I noticed today that there are a lot of posts on infections or problems with beer.
I am writing this to remind everybody...SANITIZE, SANITIZE, SANITIZE! I know I am preaching the Choir, but it is very important.
I sanitize like crazy, and I have not had any problems in the 4 batches I have made (knocking on wood right now).
AHEM.....ACTUALLY...
You aren't seeing a lot of infections...What you're seeing is the usual spate of nervous n00b threads of people who THINK THEY HAVE AN INFECTION....and no more than we debunk and calm the brewer down, on a daily basis...It's just like stuck fermentations....It SEEMS like there's a whole bunch of brewers who have stuck fermentation, when in reality they are using airlock activity as a fermentation gauge, and NOT a HYDROMETER, or NOT WAITING 72 HOURS before panicking...
99% of the time when we look at a picture of the SUPPOSED infection it is just odd krauzen, or yeast colonies on the surface of the beer in secondary OR the mess that comes from dry hopping in secondary with pellet hops trapping CO2 bubbling...
Just like 99% of the time when the person takes a hydro reading they come back with this...
Name Witheld said:
Rev.
Wanted to let you know that everything is o.k. Checked on the primary this morn. There is still no bubbler activity, but when putting my nose to the bucket, there is that distinct aroma. I opened the lid and saw A LOT OF KRAUSEN. So much that I had to resist the temptation to make a beard and mustache out of it. hahahahaha. I'm going to give it 10 days until I check S.G. again.
Thanks
Thanks for your concern, and yes Sanitization IS important...but you have to discern between the rare TRUE infection posts and the panic n00b posts...one out of every 20 or 30 threads on here (if not more) is a true infection...and although it's not fun for the brewer, it is fun for some of us "firemen" on here to actually get to tackle one...
It is actually more likely for an experienced brewer, like me, to get an infection- Perhaps we let something slide in their cleaning/sanitization process and something from their previous batch got nasty between brewing sessions, and infected their latest batch- It sometimes happens that small matter gets lodged in a hose connection and doesn't get cleaned out or zapped with the sanitizer....Or perhaps over many uses a fermenter or bottling bucket develops a scratch in it, which becomes a breeding ground for contamination.....but with brand new, cleaned and sanitized equipment, in a first time batch of beer...highly unlikely.
I wrote a blog about jumping to conclusions and bandying about the "I" word on N00b threads awhile back.It's funny, I was just thinking how it seems there's been a decrease in talking about infections around here...There seems to be a cultural shift over the last year, where we don't feed the fear factor, and calmy explain to the panicked brewer that what he is seeing is normal...and asking for pictoral proof...
We're going to be seeing a TON of nervous beginners in the next 6 weeks or so, as homebrewing kits are being given as gifts...(it's time to start copying your answers to a seperate file, so you can cut and paste them at will)