Infected batch

What are the signs of an infected batch of brew? I haven't yet or hope I've never had an infection..

Pellicle. Smelling like satan's anus. Tasting horrible.

Big floating gelatanous blob that is quite solid when poked at with a racking cane.

Lol...nutin like that round here... Anything with appearance in secondary? Guess I need to taste now! ....

Can't drink enough of it to make it start tasting good

I recently read papazian's first book (a little late!) and he mentioned that unsanitary brewing will affect of the flavor of the beer of course, but sometimes it's hard to tell if your off flavors are from slight infection or something else (like a crappy recipe!). He mentioned that a good indicator of infection is that there will be a ring around the neck of the bottle at the line of the liquid. I checked some of mine, and sure enough some of the questionable batches had the line and most did not.

mikeho said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/post-your-infection-71400/

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Thanks for that... Looks like it mainly comes down to taste since some still drank theirs after it looked moldy..

esarkipato said:

I recently read papazian's first book (a little late!) and he mentioned that unsanitary brewing will affect of the flavor of the beer of course, but sometimes it's hard to tell if your off flavors are from slight infection or something else (like a crappy recipe!). He mentioned that a good indicator of infection is that there will be a ring around the neck of the bottle at the line of the liquid. I checked some of mine, and sure enough some of the questionable batches had the line and most did not.

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Could that ring just be a little bit of protein deposits?

My brother brewed a beer a few years ago that smelled exactly like a fart. Not sure if it was infected or not, but that's the first beer I couldn't even make myself try.

yeah there are 2 other options for floaties.
1) if you carbonate with DME, you will get a scum line, just like in the primary
2) sometimes you get yeast colonies breaking out there. I've had this happen, looks terrible, tastes ok.

My infected batch tastes sour. To sour to drink. I have been altering each bottle as I drink it and it takes off the edge, but I will say it is a solution for me for a few reasons. 1, I can't use these for anybody but me, the flavor is still off 2, circumstances make it difficult to brew as much as I'd like, if I don't brew, I don't have beer. ($10/6 craft beer is to much $$$ and is part of why I brew). But I can't recomend it as a solution to others because they'd have to be hard up like I am to have it work.

I have a batch in bottles now that tastes (as near as I can tell) of sulphur. No idea what went wrong with it. It looks terrible as well. When I pour it into a glass, bubbles form on the side of the glass. It isn't a glass cleanliness problem, as none of my other beers (commercial or homebrew) do this, and it isn't an overcarbonation problem as well, as the beer really isn't that carbonated.

edmanster said:

Could that ring just be a little bit of protein deposits?

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Ya i suppose so. If it was, and the beer tasted good, i would likely drink up and ask questions later. BUT if the taste was off even a little i'd suspect infection and any kind of deposit in the bottle would only add to my suspicions.