Anyone ever had an unexpected infection?

I am starting to believe infections are a myth spread by evil corporations peddling their sanitising solutions. Anyone got any stories to scare me back into my extreme sanitising routine?

Oh sure. I had a beer that had this really astringent funkiness to it that was not intended at all. It was so horrible I had to dump the whole batch. I ended up finding a bottle of it in the corner of my cabinet several months later and I tried it. Let's just say it didn't get better with age. It was definitely an infection. I've ruined other batches since then through failures in process, but this was the only one I could truly claim was contaminated.

I had a few infected bottles in my first batch. Fortunately they were easy to recognize because they were the ones that started spewing beer as soon as you opened them.

I had a friend whose third or fourth batch was infected, but he decided to wait a little bit to see if they'd recover before deciding that the beer was beyond hope and dumping it. Every single bottle he opened was exploding beer all over his kitchen. To this day he describes it as the worst day of his life.

I've only had one . you know the story met a girl in a bar blah blah blah.. antibiotics cleared it right up.

Aren't all infections "unexpected'?

All of my beer infections have been unplanned:

Stout with ropey infection. (One of these will make you a believer.)
Barleywine that gushered after five years. (Cause to cry.)
And a brown that went sour in the fermenter. (Okay, but not my pint.)

I've had one unintended infection. I tried making a california common and within a few weeks in primary there was a nice think layer of fur on top. I bottled anyway. almost puked tasting it at bottling and let it sit and sit but nothing mellowed out, rings of scum formed in the top of the bottles and I tossed the entire batch.

once when using a bung and airlock the bung didn't want to stay in the neck of the carboy. it kept popping out and landing on the floor. silly me didn't even think twice about picking up the now dirty stopper off the garage floor and putting it back in the carboy without washing or sanitizing. guess what. infected beer.

i have since switched to carboy caps and haven't had to pick it up off the floor or try to fish it out of the carboy.

Pommy said:

I am starting to believe infections are a myth spread by evil corporations peddling their sanitising solutions. Anyone got any stories to scare me back into my extreme sanitising routine?

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11% of beers White Labs tested this year had some sort of infection:
http://www.whitelabs.com/qcday-2010.html

Except for those folks brewing lambics and stuff ALL infections are unexpected.

Infections happen, though not as easy as most noobs believe. And it's really nothing to obsess over, even if you do get them. You deal with it and move on.

Read the stuff I posted in here.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/has-anyone-ever-messed-up-batch-96644/

I had a batch of mild that turned to vinegar. I've been using it in cooking - makes for a really tender pulled pork. I'm pretty sure it was an aceto infection. It was the worst tasting beer I've ever had. I'm still not sure at what point in the process things went wrong, but I've used the same bucket and hoses for 2 batches since that both turned out fine. Of course, I went at them with bleach beforehand...

okay, maybe a bad choice of words with the "unexpected" but as Revvy said I was meaning not a lambic or anything like that. Seems people only get one ruined batch judging by all the comments. A barleywine that gushed after five years, that almost made me cry to hear that Also thanks for the link to the whitelabs page, some interesting data there.

I havent had an infection before and *touch wood* shouldnt have any real problems in the future. 11% of beers been infected sounds very high, is it possible that many people just dont realise an infection perhaps due to the beer not sitting around long enough for the taste to become too off putting?

Pommy said:

okay, maybe a bad choice of words with the "unexpected" but as Revvy said I was meaning not a lambic or anything like that. Seems people only get one ruined batch judging by all the comments. A barleywine that gushed after five years, that almost made me cry to hear that Also thanks for the link to the whitelabs page, some interesting data there.

I havent had an infection before and *touch wood* shouldnt have any real problems in the future. 11% of beers been infected sounds very high, is it possible that many people just dont realise an infection perhaps due to the beer not sitting around long enough for the taste to become too off putting?

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As far as the one infection thing goes, I can say that for my personal experience I greatly increased my diligence in bottle sanitation after the first batch. I have seen a fair number of threads on here where people tell stories about getting an infection stuck in a piece of equipment and having a series of infected batches until they find the culprit.

I think it's very possible that some people don't realize it. I have another batch that just doesn't taste that great right now, and a friend of mine suggested that it might be a minor infection. I don't know and it's still very drinkable, but it's just not nearly as good as the rest of my beer.

As others have said before not all infections will ruin a beer. Sometimes we purposly infect our beers with other yeasts and bacterias and they turn out well, sometimes we miss a step or 2 and things get really ugly. the importance is to be anal with your sanitation, and if you mess something up forget it most likely you are ok and if not well at least try to the beer, dont dump see if it improves with age. if not well then pawn it off on your neighbors or people you dont really care for.

The only time i believe in dumping alcohol out is after its had a chance to go thru the kidneys and liver, that or it tastes and smells like something youd find in a babys diaper.

lacto infection from pouring my grains from the sack into a bucket inthe same room as a beer still in the carboy. The beer had fermented already and had a full airlock. I suspect it got in when I took a sample.

Not sure what caused it, but I just tossed my first batch( a blonde). It made me puke with I tasted it so definitely bad. All I can figure out is it got infected during transfer to secondary.

SumnerH said:

11% of beers White Labs tested this year had some sort of infection:
http://www.whitelabs.com/qcday-2010.html

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That is commercial beers. There was a home brewing project a while back (search HBD or Brewing Techniques) where a number of accomplished home brewers brewed the same recipe and some lab analysis was done. Almost all of the beers had contamination and like 40% of them had levels that a commercial brewery would consider problematic.

If you can store your beer better than commercial beer is stored, you can have okay shelf life with beer that has levels of contamination that are problematic for breweries who are trying to get 6 months at room temperature.

Pommy said:

11% of beers been infected sounds very high...

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it doesn't seem THAT high to me. 11 out of 100 or 1.1 in 10 batches. in my very limited brewing experience, (probably around 20ish batches because I dont get to brew nearly as much as I'd like) I've had 1 confirmed infection. that's about a 5% infection rate...