Contamination fears

For years I have never worried about air contamination. I brew from kits.
I boil water dump the contents of a can and 1 kg Dextrose into my sanitised fermentor. I add 2 liters of boiling water and 22 liters of tap water add the yeast. and screw on the lid that has a led to a tropical fish heater. It is not airtight. I put a blanket over it and forget it for a week. This has worked for me over about 500 brews give or take one.

After reading all about air contamination and its prevention I am wondering why I have never had a problem.

Now I am watching my latest brew like a hawk, I even feel as if I should sit next to it on a cold night.

With this brew I adopted a secondary fermentor to let the beer clear. I just poured it in from the tap and was happy a blanket of foam appeared on the top thinking the released Co2 would protect it.

So far it is clearing nicely, its been in the secondary for one week normally it would now be in a bottle.

Do I worry or do you think

1. I have been lucky all these years
2. I have an exceptionally clean environment
3. The garlic I eat keeps the nasties away
4. Like me afraid of the wife

after 500 brew with no problems? keep doing what your doing. I would not worry as much about the airborne contaminants as I would the surface based ones that result from not sanitizing your equipment properly. I think that is the bigger risk.

Calm down, relax..remember CO2 is your friend....

It's time to reclaim you cojones, brewer.

Repeat after me "It's really hard to ruin my beer, the only airborn risk is a bird taking a crap in my fermenter. I'm going to Relax, Not Worry and Have a Homebrew."

I think the incredible thing here is not that he's not had an infected batch, it's that he's done 500 batches just mixing tap water, canned extract and corn sugar, and never had the urge to progress to more advanced techniques and recipes.

I'm not knocking it, to each their own, it just seems so incomprehensible to me. I couldn't wait to go all-grain and make my own recipes and experiment...

Well before I knew better I was using PBW for all my cleaning and sanitizing. I thought it was a sanitizer. So for a period of probably a few years I did every batch with just using PBW as my "sanitizer". Used it for everything, including my fermentor, bottles etc.

Never had an infection problem. So I think some things are a bit overblown. Now I use starSan after I PBW just in case - but I didn't for years and everything seemed fine.

PBW ? I have not got the translation.

Actually I did try some recipe's in the early days boiling up grains on a Bar B Q but what I get now is consistant and very drinkable.

I checked the number of brews and I was wrong. I started in 1978 and brew about 20 per year a bit under 2 per month so that is a tad more than 500.

Anyway who's counting, I love the stuff especially after mowing the lawn.

For years I have used bleach as the sanitiser, steralizer and equipment wash. After visiting this forum I use a bottle wash product and after cleaning add some Sodium Metabisolfate to the brewing containers. The fumes will kill anything.

I have a nieces husband who goes the whole bit with the mashing and the experimenting etc. He turn out a good drop. But he has difficulty coming up with a Aussie Draught/Lager style. The tendancy is to go for a stronger malty flavour which tends to leave an after taste.

A beer should be enjoyed but not let itself be known in my opinion. It is a refreshment. Wine and a good Scotch is to be savoured. Still thats my view and an explanation why I stick with the types I brew which includes some of Australia's finest:-
Lager
Pale Ale
Draught
Real Ale
Dark Ale
Stout
And all at about $0.40aud / bottle = $0.38us

Drinking Munich Lager
Secondary Tooheys Lager

Ain't life great

Terry08 said:

PBW ? I have not got the translation....

Click to expand...

Powdered Brewery Wash. It is a cleaning detergent.

Ok it is probably simular to the Bottle wash product I now use.

I like the idea of a secondary as I still have a week to wait for bottling and today I started a Draught. But then you all knew that. Who says you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

G'Day all from this old dog

Hi I'm new to brewing, and am currently on my 5th batch. I had some concerns, though, after one of my batches turning out to very sour (I think it may have been the mango that was left in the fermentor bucket with it), and then I recently threw out two batches because they smelled awful like rotten meat or something. I was too afraid to even try them. The first one I'm not sure where I went wrong, as a boiled all the ingredients and sanitized everything, but the second batch I dry hopped some cinnamon sticks to the fermentor without boiling them or anything and I think that could have been it. Has anyone else had just a rotten batch or am I just being paranoid?

dry hopped cinnamon sticks? you can only dry hop hops.

paranoid, no just not paying attention to the methods.

if your only on your fifth batch you should not be doing Mango or Cinnamon and just get some experience with basic brews.

studlyswimright said:

Hi I'm new to brewing, and am currently on my 5th batch. I had some concerns, though, after one of my batches turning out to very sour (I think it may have been the mango that was left in the fermentor bucket with it), and then I recently threw out two batches because they smelled awful like rotten meat or something. I was too afraid to even try them. The first one I'm not sure where I went wrong, as a boiled all the ingredients and sanitized everything, but the second batch I dry hopped some cinnamon sticks to the fermentor without boiling them or anything and I think that could have been it. Has anyone else had just a rotten batch or am I just being paranoid?

Click to expand...

Ya... your beer is probably contaminated, if you are okay with lambic styles and sours, let her sit for a couple months then try it.

Since the initial contaminated batch, every transfer line/ plastic bucket is probably contaminated pretty hardcore. Step 1, scrub the heck out of it with some oxyclean or other detergent that does a really good job (use soft sponge so you won't create scratches aka contaminant hotels). Step 2, Rinse and sniff. Step 3, If it all smells good, use a sanitizer like iodophor or starsan. Step 4, try another smaller batch and see if the issue goes away.

As for the transfer lines, i would just toss them. Brettanomyces (wild yeast) tends to live in fruit skins (wine grapes, mangoes, apples). Once brett is established (the uncle buck that decides to move in and not leave), it is pretty freakin hard to get rid of.

Lastly, if you are freaking out about opening your fermentor a couple times to check on your yeasty friends, i HIGHLY doubt any airborne contaminant could of done squat to your batch, even during your yeasties' lag phase. I work at a brewery that uses open top fermentors and plate most batches on MBA agar plates and was surprised to see such pure results. Saccharomyces cerevisiae (your brewing yeast) are pretty bada$$ little dudes and anything that wants to duke it out with them usually loses. With that said, a big dude can always get his butt beat by a bunch of wimps if they outnumber him... Contamination usually start from the bottom up (already living in scratched/smelly bucket or transfer tubing) rather than top down (little doo-dads riding the awesome air current of their world aka your kitchen).