contamination?

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Chombo

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hello all,

i recently purchased a disposable 2 litre bottle of brew your own beer at a variety store. i have never seen a product like this, essentially, its the wort in a 2 litre bottle that comes with a yeast capsule and a pressure release cap.

all you have to is open the bottle, drop the capsule in, and replace the cap with the release valve cap. then wait 2 weeks for the beer to appear.

anyways my question is this. i started it about 2 days ago and there seems to be a scummy brown layer on the top in the foam, and also a ring of brownish scum above the foam around the inside of the bottle. should i be worried about contamination? im completely new to this so i apologize if this is some sort of common error
 
there seems to be a scummy brown layer on the top in the foam, and also a ring of brownish scum above the foam around the inside of the bottle.



That is call krausen, it is a normal process of beer making just keep that thing out of the light and post some pictures


Welcome to Home Brew Talk


pictures or a link to a website for the item you purchased would be cool
 
ok, picture coming in a minute...

also i should have mentioned, my friend wanted to try a sip of the wort before the process, i didnt realize that he could comtaminate it before capping with the valve

this is after 2 days:
100_0556.jpg


100_0554.jpg
 
that looks like the exact same one except different manufacturer, you can see the white rubber valve on the top of your picture, mine has the same thing. looks like there is some brown gunk in the bottle of the beer you posted aswell, do you think i am safe?

here is mine:
100_0557.jpg


Edit: ok cool, thank you, i was getting worried!
 
Yes you are safe, there are no Known pathogens that are dangerous to humans that can live in beer, along with you bottle of wort being pasturized. I don't think you have anything to worry about
 
also i should have mentioned, my friend wanted to try a sip of the wort before the process, i didnt realize that he could comtaminate it before capping with the valve - Chombo

If I read that correctly you let your friend sip the wort from the bottle. If this is the case then there is possibility for contamination. Check out http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2.html the picture shown on the page was a sample taken from wort that was spit into. It doesn't state that on the page but I have the book and it does state that it is bacteria from saliva. So if what I read from your post quoted above is correct I think it is not impossible that the wort has been contaminated. However, the brown scummy ring is a normal part of fermentation. I think it would take quite a while for contamination from the saliva to show up in your beer, maybe several weeks, but I'm not really an expert and have never spit in my beer before to find out. Either way, relax, and maybe if possible get started on another batch.
 
Don't start worrying especially after what the last person posted...(A lot of inexperienced brewers like to jump on the infected bandwagon, when in reality) it is really really hard to ruin/contaminate beer, despite the worst case scenario just mentioned.

Emphasis on the word Possibility more like unlikely...

People have bled into fermenters, stuck their unsanitized arms into them, dropped hair, even sneezed into them and their beer has survived.

Cheeto's right about about there being no known pathogens, and that what you are seeing is krauzen, and what you will see in the bottom of the fermenter when the beer has finished out will also be krauzen (now called trub) and yeast....

So relax...and tell your friend to wait til AFTER it has become beer before they start tasting...(Unfermented wort sometimes tastes nasty).

:D

One suggestion though...when you next open the bottle(fermenter) take a piece of paper towel and soak it in vodka (or even a little rubbing alchohol if you don't have vodka...though you should pick up an airplane bottle of cheap vodka) and thoroughly wipe both the lid, and then the threaded part and the inner lip of the bottle with the alchohol soaked papert towel, this will sanitize it....in fact do it any time you open the bottle, until time to drink...(Actually you shouldn't probably open it til it's done any way.)
 
Well, glad to see someone with more experience than myself chimed in. Like I said I'm no expert, and I wasn't trying to get you riled up. It just seemed that nobody caught on to your edited post about your friend drinking from the bottle. Being a novice home brewer myself one of my largest concerns is contamination so my paranoia may have shined through a bit. I've read a lot of threads on here and I do have to say that I trust what Revvy posts so if he says so, there is probably about no cause for alarm.
 
Well, glad to see someone with more experience than myself chimed in. Like I said I'm no expert, and I wasn't trying to get you riled up. It just seemed that nobody caught on to your edited post about your friend drinking from the bottle. Being a novice home brewer myself one of my largest concerns is contamination so my paranoia may have shined through a bit. I've read a lot of threads on here and I do have to say that I trust what Revvy posts so if he says so, there is probably about no cause for alarm.

The thing is the OP is looking for re-assurance, NOT feeding into their already present fear...I wish we could have a moratorium on bringing up the word "infection" on any n00b thread...Unless they are showing us a picture of a pellicule or actual mold growing on it...

If there is an actual infection THEN we educate them on how to not have it happen in the future, and/or what to do to stop it from spreading to the subsequent batches.

Infections do happen, BUT they are rare, and it is more likely that an experienced brewer, like myself, will slip up in our process/sanitation practice, or have scratched equptment/gunk hiding in our hoses from lots of use, or just become lazy, then a first time or beginning brewer using the most rudimentary of sanitization practices on relatively new equipment.

Beer is a lot hardier than we give it credit. Some people come down on me for saying this, but beer has been made (nearly spontanaeously) since the ancient Babylonians, and up until Louis Pasteur came along, with almost no knowledge about sanitzation practices, and yes it may not have tasted as good as ours today (or maybe it did, we'll never know), and yes sometimes it got infected BUT it must have been uninfected most of the time, and must have been damn good or else we wouldn't be drinking it today...it would have gone the way of the betamax, or Pepsi Clear if most of the time it sucked.

So even the sloppiest of our sanitation practices blow away the ancient methods...even us simply having an enclosed place, clean fresh water, and the fact that we bathe on occasion is more than the ancients had...So if their beer most of the time must have come out ok (since beer is still around) the odds of US having uninfected beers are greatly increased!

[/Rant]:D


Oh and thanks for the compliment zythos!!! :mug:

I'm going back to watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" now, you could replace Greek with Spanish, and windex with Calamine lotion or Cammomile tea (blech), and it'd be my family. :D
 
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