My daughter sneezed in the wort!

I was brewing a batch of Dry Stout yesterday, worked all afternoon on it, when my 4.5 year old daughter walked up and sneezed right into the wort as I was transferring it from the boiling pot to the primary fermenter bucket.

So.. what's the chance of contamination here? Pretty high? I'm pretty sure the sneeze made it to the wort.

Its fermentiing now and showing signs of pretty good yeast activity, but I'm pretty worried that the batch may be infected.

Has this happened to anyone else? Did it turn out to be contaminated?

John

Worrying now will do no good. There's nothing you can do but wait. I bet it'll turn out fine. RDWHAHB.

I'm sure it'll be ok.

Or it won't.

You'll see!

I'm betting it will be fine. And once fermentation is done, you won't be able to get your daughter's cold from drinking the beer.

What about off-flavors from the bacteria, that is if the wort gets infected?

That is mostly what I'm concerned with as I think the alcohol and fermentation will probably kill the bacteria in the end, right?

I doubt there will be any issues. I am sure particles in the air drop in the wort while people are brewing without any problems, as well as insects, leaves, etc.

OK, I don't think there will be an infection from it. The bit about not passing the cold was humor you missed because you are worrying too much about this. Relax dude and have a home brew.

Too late to put her up for adoption?

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

OK, I don't think there will be an infection from it. The bit about not passing the cold was humor you missed because you are worrying too much about this. Relax dude and have a home brew.

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Thanks. I appreciate the needed reminder.

I guess there's a line between being serious about one's beer...and being TOO serious about one's beer.

I'm betting for the fine too...but Just in case you were wondering...I'm NOT interested in a beer swap.

Just name it "Little (insert daughter's name here) Snotty Stout"

give it to people u dont like lOL

OMG! The perfect name for this brew:
















wait for it...




















Sternutation Stout!!!

Just to be on the safe side, I would make your daughter wear one of these while you are brewing from now on...

Duckfoot said:

Just name it "Little (insert daughter's name here) Snotty Stout"

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Made with the freshest grains, malts, hops, and boogers!

Worts don't catch cold. I'd bet that the only thing you caught was a good story.


TL

Not so sure on this one. Here's a pic from Palmers book:

Figure 17: The yeast cells are the round things, the worms are bacteria. 3000X

I think it was from wort that was spit in.

Nothing to do but wait and see. Now the real dilemma will be when the beer turns out great. How will you duplicate the recipe?

That snot the best thing to have happen, but probably it snot the worst.

Just to be safe, I'd make her bathe in Star-San before the next brew day. Makes a helluva bubble bath!

raceskier said:

Not so sure on this one. Here's a pic from Palmers book:

Figure 17: The yeast cells are the round things, the worms are bacteria. 3000X

I think it was from wort that was spit in.

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Funny you mention that picture as I had just read that part of Palmer's book the day before the sneezing incident.

That picture has been stuck in my mind and served to cause some of the expressed concern.

John

so did you use a starter? im guesing as the yeast starts up especially if you used a starter it will overtake any type of infection growing in there.

It's probably fine. Just wait it out.

scinerd3000 said:

so did you use a starter? im guesing as the yeast starts up especially if you used a starter it will overtake any type of infection growing in there.

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No, I didn't use a starter. But it looked like the yeast activity came on pretty fast in any case.

it will grow faster than any other bacteria forcing them out of existence...by this point if the yeast started vigorously your pretty much home free. Now all you need is a brew-cage to keep the daughter out

Make her drop and give you 20!

As long as you had a healthy pitch of yeast you should be fine. The yeast will rapidly make the wort an inhospitable environment for the bacteria to take off in.

A little bit of bio-chemical warfare on a microscopic level.

Do you keg? I would probably keg it after the primary and get it in the fridge quick. IMHO, if it is infected, nothing good can happen in the secondary.

Haha..I would a freaked out until i read the part where she is oly 4. It will be ok...im dur huge snot balls didnt fall in to the wort

ick. I thought it was bad that I drop cigar ashes in my mash tun and boil kettle (but never after the boil) frequently. Your situation seems much worse.

Wables said:

Do you keg? I would probably keg it after the primary and get it in the fridge quick. IMHO, if it is infected, nothing good can happen in the secondary.

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Yes, I keg and bottle. I've been keeping my last couple of batches in a primary for 2 weeks followed by two weeks in a secondary.

Why do you say nothing good can happen in the secondary? Should I just leave it in the primary and then go straight to the keg after 4 weeks?

thanks,
John

The Yeast should win, the cold bacteria prefer warmer temps.

My three year old son did the same thing!! The beer was wonderful and didn't last very long. Anyways, what can you do about it?? Relax, worrying won't change it.

This thread needs an update.

Here's an update. Well, there was no visible or palatable contamination to speak of in my beer once I kegged it.

However, it ended up being off recipe due to using too much extract. Once I realized that the OG was too high, I tried to salvage it by diluting it down - but that just through everything out of balance.

So, in other words, the beer didn't seem to show any signs of contamination but I ended up dumping it (!!!) as I had two other beers ready for kegging (and no empty kegs) and I knew I wouldn't drink much more of it.

I hope your daughter will remember for the rest of her life the look on your face when it happened!

I hope she doesn't. :/

could be worse. Diaper in the primary. Ewwww.

DutchK9 said:

I doubt there will be any issues. I am sure particles in the air drop in the wort while people are brewing without any problems, as well as insects, leaves, etc.

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One brew day last summer, we brought the boil pot in the the house to cool and transfer to the carboy.

We found a june bug floating! I was so frustrated, but fished him out and commenced with the transfer.

We brewed it on the last day of June, so we called it June Bug Beer. It was delicious.

I know a guy who was the brewmaster at a brewpub. He told me the story of how once while casting out of the brew kettle, his old, nasty, sweaty hat fell in!

They sold a lot of that beer!

This beer will probably turn out wonderful and you will need your 'lil brew buddie's co-operative nose juices for all future brews!

scinerd3000 said:

it will grow faster than any other bacteria forcing them out of existence...by this point if the yeast started vigorously your pretty much home free. Now all you need is a brew-cage to keep the daughter out

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Lake Forest CA! Man I miss being back in OC. I used to work on El Toro!