outwitting an infection

Back story:
I have a second running black ryePA sitting in a carboy chugging away (2*). Of 1.020, fg 1.004.
back to now:
The other day I saw a layer of what looked like skin, and some small things that could be yeast rafts, but could also be an infection. rather than risk it i whipped up some more sugary nectar and some pureed blueberries (why not?) along with a pint yeast starter, transferred the sugar/yeast concoction to a freshly sterilized fermenter and racked on top of it. I left a good 1/2-3/4 gallons of beer under the potential infection.

By my reckoning, the active infection spores wouldn't travel as freely to my new beer, and on top of that the higher booze content from the additional sugars might kill off anything that did make it.

Not sure how it may have got infected, but my theory is that it was allowed to progress due to the low alcohol content....

Was my methodology accurate? Or did i waste my time.

Side note, it is bubbling away as we speak.

If it's infected, it's infected. All you did was feed your yeast but whatever infected the beer will still find something to eat. The pellicle is not the exclusive location of bacteria or wild yeast in a beer any more than krausen is the exclusive location of yeast in your beer.

About the only thing you can do when you have an infection is catch it early and get the beer carbed and cooled to serving temps as quickly as possible. Lower temps will slow down the spread of the infection so you can drink the viable beer before it sours.

Well then.

All I did was prolong the time required to get it cooled. Oh well. I sincerely hope it wasn't infected.

If you're kegging, you can add potassium sorbate, then force carb. If you're bottling, you can try to pasteurize by heating your beer to 175 or so; then chill and repitch clean yeast. High alcohol and hoppiness only impede certain kinds of bacteria. Pedio and brett aren't bothered by either of these things. Of course, even if you kill off the infecting microorganism, you may still be left with whatever off-flavors it imparted originally.

Well I definitely have an infection. Time to try the pasteurization method. I will not give up on this beer, it is named after a friends dog who died of cancer, they didnt give up on him so I wont give up on this beer... But if history is any evidence it might be best....
I sincerely hope this doesn't suck. I guess I need to practice better sanitation.
drats.

Beer is pasteurized, cooled, and re yeasted. It didnt have any off flavors, so I think I caught it soon enough.

On a different note, I may have jacked up a better bottle. I poured really hot, as in >140*F, beer into it. I had a water heel, but that didnt help a whole lot.

Wishing in one hand and sh*tting in the other, but I hope I didnt denature the poly. That would suck. Stupid temperature requirements.

VonRunkel said:

Beer is pasteurized, cooled, and re yeasted. It didnt have any off flavors, so I think I caught it soon enough.

On a different note, I may have jacked up a better bottle. I poured really hot, as in >140*F, beer into it. I had a water heel, but that didnt help a whole lot.

Wishing in one hand and sh*tting in the other, but I hope I didnt denature the poly. That would suck. Stupid temperature requirements.

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Good luck. That was the best plan. If there was no foul taste, you might have saved it. Can you tell us exactly how you went about pasteurizing it (temps and times).

BTW, here's how you know if the wort you added to your BB was too hot:

Wow, and I was worried about a little deformation on the top. Instead of round and smooth it has some flat spots, but no discoloration.

using 2 kettles i heated the beer to 170-190 for 15-30 minutes. I wasn't being exact and not picky because I had little people demanding my attention, but i *think* that should do it. I will admit that there was pretty much no research behind it, just what kingwood-kid recommended and what little i remember from Bill Nye...

Thanks for everyone's help and encouragement, it was really helpful.

For all of the time you spent try to "save" this beer you could have been well on your way to brewing a new batch with improved process you learned from this one (i.e. sanitation). Once again, the "NEVER dump your beer" mantra on this forum has been followed to a fault. Yes, sometimes the best thing to do is cut your losses and dump your beer.

I understand the sentimental aspect, but I offer a counter-view: Do you really want to honor your friends dog with a batch of what is undoubtedly be "passable" beer (at best)? Wouldn't you rather honor them with the best you can muster? Also, giving up a beer is NOT equivalent to giving up on a friend, dog, or anything else in life. Its not indicative of a character flaw.

Just saying...my 0.02, etc. etc.

A lot of commercial beers are pasteurized before packaging, and get excellent sales and/or reviews. I've done almost exactly the same thing the OP did, and it worked great. It's quite possible that he didn't waste a whole hour of his time. If this didn't work, and the beer is awful, he's not contractually required to drink it; dumping it is still an option.

kingwood-kid said:

A lot of commercial beers are pasteurized before packaging, and get excellent sales and/or reviews. I've done almost exactly the same thing the OP did, and it worked great. It's quite possible that he didn't waste a whole hour of his time. If this didn't work, and the beer is awful, he's not contractually required to drink it; dumping it is still an option.

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I wasn't slamming his idea of pasteurization, I was commenting that he would be better served re-brewing instead of throwing good time/money after bad beer. If it is truly infected, pasteurization (or any other process) isn't going to get rid of all of the bad flavor/aroma compounds in the beer by the infection.

broadbill said:

I wasn't slamming his idea of pasteurization, I was commenting that he would be better served re-brewing instead of throwing good time/money after bad beer. If it is truly infected, pasteurization (or any other process) isn't going to get rid of all of the bad flavor/aroma compounds in the beer by the infection.

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I dump pretty quickly, so in prinicple I agree. But I'm interested in hearing the end of this story in a few weeks. And it's possible he had a brett infection that didn't have time to cause any/much flavor change.

Heating the beer up to 190 could have boiled off some off-flavors, if they were there to begin with. I'm not really sure what the boiling points of various off-flavours are. If it ends up smelling a little funky, so do most dogs.

However, you probably lost a decent amount of your alcohol content by going over 173 degrees. I'd add enough vodka (or another spirit of your choice) to make up for about 50% of what you were supposed to have to begin with (I'm pulling the 50% part out of nowhere in particular). Good luck on your beer; it obviously means a lot to you.

To be honest guys, the sentiment is more towards the beer, not the dog. Im not sure what I did wrong in the first place, so I can't really fix it next time ( no idea what step my sanitation fell through on).

I look at this batch as a 'well, I screwed the pooch (get it?) on that one, and it still came out good... So why not try something different?' but in the end, if it tastes like wet dog it will probably go the way of the dodo. BUT I tasted it while taking gravities, and it wasn't half bad.

We shall see.

Same boat as OP...my ferm chamber started growing mold and a tiny bit got in two batches. I transfered and it looks fine (only two days ago though) but its my favorite recipe and I really want to see if I can save it. This is my first infection and if I have to dump it...I will with a heavy heart

I think you call this "the Mario Illusion." Like the pint sized Italian character in Donkey Kong obsessed with saving a girl whom he can never really save, you want to save this beer.

My experience is that most saves don't work. I recently wasted a bunch of time, hops and yeast trying to save a batch that had a bit of scorching. I finally dumped it. My guess is this one's a goner.

In the future, once I get to the point of considering dumping I'm going to pull the plug. Seriously, how good can it turn out if you were deciding between the glass or the drain? Most people who say never to dump are interested in having a sour beer.

"A lot of commercial beers are pasteurized before packaging, and get excellent sales and/or reviews. I've done almost exactly the same thing the OP did, and it worked great.."

The brewery pastuerize in the keg or bottle. They don't ferment it, dump it in a kettle to pastuerize because it went bad, add more fermentable stuff, and re-pitch yeast. Then, sell it. If it's bad beer, it is exactly that. No amount of aging cures bad beer. Unless the tastebuds are stunned.

Gents,
I should be bottling this weekend, so I will give you a report on how horrible/wonderful this experiment turned out to be.

The way I look at it is if it works I have validated a path for other people who have similar issues, and if it fails, I only wasted a batch of beer I threw together at the last moment, a few cups of brown sugar and some bread yeast (don't judge me).

His beer wasn't bad and neither was mine. They were just headed that way if we didn't intervene. Once your beer is scorched, it's scorched. A lot of misguided ingredients I've put in my beers couldn't be taken back out. But tiny amounts of some infecting organism that haven't ruined the beer yet can be fixed. The first signs of an infection don't necessarily mean the beer is irrevocably harmed, although that is a possibility. I drank one of my pasteurized stouts the other night, and it was fantastic in a completely non-barnyard, unsoured way. For the record, I never said anything about bread yeast or brown sugar, but that points to the fact that the OP spent about a dollar on new ingredients in an effort to save his batch. If it doesn't work, it's not like he's much worse off than he was before.

It has been a bit since pasteurization (I haven't gotten around to bottling yet) and the beer looks uninfected!

Hopefully I can bottle this weekend, and I will give another tasting note.

Thanks again.

Given that I added pretty much every type of fermentable I had in my kitchen and so many types of yeast that I lost track, this came out tasting pretty good. FG 1.004, no signs of sourness and a smooth body to it.

I dont think I will be trying to make this exact beer again because of, you know, all the heartache it caused. my brewing confidence has been bolstered to the point of me not being as scared of an infection as I was before.

I will post the final notes once it is conditioned and ready to drink, thanks for all the support through all this.

VonRunkel said:

Given that I added pretty much every type of fermentable I had in my kitchen and so many types of yeast that I lost track, this came out tasting pretty good. FG 1.004, no signs of sourness and a smooth body to it.

I dont think I will be trying to make this exact beer again because of, you know, all the heartache it caused. my brewing confidence has been bolstered to the point of me not being as scared of an infection as I was before.

I will post the final notes once it is conditioned and ready to drink, thanks for all the support through all this.

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Glad it worked out. Some of the guys at club throw everything they can find into a beer... Peanut butter and jelly, Boo Berry, Count Chocula Beer. To each his own. They're fun to try, but I'm often glad I don't have a keg of them.

I pretty much plan what I want to put in ahead of time. But that's just me. I admire their adventurous spirit.

Cheers.

I didn't even think of count chocula! next time....

I am fairly new to brewing but this story is definitely one I will remember. I am glad your beer turned out fine. If I ever encounter an infection and catch it early on, I will attempt what you have done here in hopes of saving it.

Also, I love how you named this beer after the dog. Great tale of fighting for success

Glad you found it useful.

TopherM said:

About the only thing you can do when you have an infection is catch it early and get the beer carbed and cooled to serving temps as quickly as possible. Lower temps will slow down the spread of the infection so you can drink the viable beer before it sours.

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Everyone gave me a few ideas to try in the future but I have always drank and "pushed" beers that started devekoping off flavors.

I had an English Mild/Bron that seemed to be was getting watery and veggitably so I drank it... a mixed a bit of an IPA in a pitcher to get rid of the last ot it...

I had done a 10 gallon batch so 5 of it was still around but it seems it was only the first Keg. (I hope).

Happy brewing.

Goose is in my glass. There is a hint of the kitchen sink, but all in all, a good drinkable beer.