After two years of brewing, I finally had a bad batch!

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chrislehr

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10 gallons of Ed Wort's House Pale - something I have made at least 10 times, too.

So now I am curious, did I breathe some lacto onto it? Will it be a sour pale? Those take a LONG time though, right? I wanted to free this container up..


dump? no dump? I am surprisingly not too upset about it, as the batch didnt hit OG right and didnt seem to ferment out (1.050 to 1.030 in 2 weeks) so it was already a "wait and see" batch, but I've only dumped one other batch (too astringent) - never infection before. GO ME.

d213c573.jpg
 
I am no sour expert, but that looks to be raised up off the surface of the wort. I don't think that is right. I thought lacto, brett, and pedio left a thin film.
 
I also went two years before having the exact same thing, a lacto infection, happen. Don't throw your beer out because lacto takes a while to work. I was dumping mine out and tasted some with my hand. It tasted great, no sourness whatsoever. Even if it did go a bit sour, since then I've tried sour beers and personally I think they're great, maybe you like them too.

I've heard that lacto can contaminate your other equipment, though, and also that it is resistant to cold crashing, so if you don't have a spare beer line/faucet or bottling bucket, you might want to be careful with it. Also, lacto is incapable of working once you get past 8% abv, so you could brew another smaller batch like an imperial IPA and blend it with that batch until you hit 9%. Might be more trouble than it's worth.
 
I also went two years before having the exact same thing, a lacto infection, happen. Don't throw your beer out because lacto takes a while to work. I was dumping mine out and tasted some with my hand. It tasted great, no sourness whatsoever. Even if it did go a bit sour, since then I've tried sour beers and personally I think they're great, maybe you like them too.

I've heard that lacto can contaminate your other equipment, though, and also that it is resistant to cold crashing, so if you don't have a spare beer line/faucet or bottling bucket, you might want to be careful with it. Also, lacto is incapable of working once you get past 8% abv, so you could brew another smaller batch like an imperial IPA and blend it with that batch until you hit 9%. Might be more trouble than it's worth.

We did Belgium for our Honeymoon, and im 85% through Wild Yeasts (book)

So yea, Im up for an experiment for sure, but bummed I might need a new ferementer. :(
 
I can't help much with the infection ID, but I can tell you that I went through a rough spell with 3 bad batches in a row after probably 100 that were fine. Turned out it was my plastic fermenting buckets that were the problem even though they were not all that old, and I thought I was doing a good job cleaning and sanitizing. I switched over to all glass, and not a problem since.

Good luck.

Alan
 
I have a Flanders Brown going in the basement that looked a bit like this. Don't dump. Taste it, and rack from under the dreck and bottle/keg when you like the flavor.

Actually, kegging's probably a better choice. Wild ferments can keep going a LONG time, and bottle bombs can result.
 
How do people generally rack off an infected beer? Dip the autosiphon down in, then stop pulling a little early to leave the baddies behind? Such a curious topic (I've been flipping through that 25 page pellicle thread all weekend).
 
How do people generally rack off an infected beer? Dip the autosiphon down in, then stop pulling a little early to leave the baddies behind? Such a curious topic (I've been flipping through that 25 page pellicle thread all weekend).

Don't know - and (crosses self three times) hope to never have to find out...

Cheers!
 
day_trippr said:
Well, I'm a righty, so left first. But I'm not sure that's any more powerful than going right ;)

Cheers!

Religious trivia of the day. Right to left is Greek and Eastern Orthodox. Left to right is Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. There are also some differences in how the fingers are held. Now back to the bacterium.
 
What is your usual cleaning method for that fermenter?

I have a vittles vault plus, and it has "lines" in the bottom that are difficult to clean.
 
In one Vittle Vault thread one guy said he pulls the lid rings for a clean every 6 months. Other than that just remember to never use brushes on plastic. I just soak mine in hot water and oxiclean for a few days and then rinse it out.
 
Sanitize the CRAP out of that cube. I brewed for 1.5 to 2 years fine as well and bought one of those to try bigger batches. First time it was ok, second time was my first infection and never really had good luck after that. I think there are just too many crevices around the neck. It currently resides in my attic. Good luck!
 
I sanitize by filling with 2-3 gallons of starsan then slowing pouring it back into the starsan bucket while spinning the cube. Works really well. Head space might also be an issue though as I have the 13 gallon VV but only use it for 10 gallon batches. The Krausen never gets higher than the top of the handles.
 
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