Just got to ask about Infections

After tonight's browsing of threads, I realized something: People talk an awful lot about getting beer infected. It's not just newbies doing it, but people who I perceive as being experienced. It's not that it's just subtly mentioned every now and then, but it's brought up all the time.

So, I got to ask -- how many times has a fermenter of yours actually been infected with bacteria? The reason I ask is because in the 250+ batches of beer I've made, I've never gotten a bacterial infection before. I don't go overboard with sterilizing either. Fermenters get a quick splash of iodophor and a rinse. Airlocks get a quick boil. Hoses get a rinse and every now and then I give them an iodophor bath.

Is it unfounded paranoia for many people, or is it actually based on experience? Am I just lucky? I will admit that last winter a bottle of mine got some sort of a bug. It developed a haze while carbonating and smelled a little off.

Infections are like train wrecks, they tend to attract a lot of attention, but they don't happen all that often. I guess since it's every brewer's worst nightmare people tend to check on infection threads, and newbs tend to think everything that materializes in the carboy is an infection.

I've brewed approximately 40 batches with no infections either. I'm not saying it couldn't happen and that it doesn't happen, but with proper precautions it should be rare

I've only had one true infection in something like 20 batches. I got a phenolic infection when bottling an imperial stout. Likely something on the sugar or in the bucket.

I just got an infection... lots of smoky phenolic flavors in a batch. I used a brand new BB, but I was in a hurry to transfer after cooling the wort and I didn't give it a proper wash because it was new.

I haven't had one yet, not in roughly 30-40 batches. But as was said up there -its the 'train-wreck' syndrome, and as was said -its every brewers' worst nightmare (even the 'big boys' sweat this sort of thing -after all, in OUR case its bad enough -it represents a bit of lost time and twenty or thirty (give or take) bucks worth of ingredients -they stand to lose a whole lot more.
Its only natural that we concern ourselves with fear of infections.
I confess that I should be more diligent with sanitizing, but I haven't had any issues and my sanitizing sounds a lot like yours (though I rinse and sanitize all the hoses and draw tubes immediately after use, and sanitize before use as well).
I have a brother who bottles and he has had a batch of a red ale that got infected. When we opened up some of the bottles, they fountained until literally half the beer had blown out of the bottles. The rest had a thin taste with some very interesting (but certainly not desireable) flavor profile. He sanitized the heck out of his equipment and hasn't had the problem since.
Lesson learned.

Can you have a slight infection though? I've drank beers while a runner at a beer comp that tasted good, but were said to be infected. One of the experienced judges was telling me that many beers are infected, more than most people think. I guess you can get some slight smells and faint tastes from it.

I've had one real infection in my 15 batch brewing history, the one before the last one. Undrinkable plastic flavor, with sick looking yeast (barely any cake at the bottom of the carboy) and no it wasn't chlorine etc. One time I even "sanitized" with water, thinking it was starsan, and the beer was just fine. It seems to be totally random.

Not a one.

sudndeth said:

Can you have a slight infection though? I've drank beers while a runner at a beer comp that tasted good, but were said to be infected. One of the experienced judges was telling me that many beers are infected, more than most people think. I guess you can get some slight smells and faint tastes from it.

Click to expand...

For some styles of beers (and I just learned this the other day) specific styles of infections are desirable. I mean isn't yeast just a cultivated mold to begin with? Or is it a bacteria... I am not sure. It just comes in little backs and stinks when wet. Maybe its dehydrated dog?

I had one, about batch #260 or so. I had lactobacillus. The beer tasted fine after a week in the fermenter, but when I went to rack it to the keg a week after that it was getting "thin" and there was a hint of sourness. I covered it back up to see if it would get better (and I didn't want to contaminate a keg if it WAS infected), and a week later it was terrible. It was obviously lacto- sour, thin, slimy.

I ditched my plastic and bleachbombed the glass. Everything else has been fine.

I had a lacto infection in a beer and then without thinking about it I used the yeast cake to make another beer which also got infected.

That's one out of 30 or 40 batches. I am still drinking both.

Never had one in the carboy, however I cryo froze a set of yeast I grew from a conditioned bottle from a beer in france and it got infected with some form of brit, but I didnt know it until I tried to make a starter out of it. I had 8 10ml vials of the stuff, all infected, and every started grew with them was infected. It was the first batch of yeast I cryo froze and did not use a pressure cooker for sterilization, only star san for sanitation... that was a bad idea.

Like everyone said, it's like a train wreck. They dont happen often, but when they do they are BAD things. So the question is to ones self is then, how much work is it worth to prevent a train wreck that may not happen very often?... IMO it's worth the extra work to make sure it never happens by being a little bit of a clean freak.

Luckily the rest of my cryo frozen yeast were fine and I havent had any issues sense.

only infection i ever got was when i forgot to sanitize some bottles

I had one but I think it was because I decided to use some old yeast and was to lazy to make a starter. It never really started fermenting and two weeks later it was moldy. Lesson learned. Don't be lazy and use happy healthy yeast.

Bradinator said:

For some styles of beers (and I just learned this the other day) specific styles of infections are desirable. I mean isn't yeast just a cultivated mold to begin with? Or is it a bacteria... I am not sure. It just comes in little backs and stinks when wet. Maybe its dehydrated dog?

Click to expand...

Yeast are a type of fungi. Unicellular fungi are termed yeasts whereas multicellular fungi that for hyphae are called molds.

Sometimes the availability of information out there is a crutch and can really be a bad thing. I feel if your worried about this then generally your subconscious is letting you know your cleaning and sanitizing efforts are lacking, and you should spend more time focusing on that than worrying about an infection.

I had two infections for sure about a year and a half ago, both batches fermenting at the same time. Still to this day don't know what caused it as I thought I had been pretty good about sanitizing, but both beers got hit by acetobacter pretty hard. Fortunately, one of them was only a one gallon batch so no major loss, but the other was 5 gallons of mild. Still have about half a case of that batch, I've been using it for cooking ever since.

I bleach bombed my equipment, still using most of the same stuff including the plastic bucket. I only replaced the hoses and haven't had a problem since. That really proved to me though that given adequate cleaning and sanitizing, even post-infection the bacteria really aren't that hard to kill.

Nightbiker said:

I have a brother who bottles and he has had a batch of a red ale that got infected. When we opened up some of the bottles, they fountained until literally half the beer had blown out of the bottles. The rest had a thin taste with some very interesting (but certainly not desireable) flavor profile. He sanitized the heck out of his equipment and hasn't had the problem since.
Lesson learned.

Click to expand...

It is possible that the grain and not the equipment was infected. Fusarium fungi can infect the grain (Fusarium head blight) before germination leading to the production of Vomitoxin/Deoxynivalenol (DON) which is a water soluble mycotoxin. The initial DON present is washed away when the grain is hyrdated for germination but the conditions necessary for germination are perfect for Fusarium growth and toxin production so even though the intial ammount of toxin is washed away, more toxin is produced during germination. Fusarium undergoes thermal destruction upon kilning but the DON is heat stable meaning that it will not be destroyed by the heat of kilning. The toxin is then extracted during mashing into your wort. DON is one of the culprits of "gushing" beer. There are other types of infections, typically fungal, that can cause gushing as well including: Rhizopus, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Nigrospora. These could have been present in the brewing equipment if the culprit was not DON. There is a really cool article about this at http://www.brewingtechniques.com/bmg/gudmestad.html if you are interested. I know this was sort of a tangent from the original thread but I am a microbilogy geek and figured that somebody may be interested.

I got a batch infected when I tried to dry hop with hops in a grain bag. I forgot to sanitize the bag. It apparently had a spider living in it. And trust me, spider ipa does not taste good.

I'm pretty sure that every batch is infected to some point. It's not possible to brew in sterile conditions. The important thing is to make the wort itself inhospitable for bugs fast enough that the infection isn't noticeable in the end product.

No noticeable infections 15 batches, 2 bad Nottingham packs gave me some bad yeast flavors.

Been brewing for over 10 years and have had one infection issue. For a time I was using my bottling bucket as an extra fermentor. Some nasties were hiding in the spigot and infected a couple of batches. Beer tasted like ass. Real strong pungent odor too it. Stopped using that bucket and problem solved.

caiafa said:

I'm pretty sure that every batch is infected to some point. It's not possible to brew in sterile conditions. The important thing is to make the wort itself inhospitable for bugs fast enough that the infection isn't noticeable in the end product.

Click to expand...

Bingo....microbial infection is what makes perishable product perishable. All beer you make has some level of microbial contamination, but fermentation by another microorganism (i.e. yeast) makes it safe from spoilage for a period of time.

I think most of the infections are due to some dumb mistake. I used an ale pale for a secondary once and got an infection...I'm pretty sure it was due to too much headspace. I've never done that since and never had an infection since.

Not one. I'm invincible!

ive had a few but I have had a few.....interesting situations

My roomate makes cheese and vinegar so i have had a few batches catch lactobacillus and acetobacter.

I have also had a batch of cider catch something wicked from some untreated apples + additional fruit.

But as long as you have good yeast ive always found that your chance of getting an infection is significantly less since the yeast will outcompete anything else present

Schizosaccharomyces said:

It is possible that the grain and not the equipment was infected. Fusarium fungi can infect the grain (Fusarium head blight) before germination leading to the production of Vomitoxin/Deoxynivalenol (DON) which is a water soluble mycotoxin. <~> I know this was sort of a tangent from the original thread but I am a microbilogy geek and figured that somebody may be interested.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the (linked) article -it will be an interesting read -and I didn't know about that potential (for grain). I nearly changed my major to microbiology -it was a fascinating subject, but I stayed with nursing instead. Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake.
I have been thinking of (once I enclose half my carport, vent it, and put a window-shaker in so I can brew comfortably year-round) building a small lab so I can do yeast counts and examine for the more obvious signs of mutation.
I have the microscope (up to x400 with immersion oil) so I really wouldn't need a lot and it wouldn't take up much space.
Anyway, my brother hasn't had a repeat so perhaps you're right (and its way more in-depth than he wold want to go)

sudndeth said:

Can you have a slight infection though? I've drank beers while a runner at a beer comp that tasted good, but were said to be infected. One of the experienced judges was telling me that many beers are infected, more than most people think. I guess you can get some slight smells and faint tastes from it.

Click to expand...

^^^ This imo. People don't seem to realize that slight infections happen all the time and often that little off-flavor you may or may not detect is exactly that. So with that in mind, I've had lots of 'infections' and imo so has everybody else who brewed much.