Funny thing...

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Mojzis

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So about a month ago I made a blue moon clone. I read online somewhere that to help pitching rates pitch inot 1/3 of the wort and save the rest. I thought I'd give it a try.

I saved the rest in my bottling bucket (sanitized) with a bag over the top with a rubber band to seal it (not sanitized). It was 10pm at night, I was tired of brewing, bottling and cleaning, etc... it was a f*** it kindof moment lol.

So the next day I went to transfer the 2/3 unpitched wort to the fermenting wort. However the top had what seemed to be a 1/2" krausen. White/brown with smaller brown spots (what seemed to be proteins). Tasted it and it didn't seem too bad at all. So I put it right into the fermenting wort.

I thought it was just proteins or something that had risen over night. never saved wort that long before pitching. However I did bottle a batch the day before and rinsed the bucket once with h2o and once with star san. Maybe a little bit of Notty survived?

I bottled it last weekend, tasted a little and it tasted fine. The wort looked normal, smelled normal. My gravity was where it should be (little high but ok). So i'm just sitting back and thinking about not bottling and brewing on the same day ever again, and wondering how this is going to turn out!

What do you guys think? Infection, other yeast or protein?

Sorry for the long story :eek:
 
Sounds like leftover notty yeast seeing that you rinsed instead of cleaned and it took off over night. I would store a couple bottles at room temp and see if they're gushers or sour in a month. Great chance to learn more about your sanitation practice or about storing wort overnight.
 
Tried one today ( 2 weeks). No gushers yet, but its sour as all hell. Worst taste ever. Lol hope this settles out some in a few weeks. But if not, that's what I get for experimenting. :D
 
It won't settle out any, it is infected. Unfortunately, lesson learned. Never heard of the pitch to 1/3 of the wort idea, but this thread is probably a warning against using that approach.
 
Yeah, can't say i'll be trying that again. Well, the good news is that in two weeks, if its not up to par i'll dumb the batch and free up some space so I can make some more batches.
 
It won't settle out any, it is infected. Unfortunately, lesson learned. Never heard of the pitch to 1/3 of the wort idea, but this thread is probably a warning against using that approach.

I have done this procedure MANY times and have had no issues. Your bottling bucket must have been contaminated or something else happened.
Instead of making a starter, on a fresh package of liquid yeast I do the following:
1. Add all the yeast from the package to 1 gallon of cooled wort in a sanitary, sealed container.
2. Put the balance of the wort into another SANITARY, SEALED container.
(I use a corney.)
3. Approximately 24 hours later, I will add the balance of the wort to the "starter" and fermentation will continue quite well as the 1 gallon will be at high krausen.

After fermentation, I then keg the product into another sanitary keg and have NO issues. It is a well proven procedure, its funny how one will mess something up once and then it's deemed unworthy. Sorry for the rant.
 
Well, for sure my sanitizing wasn't adequate for this batch. I tried making a batch and bottling on the same day and just gave up trying to make things perfect. Thinking back on it, I did try the baking bottles in the over sanitizing technique too. I had foil over the tops, cooked for an hour at 340, then left them for a week in the garage until I bottled (probably too long). They did smell funny, but i figured it was the water (left in bottle) or just oven fumes that had accumulated. I have read that sterilizing that way would keep them sanitized for a while as long as the foil was tight.

So I may have erred twice. I like the 1/3 batch idea, especially if I move to no chill. That would eliminate the need for starters. I just need to stop experimenting and step up my sanitizing (although this is my first infected batch). So maybe I will try it again.

Hopefully it was just the one bottle that was infected :)
 
Good luck next time around. It works quite well and you don't need to mess with a stirplate or anything.
 
Well, the batch was infected. It has a terrible terrible sour taste to every bottle. I have started dumping them...

Lesson learned, sanitize the hell out of everything and don't leave my bottles in the garage and still expect them to be sterilized. Thanks guys,
 
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