A little bug

First time poster! It looks as though these forums are pretty active. That is great.

I have been extract brewing for about 5 years now. I usually only brew during the cooler months. I live in AZ. Well the other night I was bottling my Amber Ale. During the process a small bug flew into the bucket. I quickly sanitized a spoon and got it out.

What are the chances of this ruining my entire batch of beer? If the thing was infested with bacteria, I can't imagine if it would reproduce too fast. What do you guys think?

I personally think you'll be just fine; he/she didn't drink much.

Aside from that, where in AZ are you? It gets a bit tough to brew out here in summer but can be done just fine. If your interested in how I still ferment at about 68 degrees in my garage check out this:

http://65.101.176.180/Beer/fermchiller/default.htm

ah, i think your fine. w/ the alcohol in the brew and just one little critter. no worries....

oh yea, and WELCOME ABOARD!

That is a very cool chiller. Looks like I have a few months before I'll really need one.

I have a wort chiller that I use right now. But in the summer time the water will be warmer. In the winter it takes about 20 min to get a full 5 gal to 75 degrees. In the summer how long do you think it would take if I used a combination of the copper wort chiller and the foam box chiller?

I would have bottled the sucker! Who needs worms when you can fly??

chodaboy said:

That is a very cool chiller. Looks like I have a few months before I'll really need one.

I have a wort chiller that I use right now. But in the summer time the water will be warmer. In the winter it takes about 20 min to get a full 5 gal to 75 degrees. In the summer how long do you think it would take if I used a combination of the copper wort chiller and the foam box chiller?

Click to expand...

I live in Phoenix and have found that if I use a pre-chiller for my wort chiller I can drop my tap water temp from 70 degrees to around 60 degrees. I chill 3.5 gallons in 10 minutes.

chodaboy said:

First time poster! It looks as though these forums are pretty active. That is great.

I have been extract brewing for about 5 years now. I usually only brew during the cooler months. I live in AZ. Well the other night I was bottling my Amber Ale. During the process a small bug flew into the bucket. I quickly sanitized a spoon and got it out.

What are the chances of this ruining my entire batch of beer? If the thing was infested with bacteria, I can't imagine if it would reproduce too fast. What do you guys think?

Click to expand...

You're supposed to pour a half inch or so of Everclear on top when that happens.... *wink*


jk

chodaboy said:

That is a very cool chiller. Looks like I have a few months before I'll really need one.

I have a wort chiller that I use right now. But in the summer time the water will be warmer. In the winter it takes about 20 min to get a full 5 gal to 75 degrees. In the summer how long do you think it would take if I used a combination of the copper wort chiller and the foam box chiller?

Click to expand...

Yea, wort chillers don't do much around here in summer. What I do is set the kettle in the pool (winter & summer) and have the wort chiller flowing through it with the water going into the pool. In winter I'm to pitching temp in about 15 minutes. summer after an hour I'm at pool temp (usually 86). Then I put it in the fermentation chiller and crank it on. usually 3 hours before I can finally pitch. The ferm chiller is really best suited though to get a nice constant 68 or so fermentation temp in summer but does help a bit to cool off in prep for pitching.

well, w/ my corny keg pre-chiller, i can still chill a 5 gbatch in about 20 min, even in the dog days of July-August-Sept. that puppy comes in real handy. i don't hook it up to the immersion chiller until i get close to 100 degrees. otherwise, i'm just melting ice.....

Hi guys I'm at that temp point right now. It's an above average temp Aussie summer and I am having an absolute nightmare trying to The days are getting up to 100 - 110 F. How can I get my hands on a wort cooler ?

Go down to the local hardware store....if you have one in Australia... and purchase yourself about 25' of copper pipe. Be careful not to kink and coil it within the diameter of your Kettle. Then attach hoses to the pipe and you are off.

You know, the exact same thing happened when my girlfriend and her mother bottled their mead.

Well, maybe not the exact same thing. They were bottling a mead, and a gnat flew in. Close enough, right? They did the exact same thing to remove it.

Anyhoo, the mead is great. Really nice, sweet, smooth. This was also the "green olive" smelling mead when bottled. It has really come out great.

Double post, sorry.

Triple post, sorry

Thanks for the replies. I just got my Hefe ingredients from Northern Brewer in MN. This is the first time I will be using there kits. I normally get my kits over at What Ale's Ya. For those of you that live here in the Phoenix area and everyone else. Where do you normally get your kits from? Or your extract ingredients? Good/Bad experiences?

By the way, I went to try my Amber last night and accedently left it in the freezer. Doh. It popped it's top. So I'll just wait until this weekend to try another.