Oak infection?

Hey all. Brewed a porter with plans for bourbon soaked oak cubes in the secondary. Soaked the cubes in Makers for about 72 hrs prior to dumping into the secondary with a good amount of the bourbon (about 10 ounces). It appeared to me that the fermentation restarted slowly with this move, had some thin bubble groups on the surface again but these died down over 48hrs. The infrequent bubbling in the airlock did not die down so I took a gravity reading and a taste. Taste not bad, gravity pretty close to the gravity from about a week earlier. Closed er back up. Now 48 hrs later, the thin foam on the surface is back and I definitely do have some bubbling in the airlock...at three weeks. The attached photo makes it look a little more dramatic but it's there. Could this be a smoldering infection fermenting from the cubes? Fermentation of residual sugars in the whiskey? Thoughts appreciated. Thanks!!

It sure doesn't look good.

I wonder if it's not the oak cubes, but instead the huge amount of headspace and the opening to take samples, that caused the infection to be able to take hold. Most infections love oxygen, and need it to get going.

I've oaked beers and wines for years, and never once had an infection from that, even without soaking them in liquor.

Hello, I would give it a week and take a sample and taste it, if its not sour tasting after a week its probably not infected, it might have been just fermenting out the sugar in the bourbon.
If its sour tasting its infected, if its infected you can age it for a very long time (like a year) and maybe come out with a nice sour.

If it is infected do not use any plastics that came in contact with that brew on your next brew, it will also become infected, the only way I have found to reuse my plastics (after a nasty infection) is to soak in a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and water for 3 full days.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Will see what develops over the next week. Under the gun a little as I'd like to get it off the oak in the next few days on the off chance that it's not infected.

efkrug said:

Will see what develops over the next week. Under the gun a little as I'd like to get it off the oak in the next few days on the off chance that it's not infected.

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I would rack it off the oak whenever you were planning on that to begin with.

Then age it a bit and taste.

Cheers

Will do. Thanks WileE and Frau

WileECoyote said:

If it is infected do not use any plastics that came in contact with that brew on your next brew, it will also become infected,

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That is not necessarily true. If there are no scratches in the carboy, then a good bleach bomb and star san rinse should kill any leftover microbes.

DeutscheMaster said:

That is not necessarily true. If there are no scratches in the carboy, then a good bleach bomb and star san rinse should kill any leftover microbes.

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If you would have used my entire statement it is very true, Maybe you should read it again.
If it is infected do not use any plastics that came in contact with that brew on your next brew, it will also become infected, the only way I have found to reuse my plastics (after a nasty infection) is to soak in a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and water for 3 full days.

Some infections a bleach bomb will not touch, I know this from personal experience, absolutely no scratches in my plastics and bleach did nothing.

Hydrogen Peroxide did kill it however.

Cheers

Just racked this to a tertiary. It still looked pretty much like the photo at the beginning of this post. Slow bubbling in the airlock. About 9 days on the oak and bourbon so wanted to get it off those. Took a taste and not only not sour but pretty tasty. Full bodied, good oakiness in the background, light bourbon, kind of a late strange dryness in the back of the throat after swallow. FG unchanged at 1022 (OG was 1064) over past week despite very slow bubbling. I think it is slow fermentation of the whiskey sugars. Going to leave it in the tertiary for awhile and make sure that's done before bottling. Some fusels present 3 weeks ago are pretty much gone with conditioning without adding much ester flavors (or at least they're covered up by the oak and bourbon). All in all, much better than expected. Anyone have thoughts about that strange "dry" sensation in the back of the throat with swallow...is that typical of any specific off flavor or contaminant. It's subtle but there.

Im glad its working out, sounds like your going to have a very good beer when it gets some age on it.

No thoughts here, on the dry sensation in the back of your throat.

Cheers

The dryness in the throat is frequently caused by not enough beer in the throat. Or so I've noticed

A dry finish isn't necesserilly a bad thing. Especially after dumping in some 10oz of bourbon.

So the mass confusion on this brew continues. It's now about a month old and has been through primary, secondary, marinated with Makers and oak cubes and off the oak and back in a "second secondary". This batch continues to produce CO2 with some every 30 or 40 second airlock bubles. The pic at the beginning of this post is similar but less fine bubbles than the pic. I've never seen a fermentation drag out like this. Could still be the whiskey sugars I guess but even that's about two weeks ago that that got dumped in with the oak. Open to thoughts about this dragging out...by the way, no other signs of secondary infection, etc. and a pretty good amount of alcohol in this beer so I doubt it. FG does not continuw to change appreciably (at all?).

I would always defer to Yooper but that first picture didn't look bad to me. If you've made it this long without some major growth, surely (Shirley) you're in the clear.
Any new photos to post?
What is the current gravity and the predicted FG?

SoonerDoc said:

I would always defer to Yooper but that first picture didn't look bad to me. If you've made it this long without some major growth, surely (Shirley) you're in the clear.
Any new photos to post?
What is the current gravity and the predicted FG?

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FG predicted about 1018, I've been running around 1022 but interestingly despite the apparent slow activity in the airlock, it's stayed around 1022 over the past week. And don't call me Shirley. Nothing to do but wait it out I guess and watch the gravity...not as fun as drinking this.

Sounding like it did more than stall out. And co2 bubbles every 30-40 seconds is just off-gassing. I say go ahead & bottle it. You miay well have a lot of unfermentable caramelized sugars in there.

Eureka! Off gassing...a new one for me. Makes perfect sense for my situation. Thanks!!