Freeze! Stop (fermenting) right there!

I had a difficult experience setting up a brew a couple of weeks ago; I was working with a new set of equipment and found that one of my utensils was impossible to soak in sanitizing fluid.

I washed it thoroughly with soap and water, but was never confident that it was quite perfect.

Today, I tried one of the beers, and it came out with a lovely, complex flavor, much like a very solid Belgian. It was a wild beer.

Unfortunately, I'm sure that it will turn bad if I give it more time. How do I stop everything - the yeast and the bacteria - and freeze this beer in place?

Camden tablets? Will they change the flavor?

Why are you 'sure' it will turn out bad?

PurpleJeepXJ said:

Why are you 'sure' it will turn out bad?

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I think that the flavor is the combination of the "normal" beer and bacteria producing a vinegary taste. If I let it go further, the bacteria will convert more of the alcohol to acetic acid and make it bad.

Refrigerate or use a water bath to pasteurize them.

I would say bottle them and let them sit. Read this thread by the great Revvy... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/blogs/revvy/99-time-heals-all-things-even-beer.html#comment1660

PurpleJeepXJ said:

I would say bottle them and let them sit. Read this thread by the great Revvy... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/blogs/revvy/99-time-heals-all-things-even-beer.html#comment1660

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If it's acetobacter, the beer isn't going to get better with time, just more vinegary.

Best way to stop it is to drink it. If it tastes good now, throw a party, drink every bottle, and you won't have to worry about it.

What "object" couldn't you sanitize?

Yeah I am curious about the piece of equipment as well.

Potassium Meta Sulfate (K-meta) or Camden tabs (made of K-meta or Na-meta) seems like it would be the right thing for you, if your hunch that it will get worse is correct. Bottling may be a explosive disaster, might be fine too, just be prepared.
I would suggest putting about 100 to 150 ppm of SO2 into the carboy in the form on K-meta. Letting this do it's thing for at least a week, then vacuum degas it, to reduce the SO2 levels to under 50ppm. At this point you will be able to drink the beer safely, and with some luck you will have killed the bugs, and stopped the yeast.
If you want to carb this beer you will have to use a CO2 tank or dry ice, as there will not be enough yeast to work on priming sugar.

beerest said:

I was working with a new set of equipment and found that one of my utensils was impossible to soak in sanitizing fluid.

I washed it thoroughly with soap and water, but was never confident that it was quite perfect.

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I recently had krausen clogging up my airlock on a pumpkin pie beer and I needed to quickly sanitize the airlock, and the lid of my bucket and anything that touched it.

The quickest solution was to put Star San in a spray bottle. It made things so convenient and it's something I'll be doing from now on when I need to sanitize in a pinch.

The quickest solution was to put Star San in a spray bottle. It made things so convenient and it's something I'll be doing from now on when I need to sanitize in a pinch.

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Beat me to it! I could be accused of being lazy, but at least the last ten batches, I have sanitized pretty much everything this way. Have not had an infection yet! :cross:

I also use starsan in a spray bottle. It works like a charm. You can pick them up from Home Depot for less than $4.

dfc said:

I also use starsan in a spray bottle. It works like a charm. You can pick them up from Home Depot for less than $4.

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You can find them for much less than that, but the $4 Zep ones are very high quality and will last for years and years. I have 2 and want more. I also keep one full of 10% bleach. When things need a quick sanitize I spray it with this, then rinse it off with san star.

You can also use a wallpaper paste tray to hold a Starsan mix and use it to sanitize long, narrow things (insert joke here). I use the tray to soak racking canes, long spoons, autosiphons, wine thief, etc in sanitizer.
The trays are just a few dollars at HD, Lowes or any paint/hardware store.

DrJerryrigger said:

You can find them for much less than that, but the $4 Zep ones are very high quality and will last for years and years. I have 2 and want more. I also keep one full of 10% bleach. When things need a quick sanitize I spray it with this, then rinse it off with san star.

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Yeah, the Zep bottles are the ones I have.