Infection Help with a Porter (pellicle?)

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

baptistbrewer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
48
Reaction score
0
Location
Stockton
Hey everyone I have my first infection. After about 20 brews under my belt this showed up in my newest Porter. I made it and it sat for 4 weeks in the primary and after one week in the secondary this happened almost overnight, it has nothing on top of it up until last check on Thursday. It doesn't smell bad, but not super good either. I have not tasted it. Final Gravity was high at 1.02. My question is two-fold.

1. If it is infected as I suspect, is the bottom salvageable, I was planning on bottling all of it and letting them sit for a month or more. I read on here that you can save it young and drink it, but there is almost no was unless I keg it and even then, it would take me a month or better to give it away and drink it. So what do I do? Can I bottle off the bottom? Keg it? or dump it? Will it spread once kegged/bottled? Gushers?

2. How do I sanitize all my stuff, obviously something is infected in my tubing, ditch it all, chlorine bath? Right now I use star san in proper quantities, and I always thought I was anal about sanitation. (guess not). I am planning on ditching my tubing and chlorine bath my other things for about an hour in a 5 gal bucket.

Any help would be great.

IMAG0053.jpg


IMAG0055.jpg
 
Hard to tell what is going on. Not sure I would be worried. Check gravity, and taste sample, and come back in a week and see if anything has changed.

Might be a Brett infection ..... if it is, ride it out, it might be a great beer.
 
Definitely infected. Looks like the start of lacto bugs. If it tastes good now, drink up.
 
Those images look like the effect of Lactic acid bacteria.

This bacteria is the most frequently encountered beerspoilage bacteria, and can render beer undrinkable due to the production of lactic acid, diacetyl, and turbidity.
 
I don't think you need to change your cleaning processes. Probably you are doing your manipulations like us, in your kitchen so it's normal to have contaminations sometimes, don't worry!
 
I agree -- it looks like lacto. Rack underneath and give it a taste. If it tastes good you have a couple choices. You can let it keep souring or you can bottle it. IF it is only lacto then you should be fine to bottle without creating bombs. The problem though is that brett might show up later and decide to get busy which probably would create bombs over time. Brett is probably not going to show up in a month so I think you might be ok if you bottled it and drank it right away. However it's always a risk.

If you can afford to wait I say ride it out for 6-12 months. You will have a nice sour porter. If you don't like it I'm sure you'll be able to find other brewers happy to trade you beers for it.
 
Thanks for all the input, 2 days later the infection doesn't seem to have grown. However, This is my first rodeo, so I have not idea. Here is my plan of action. I would love to let it sit for 12 months, but that's a long time and I am impatient. :)

Haven't tasted the beer yet, but tonight I will taste the beer (and if it's good) and begin to bottle it. Couple questions. My bucket I use to bottle doesn't have a spigot so I just auto-syphon it. My bucket has never seen infection, so should I put the infected beer that I rack off the bottom into the "clean bucket"

Now for preventative measures, right now the things that have touched this beer after pitching yeast are: Auto-syphon, tubing, primary, and secondary, and airlocks (didn't reall "touch" it). Do I throw out all of it or can I, wash them and let those sit in bleach solution then rinse, rinse rinse, and a final star san? Also I am gonna throw out tubing!

Thanks for all the help.
 
So, I bottled it today bottled the bottom 2/3. It tasted ok not sour, not great either. I took extra precautions to sanitize and I'm still unsure about the auto siphon if o can still reuse it I might bleach it, is that a good idea?

I'll keep everyone notified if after 3 weeks, to see if its good.
 
Well, bleach is a good sanitizer in the proper proportions. But make sure to really rinse it well with hot, hot water. Not boiling, but where you wouldnt want your hand in it. My thought would be, replace your soft tubing. Your autosiphon you should be able to save.
 
For the bleach, you need a concentration between 0.5% and 1%. The bleach you will find in grocery is ~5% so you will need to dilute it. Do not use it at 5%, it's too strong for the tubing and it won't be better. The soak time is 10 minutes minimum. After this time, even spores will be inactivated.
 
Just to know, what is your yeast? Because I have exactly the same problem in my secondary (less thick than yours). So I took a sample, looked at it in a microscope and it is floculated yeasts... I'm using Wyeast British Ale II and it's the first time I see that.
 
so I tasted the brew for the first time last night. It's not great, but definatly not bad either.

Score one for me!!!!
 
Back
Top