what are you supposed to do anyways?

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cheschire

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Whenever someone asks "is this infected?" everyone says go look on google or just wait, your fine. But if it is infected, what are you actually supposed to do? is there medicine for it? do you dump it? does it dissappear?
 
Depends - if you would still drink it, go ahead and bottle; it's not going to kill you or make you sick. If it's unpalatable, there's nothing you can really do - the damage has already been done.
 
Yup, I had a batch that I split between two kegs and the one that sat around aging definitely went bad. I think I isolated it down to a dirty autosiphon and no matter how much it hurts, that beer has to be dumped. I was just happy that I drank the first 5 gallons before the contamination started affecting the drinkability.
 
As Axl Rose once said:

"you can use your [infection]
Let it take you where it may
We live and learn
And then sometimes it's best to walk away"
 
yup. Someone posted that he just called his infected batch a "sour" and friends loved it.
I dump mine. it's nasty and I don't like sour beer.
but in all the batches I've made, I've dumped three. And each time, I renew my focus on cleaning and sanitation. Throw out all my plastic, etc.
 
putting the above aside; is it possible for beer already fermented to 9.5% (or to any %) to get an infection or does the alcohol kill it? I started this thread because my beer looked infected, but I soon realized its OK, so now im just firing off curiosities to you guys.
 
Short answer: yes--you can get an infection in fermented beer. But the alcohol does make it harder to get infected. Some folks that have brewed Flanders Red Ales (a sour beer), for example, pitch a "normal yeast" like California Ale or something, let it ferment out, then pitch the bacteria/brett after primary fermentation is done, and they get infections. Granted, they're pitching A LOT of nasties to get there though.

What this boils down to is that a good number of infection-causing bacteria are alcohol tolerant. Again, you might need to make a bit more of an "effort" to pick up an infection post-fermentation than at the pre-fermentation stage.
 
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