treating infection with Camden tablets

So, I discovered to my chagrin, that my Topaz Pale Ale is infected. I brewed over twenty beers this year, and got my first infected batch about a month ago. Now it is showing up in this other beer, I am a bit baffled how that happened. SO, going to have to review my sanitation and everything is getting bombed with boiling water, dish soap, hot bleach soak followed by star san!

Anyway, the beer still smells/tastes good, so I hit it with a campden tablet (have some left over from my mead making days). I believe the tablets are 150ppm each. I'm going to pitch a fresh packet of S-05 but was unsure how long to wait. It seems its either 24 or 48 hours. Which is it?

Cheerz.

1. Do not use dish soap the fragrance can taint your gear, use PBW, One Step or OxyFree for the soap.

2. I know what you did from how wine works. I do not believe that the camden will work out the way you think it will but GL.

3. 24 hours the camden is active.

I recently purchased a dish soap that is hypo-allergenic, no fregrances and no dyes, for the purpose of cleaning my homebrew equipment that isn't dirty enough to require a soak in PBW.

Between bleach and Star San, adding a dish soap wash seems to be a waste of time (and a potential source for trouble later).

Zamial said:

3. 24 hours the camden is active.

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In 24 hours the camden is STILL active, or has it 'done its thang'?
Should I wait a full 48 hours before adding the new yeast?

Thanks for the tips on the dish soap, will skip that in favor of a cleaner surfactant.

Cheers.

acidrain23 said:

In 24 hours the camden is STILL active, or has it 'done its thang'?
Should I wait a full 48 hours before adding the new yeast?

Click to expand...

Camden, when used as a sterilizer is added at 1 camden tab per gallon of must. I have ALWAYS used KMS for this as the SMS may impart salty flavors. Then the must is whipped to drive off the camden and the gases it made. (If you put a lid over it tight you are prob SOL) This is usually done at around the 24 hours mark.

You are the very 1st brewer I have EVER heard of that tried this with beer. The wort was already sterilized in the boil so adding in the camden may or may not have done anything to the infection.

If your wort has fermented even a little bit and you whip the camden out you will probably get oxidization flavors. If you do not it may smell strange or have a salty taste in the case of the SMS. Let us know what you do and how it turns out!

Dammit. You are totally right. I should have researched this a bit further before trying. 1) The beer now smells like sulfery buttholes. 2) The pelicle did not go away (in fact, it looks thicker now, possibly the result of additional oxygen when I added the dissolved camden). Doh! So, probably another dumper which is a shame since I was really hoping to get a taste of the Topaz hops. I did add some S-05, going to let this ride another week or so, just to see, because ya never know! But probably a loss.

If you are bottling and use a bottling bucket, here's one possibility for the source of the infections:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/spigot-infection-121734/

Thanks. I definitely suspect my bottle bucket spigot as the culprit- I took it apart last time, but was unable to remove the red plastic from the rest of the assembly. I'll definitely give it another go now though! Also, replacing all of my tubing.