Have you ever infected your beer/wort??

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punk_rockin2001

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I was just wondering how many people have actually ever infected some beer. In hind site I did some REALLY stupid things when I first started brewing, and I've never infected a beer. My first 4 beers went fine and I discovered on the fifth that my "sanitizer" wasn't even a sanitizer! Only cleaner. Thats not to say I've never made beer that tasted bad, but I've never infected it. I'd imagine the number of infected gallons to non-infected gallons of homebrew would put it in the tenths or hundredths of a percent. If you've ever infected a batch of beer please speak up, and let us know how you did it!
 
I have had a few with noticeable off flavors. It took me a while to figure out why. I spent allot of time second guessing my technique. It turned out to be my buckets. They had gotten old and become stained and smelled of old beer and hops. After I replaced them I haven't had a problem since. Now I change out any plastic buckets, hoses and stoppers when they get stained and start to smell.
 
Heya Clone, out of curiosity, how often do you find yourself replacing your plastics?
The buckets are good for about 10 batches before they start to make me nervous. Hoses and stoppers I change more frequently depending on their condition.
 
Only once by accident. The airlock went dry on a small batch of apfelwein that I ignored too long, and acetobacter got to it. Now, it's apple cider vinegar.

All my other infections have been intentional, in making sour beers.
 
I've had one ropey infection and one horribly sour batch. Haven't had one in years though.
 
Earlier this year I had two horribly infected sour batches in a row. They really got me down on brewing because I was out tons of time and probably close to $100 on ingredients.
 
I had a sachet of *that* lot of Nottingham that never took off. I waited the requisite 72 hours, but before I could pitch something else, an infection took over. I had to ditch it.
 
I've got 5gal of AHS Northumberland Brown in primary for just about 4 weeks now. I totally forgot that I didn't have any airlocks at the time, so I put some sanitized plastic wrap over the carboy, until I could scavenge an airlock. Like I said, totally forgot about it....Beginning to look like I may have some sort of pellicle forming now. I'm going to secondary it and see how it turns out!
 
I just got my first a couple of weeks ago. I'm certain it was a lacto infection. I still don't know where it came from, so I've gotten new plastic and I'll try a new batch with dry yeast to see if I've solved the issue.
 
I added an unclean, cut beet to the wort while I was cooling it. I meant to add during the boil, but forgot. Not only did it ruin the IRA I was making, but since I used that yeast cake for a barleywine, it got that batch too. Acetaldehide.

The IRA was a dumper (actually, did some creative ice-concentrating that I have yet to taste). The barleywine might be drinkable some day. It is cellared for now.
 
I fear that I have a infected beer going right now. Not sure what caused it and trying to nail down my process to not leave chances for this to creep in.
 
I once had some mold grow on the top of a batch.

NO ILL EFFECTS FROM THAT.

The only bad batch I had was from dumping 4 lbs of brown sugar onto a used yeast cake and topping off......not really beer, but a cheap experiment.;)

It just kept bubbling.

Evidently the dreaded GUSHER infection.

Probably would have been undrinkable anyways.
 
I was just wondering how many people have actually ever infected some beer. In hind site I did some REALLY stupid things when I first started brewing, and I've never infected a beer. My first 4 beers went fine and I discovered on the fifth that my "sanitizer" wasn't even a sanitizer! Only cleaner. Thats not to say I've never made beer that tasted bad, but I've never infected it. I'd imagine the number of infected gallons to non-infected gallons of homebrew would put it in the tenths or hundredths of a percent. If you've ever infected a batch of beer please speak up, and let us know how you did it!

I have used smack-packs and/or starters from the very beginning of my brewing. Now, I try to be clean as possible/convenient, but I admit I have used my mouth to siphon wort from my brew kettle through my chill-zilla and such, and while I clean any visible traces of junk from my carboys I don't go overboard to sanitize.

Getting a good active fermentation going as quickly as possible seems to me to be the key (based on my experience and what I have read) and since I don't use plastic, I have fewer places for little nasties to hide. Between my brew buddies and I, we have some good stories of terribly unsanitary things we've done without resulting in infection.

So, I tend to think using sub-sanitary fermentation options and bad lag times would be my first concern 99% of the time. JMO
 
Just one, about three brews ago-- a porter that got a slimy white coating on top of it which CO2 couldn't even break through... I racked out from under it into a secondary, and it left a slimy white coating on the sides of the carboy as it drained.

It re-grew in the secondary but I bottled it anyway. It was drinkable (by which I mean I didn't go blind after I powered through the two cases of it), but sour and very thin. All of the bottles had a white ring around the neck at the waterline.

I think it was from a combination of old hoses/fittings and old/mistreated StarSan. I replaced all my hoses and made a new batch of StarSan with distilled water, and the last two brews have gone well.

I've also started using big starters and controlling ferm temps and have noticed a big up-swing in quality. That infected porter was the last batch I made with a really long lag time (just pitched a vial of liquid yeast), right in the middle of summer just fermenting in the garage.
 
I made a starter and when cooling I thought did I just get some sink water into the wort. I'll be fine. Before I pitched it it had a funky odor. Well maybe thats what cali ale yeast smells like. Nope it was infected and that batch is currently kegged maybe the print shop odor will fade in time and maybe it will be drinkable. fingers crossed
 
I had several bad batches come out at the beginning of the summer. Turned out to be my bottles. I sanitized every time but didn't use PBW or bleach every few batches. Don't know how the infection started in the bottles but upon close inspection I could see white rings in the neck of nearly all of them. Iodophor would not remove the rings, they needed to be scrubbed, PBW'd, or bleached. I ended up dumping 3 cases of 22's down the sink. I got so frustrated that I purchased a kegging system and have not bottled since.

Forgot to mention that all those bottles were serious gushers. What a fricken mess it was.
 
I've got 5gal of AHS Northumberland Brown in primary for just about 4 weeks now. I totally forgot that I didn't have any airlocks at the time, so I put some sanitized plastic wrap over the carboy, until I could scavenge an airlock. Like I said, totally forgot about it....Beginning to look like I may have some sort of pellicle forming now. I'm going to secondary it and see how it turns out!

This sucker is lookin' a little funky...whitish/beige film on top with multiple groups of thumbtack head sized bubbles. Funny thing is that this is only coming out now, 3.5wks (ok, maybe 4) after pitching. (Been lazy!)

Should I not use my regular siphon to rack this sucker off yeast to another carboy to let it go on with its process?

Should I even bother to secondary (I usually don't) and let whatever it is go on and look for change or should I just keg and try it out?
 
Help! I think I might have one now. Never had one before. Before I kegged my ESB it tasted nice and a little bready. After conditioning in the keg, which is brand new and never used, it has a rubbery taste.

I can't figure out if its autolysis (maybe I got to enthusiastic with racking the beer into the keg and got some of the yeast cake? Its only a 1.5 months old, so its possible), if its just the rubbery smell from the new keg (keg had that oily/rubbery smell sometimes on new metallic manufactured goods), or if its an infection because its very slightly sour/bitter too. Or all of them.

I am going to change the beer over to an older keg to see what happens. I also topped off with unboiled tap water. Don't shoot me! I used to do this all the time when I had well water and NEVER had a problem. First brew in this apartment in NYC-stupidly, it didn't occur to me at the time, but I wont do that again. But I don think that's the issue because it tasted good before the keg.
 
I am all empty because I had "3" bad beers in a row.

1) French Saison I thought was infected but turned out fine.

2) Pumpkin Ale that got lambo, bottled it and after 3 weeks it tasted like ass, worse than at sampling it before bottling.

3) Belgian Wit that came out kind of sour and I kegged it and a week later it was so sour and nasty I had to dump it.

Gonna be doing another batch of sanitizing on my equipment and hopefully brew on Sunday.
 
Help! I think I might have one now. Never had one before. Before I kegged my ESB it tasted nice and a little bready. After conditioning in the keg, which is brand new and never used, it has a rubbery taste.

I can't figure out if its autolysis (maybe I got to enthusiastic with racking the beer into the keg and got some of the yeast cake? Its only a 1.5 months old, so its possible), if its just the rubbery smell from the new keg (keg had that oily/rubbery smell sometimes on new metallic manufactured goods), or if its an infection because its very slightly sour/bitter too. Or all of them.

I am going to change the beer over to an older keg to see what happens. I also topped off with unboiled tap water. Don't shoot me! I used to do this all the time when I had well water and NEVER had a problem. First brew in this apartment in NYC-stupidly, it didn't occur to me at the time, but I wont do that again. But I don think that's the issue because it tasted good before the keg.

NYC brewers in the hizzy!
 
Just one, about three brews ago-- a porter that got a slimy white coating on top of it which CO2 couldn't even break through... I racked out from under it into a secondary, and it left a slimy white coating on the sides of the carboy as it drained.

It re-grew in the secondary but I bottled it anyway. It was drinkable (by which I mean I didn't go blind after I powered through the two cases of it), but sour and very thin. All of the bottles had a white ring around the neck at the waterline.

I think it was from a combination of old hoses/fittings and old/mistreated StarSan. I replaced all my hoses and made a new batch of StarSan with distilled water, and the last two brews have gone well.

I've also started using big starters and controlling ferm temps and have noticed a big up-swing in quality. That infected porter was the last batch I made with a really long lag time (just pitched a vial of liquid yeast), right in the middle of summer just fermenting in the garage.

I just had this happen twice in the last month after years of no infections ( in Hawaii the land of jungles and mold). The first was an Irish red ale that I didn't catch until it had gotten a little thick and bubbley. The second was an Irish stout that I caught and racked perty quick. They both have been kegged and chilled. The IRA is carbed and seems ok but a little dry. No nasty flavors yet. Haven't carbed the stout yet, but as an Irish I put some of that acid malt in, so it will have a little tang anyhow. But same thing with the film sticking to the sides of the carboy. From making sauerkraut, I know this as Kahm yeast. It is naturally present in the air. It is undesirable in sauerkraut but not as undesirable as in beer. It will form on glasses of beer left out for say 36 hours. I think its those damn carboy hoods. Back to stoppers.
 
Never had a beer infection, knock on wood. However, one of my friends was looking for a cheap, household way to make some applewine so we experimented with a balloon stretched over the top of a gallon of apple juice with holes poked in it. Needless to say, we had some very wonderful apple cider vinegar.
 
It was my bucket that caused two bad beers. Just opened my strong ale...has same flavor too and used boiled water on that one. Pissed, that was a 75 dollar beer.
 
so it seems like so far the main culprit of infections is germs hiding out in the plastics?? Interesting. I haven't replaced my plastics in a few years, maybe its time to do so!
 
I haven't replaced my plastics in a few years, maybe its time to do so!

Only if you're getting infections! I scratched my bottling bucket pretty bad about 20 batches ago. I decided to try it out (mainly because I didn't want to pay for a new one) and it still hasn't ruined a batch for me. Then again, if you have the money, buying all new plastics on a regularly basis sounds like a good idea to me.
 
Just had my first and second infected batches, with Brett. 1st one was a stout, just a little bit of an infection, and it ended up making a tasty beer. 2nd one destroyed a pale ale. I soaked the bucket in oxy and starsan in between, but it apparently didn't do the trick. Tossed the bucket.
 
where are the pics useless without them I'll start even though this was intentional

infection.JPG
 
I currently have a gusher-type infection on my latest brown ale..it has a funky after taste. I keep it around, hoping that it will fix itself.

My first IPA had what I like to call a chlorine infection, it tasted like a wet band-aide, it was undrinkable.
 
I lost 5 gallons over the summer because the water in my airlock evaporated in five 100-degree days. I went to check on it and had a several small patches of bacteria and mold growing. Needless to say, I did not even attempt to drink it...
 
My first two batches where I used one-step as my sanitizer eventually developed an infection. I can't positvely blame one-step as I was a new brewer then but none after I switched to star san, even with the occassional "stick your big hairy monkey arm into the fermenter" incidents.
 
I added an unclean, cut beet to the wort while I was cooling it. I meant to add during the boil, but forgot. Not only did it ruin the IRA I was making, but since I used that yeast cake for a barleywine, it got that batch too. Acetaldehide.

Am I missing somethin? I didn't think acetaldehyde was the product of an infection, but of incomplete fermentation (filtering too soon, or racking too soon).
 
Am I missing somethin? I didn't think acetaldehyde was the product of an infection, but of incomplete fermentation (filtering too soon, or racking too soon).

Dunno. It sat on the primary for 5 weeks, 65F (I use a chest freezer). It had a bad taste that was cidery. Possible that I overpitched. But there's other data here that points to the beet.
 
Well I think its funny I started this thread, cause I had a slight scare this evening when I noticed my ipa in the basement which has been in secondary for 3 weeks is bubbling about every 20-30 seconds. Its 45 degerees down there so I don't think ale yeast usually likes that temp. It now has a white bubbly cover over it, kind of like soap bubbles... we'll see how it turns out! I was going to bottle on tuesday or wednesday.
 
Took a beer from my 3rd or 4th batch of beer to a mentor's. It was only the second beer he'd tried that I made. It was only in the bottle about a 3 weeks but it had a nice pop when openned. An amber. He poured it into a pilsner glass and it had a great head on it, a bit to much for being so young. He took a sip and said it wasn't bad (didn't exactly say it was great either). He took another hit then held the bottle upto the light and was horrified to see something growing. LOL! This is a seasoned brewer and he refused to drink anymore. I finished it - thought it was pretty good. In the end, not exactly sure what it was. A mold of some sort I'd guess but it was gray and looked like a slug that was growing in the bottom of the bottle. Thankfully, it was just that bottle.
 
I have had 5-6 batches going in my basement at once. Last winter was the worst. Did not have all the time to watch each of them 24/7 and a few batches got screwed. Not enough air and they were ruined.

Learned from that mistake.
 
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