfectly fine to drink- and drink it you should. Obviously the dry hop posed a bit of a caveat to that method and that's why I posted. I have a ton of hops around the house, and they're not exactly expensive, so I figured I'd at least put the question to those more experienced.

Anyway, I hesitated a day due to the total lack of helpful advice here and then life got in the way and I had to leave it for a few days. After that, I didn't feel like tasting it and didn't particularly want to put an infected beer in a brand new keg. Anyway- that's one batch down the drain and everything plastic I own is in bleach right now.

Not to revive an Old thread but, I have a question/ comment on this topic, say you get an infection in your beer , if you act quick enough.... would the AA in Hops help perhaps purge the infection , I remember that Indian Pale Ales were dry hopped vigorously from the way down from England to India to help preserve them. So is it possible to turn your Ale to an IPA and save the day , as for kegging it and putting it in your keggerator… IMO I wouldn’t I personally wouldn’t want to contaminate more equipment for the cost of one batch. Bottling it meh maybe. I personally would treat the stuff like plutonium and find a third world country to dump it in. I’m still new to brewing I’ve done like 40 batches and only had one infection, in fact it was a friends that he left at my house so I like to think my record is still un tarnished however when I did see my friends beer go bad I quarantined it and took to sterilizing everything, but I did wonder if maybe a few oz of hops could have saved it.
So if there is anyone that knows if the Dry Hopping would, or wouldn’t help? please enlighten me

daksin said:

I don't want to argue here, but I've seen it posted numerous times by respected brewers here that if an infected batch doesn't taste bad it's perfectly fine to drink- and drink it you should. .

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If a infected batch still taste good, is it really infected??????

DirtyGerman said:

Not to revive an Old thread but, I have a question/ comment on this topic, say you get an infection in your beer , if you act quick enough.... would the AA in Hops help perhaps purge the infection ,

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This probably would not work....if the number of microbes that are acting to sour the beer are high enough to overwhelm the yeast (which is basically what happens in infected beer), they are surely going to be able to overwhelm the antimicrobial properties of the hops.

DirtyGerman said:

I remember that Indian Pale Ales were dry hopped vigorously from the way down from England to India to help preserve them. So is it possible to turn your Ale to an IPA and save the day ,

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I'm think this is more myth than fact. I was under the impression is that IPA were made that way was so by the time they reached India they still retained some hop bitterness (which fades with time). I'm sure the antimicrobial properties certainly didn't hurt either.

DirtyGerman said:

So if there is anyone that knows if the Dry Hopping would, or wouldn’t help? please enlighten me

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if its infected with brettanomyces it wouldnt fix anything as its not inhibited by hops

daksin:

i think you're the only one who can make the call as to whether or not to keg it.

you established that you are 100% certain that your beer is infected.

is your beer drinkable? if so, rack from under the pellicle into a keg. force carb as quickly as possible and drink it up.

whether or not to dry hop it in the keg depends on how drinkable the beer is. if it is infected, the bacteria are continuing to multiply in your beer, making it less and less drinkable with time. if the beer tastes decent, i would dry hop it and try to drink it within 1-2 weeks. the perceived flavor from the dry hop will distract drinkers from the infected beer taste.

brewski08 said:

daksin:

i think you're the only one who can make the call as to whether or not to keg it.

you established that you are 100% certain that your beer is infected.

is your beer drinkable? if so, rack from under the pellicle into a keg. force carb as quickly as possible and drink it up.

whether or not to dry hop it in the keg depends on how drinkable the beer is. if it is infected, the bacteria are continuing to multiply in your beer, making it less and less drinkable with time. if the beer tastes decent, i would dry hop it and try to drink it within 1-2 weeks. the perceived flavor from the dry hop will distract drinkers from the infected beer taste.

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His post was from January and it sounds like he dumped it long ago from his last post.

Yup, like I said, I waited an hour or a day too long and the beer wasn't tasty. Luckily, all the plastic stuff came out of the bleach great and I haven't had an infected batch since.