Dumping this batch: Infected

The lesson here clearly, is that we should not be brewing beer in anything but a sterile lab. Otherwise entirely new strains of bacteria and fungi will evolve which heretofore were unknown to man. Strains that can survive in an environment that for multiple milennia used to be toxic to them.

Plus I'm immediately throwing out all of my beer because every single krausen I have ever had looked exactly like the one in the op's photo.

Either that, or there was no original fermentation which would have a made virtual garden of eden for any organism which happened on by.

dontman said:

Plus I'm immediately throwing out all of my beer because every single krausen I have ever had looked exactly like the one in the op's photo.

Either that, or there was no original fermentation which would have a made virtual garden of eden for any organism which happened on by.

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It is hard to see in the photo, but this krausen was unlike any I have experienced. It was very cheesey and curdled looking. Unique from the krausen on the first 5 gallons on the same yeast. And it rose 4 weeks after pitching. So very different.

And I tend to agree with the second point. I think this is the result of the yeast being overwhelmed by other organisms. I do not think a full fermentation happened, even though it was pitched on a cake.

All I really know is that those buggies are SUPER happy in the hot tub!

maybe one of those buggers in there is the cure for cancer!!!!

Lots of speculation...not enough drinking... pull a sample and try it... 5 pages and no taste test

I am working up the nerve... it is the whole thing where the guy who works in the lab for an infectious diesease center reccomends not drinking it because of super high levels of "mycotoxins".

Besides, the krausen hasn't dropped yet! I will check it tonight and pull a big sample and take a picture. I am heading to p4ck's place tomorrow to hang out with folks, so maybe Zac will step up to the plate and take a swig!

I'm very curious about this. I wash and repitch yeast many many times from one vial. You said you used a cake.. what strain of yeast? How many times has the cake been reused?
It was a no-chill.. what was your method of transfer? Did you rack out of your kettle to a sealed container for natural chilling, THEN rack onto the cake? It is possible if the wort was thrown on too warm could kill off the yeast, leaving room for other colonies after the transfer.

Very interesting stuff, thank you for the pics!

This was the second batch on the cake. First was pitched from fresh nottingham.

The no chill was transferred by funnel and pitcher (all sanitized) into the cube. The cube sat for a few weeks, then was funneled into the carboy.

The lip of the carboy is chipped from the previous owner attempting to remove a stopper from inside, so it was not airtight.

The most likely chances of infection are from the gap at the stopper or from something that got through the no chill. This cube did suck in a small amount of air. I would not call it swollen.. but it was not sealed.

As a result, this was treated as an evil experiment from the start.

You do realize that if you do have mycotoxins on top of fermented beer you will be the first person in the history of beer brewing to accomplish this feat, right? The pH and alcohol of beer is toxic to the fungi which produce the mycotoxins. And this includes thousands/hundreds of thousands really, of people who have allowed a wild fermentation to take place. For thousands of years people have drunk beer over water specifically for the safety of beer.

On the other hand if you wanted to spawn and foment the growth of mycotoxins/botulism one of the best media for this would be a warm pH neutral sugar solution such as agar or wort.

I would be checking the gravity of this concoction because with such contamination a successful fermentation is highly unlikely. And if there was a successful fermentation then the toxins would be in doubt.

EDIT: Oh, unless the wort sat for weeks in an unsealed container prior to pitching yeast for fermentation. Then all bets are off.

chefmike said:

The no chill was transferred by funnel and pitcher (all sanitized) into the cube. The cube sat for a few weeks, then was funneled into the carboy.

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dontman said:

EDIT: Oh, unless the wort sat for weeks in an unsealed container prior to pitching yeast for fermentation. Then all bets are off.

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Yeah, I think that's the whole crux of the matter here....not pitching yeast right away makes for a very unhealthy environment.

For all the noobs looking on in fear...the is not the normal condition of the beer we make, not is it really the normal process for no chill brewing either, where the beer sits in a sealed container for no more than a couple days, and the yeast is pitched right away.

I cant say this enough, don't take this thread as the normal state/risks of making your beer.

I can't say stress this enough....Under NORMAL EVERYDAY BREWING, and EVEN MAKING A COUPLE NEWBIE MISTAKES IN YOUR BREWDAY, as long as you have boiled your wort, sanitized your gear and pitched your yeast as soon as the wort was cooled to pitching temperature. Nothing that can harm you, ESPECIALLY Botulism can grow in your beer!!!

Like I posted in this post https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/dumping-batch-infected-139563/#post1585251 the conditions of fermentation and brewing normally, make for an very inhospitable evironment for anything that can harm us.

It's important to remember that one of the reasons we have beer today (one of the oldest beverages in existence) is because it was made to be drunk in places where drinking the WATER was deadly....By boiling the wort, adding hops (which is an antiseptic), changing the ph, and pitching yeast, you killed of any microorganism that could be harmful.....in fact the third runnings of the brewing process was fermented at an extremely low gravity 1-2% ABV, and it was called "table beer" or "Kid's Beer" this is the stuff that people drank with meals...it was their water replacement, like Iced tea or soda pop...because again the fermentation process insured that it was safer than the water.

Making beer is safer than drinking water in many places of the world.

And our beer is much hardier than we give it credit, if you look at the mistakes we have managed to make, and the beer survived, you will really see that this batch is the exception to the rule of brewing...and this is nothing that YOU need to worry is going to happen to your beers. Unless you do what he did, and not pitch any yeast for a number of weeks......

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

Yeah, that is definitely to blame here. Unfermented beer (especially warm) is like a Utopia for alot of nasty stuff.
The risk you take on while attempting no-chill brewing is keeping those nasties out for an extended period before pitching. A few days before pitching is really pushing it in my opinion. A few weeks.. and with a leak? well we have here an pretty awesome albeit extreme example and precautionary tale for other brewers. Still, anxious to see comparisons from your bio-chemist friend's follow-up.

Good luck

dontman said:

You do realize that if you do have mycotoxins on top of fermented beer you will be the first person in the history of beer brewing to accomplish this feat, right?

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If that's the case he should dump this thing into an incinerator before it escapes and destroys all life on earth. Or infects all beer. I might actually want to die instead of facing an evil beer destroying microbe.

Exactly! I would drink the beer regardless. If it killed me I'd want to die anyway because I don't want to live in a world where your beer could kill you. (EDIT: All at once anyway. I'm okay with my beer killing me a couple liver cells at a time.)

Budzu said:

The risk you take on while attempting no-chill brewing is keeping those nasties out for an extended period before pitching. A few days before pitching is really pushing it in my opinion. A few weeks.. and with a leak? well we have here an pretty awesome albeit extreme example and precautionary tale for other brewers. Still, anxious to see comparisons from your bio-chemist friend's follow-up.

Good luck

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I disagree that a few days without pitching is extreme. The batch of wheat I just finished sat for a few weeks as well. Tasted great. And I could not help the leak... it happened. THAT is the risk of no chill.

The rule is, if you have a swollen cube, you throw it away. Mine was not swollen, it had just lost negative pressure. So I pitched it out of experimental curiousity.

I have said several times through this thread that this is unusual and unique.
Next time I will name the thread something to keep it completely hidden from the prying eyes of anyone who may accidently be led off the primrose path of brewing.

I was not thinking about the happenstance of related threads. So I hereby unofficially rename the thread "Come look at some really cool pictures of what can grow in a carboy before I throw it out"

or maybe "Swollen No Chill Cube" or "Beer Apocalypse"


As to things living in the beer... I think I said somewhere above that the organisms were postulated to be living are in the scum layer ON TOP of the beer. So probably no beer apocalypse yet. SIGH.

If we determine it is not edible:


:rockin:

by "extreme" I meant several weeks, which is what you had said. Did you mean a few days? That is ok. Few weeks is frightening TBH

Nope. I said a few weeks. The batch of wheat I just finished was 20 days in the cube until I pitched it. As long as it is sealed it is fine. Crazy, huh?

The problem (obviously now) is when it looses that seal, even if it does not swell.

Why let the wort sit unfermenting for weeks? If you must no-chill, why not pitch the next day?

Also, do I understand you correctly to say that you sent this sample out to a lab before you took gravity readings?

I think this is what happens when we test beer too much. But since it's an experiment, have your buddy test it after krausen has fallen and after fermentation is complete (It might take a few months).
Postscript; You won't be able to tell anything from tasting until fermentation is complete and it has been bottled/kegged for at least three weeks, Heh heh.

craven_morhead said:

Also, do I understand you correctly to say that you sent this sample out to a lab before you took gravity readings?

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There was no reason to take a gravity reading. It was pitched onto a cake from the first 5 gallons of the same batch. It was on week 3 in the primary when this happened. It was bizzarre enough I knew something was wrong. Like I said, I had lost negative pressure on my cube. And I had no desire to contaminate any of my equipment with what was obviously growing in there (even if it was lacto or brett).

And this was not a case of packing it up and sending it out to a lab and paying to have it tested. This was sitting having a beer with some friends and the one guying asking if he can take a sample to play with.

Honestly, I do not take a reading until racking. I am pretty trusting that yeast is capable of doing its thing.

It is still sitting in there. It still has a flat, cheesey film on top. I have roused it and it will give off C02. The airlock bubbles smell decent. Not as tasty as a regular batch... but not scary.

I have not brought my self to dump it. I am just watching it.

I am not sure what you mean by "this is what happens from testing your beer too much"... but I am enjoying watching this play quietly in the corner by itself!:fro:

chefmike said:

Honestly, I do not take a reading until racking. I am pretty trusting that yeast is capable of doing its thing.

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Same here. I tend to just let the yeasts do what they've done for centuries without fail. I take a reading when I rack just so I can record it...

-Tripod

This thread is not useless, because it has pics!

I wonder if in a couple of centuries people will be trying to duplicate your process to make the new sour beer style...

Thats me... the trend setter.

I don't know what most sour beers look like during ferment... this one is just scary. I need to snap a current pic. Roasting oysters and drinking beer tomorrow though... so no pics.

hows it smell? taste? sound? my chilli ring is welded shut in anticipation here.

Looks like this thread kind of got lost here, does anyone know what ever happened with this?

Smogre said:

This is no infection. It's a brown version of a black hole and should be sent to Stephen Hawking for further analysis.

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brown hole...i saw that on cinemax

Believe it or not, this is still in my garage.

I tasted it and spit it out one time. has a lightly sour, cidery tatse. not bad. not good. still sitting. I will go look at it now...

it has a thick layer of cheese curd looking mold about a half inch thick.

I need to deal with this I guess. But it seems so happy and I am so used to it in the corner.

You're kidding right? It's been sitting there for almost 2 years????

keep tasting it. send a couple to a homebrew competition. you might win something lol

This whole story is so foul!
So what did your friend see when he looked into perfectly normal krausen?

Yes, what happened?

Need to know more!

I don't see the guy that did the testing too often. He got married, has a kid, lives down in the city, blah, blah, blah.

I am truly scared of the entire thing.

I do not want to be the one to blame for starting the zombie apocalypse... a zombie army of BJCP judges. YIKES! I do not bottle much anymore... do not want to infect my equipment. I am about to replace my auto siphon though... so maybe I will throw it in bottles and see what happens.

Reckon I even need to sanitize the bottles?

Have you tasted it recently? It might be a fantastic sour beer... but the layer of thick curd on top might make me hesitate. Only thing you can do is taste it, and go from there.

Would love to hear an update on this. Did you bottle some?

this is great stuff. thanks for posting it.
kinda frightening though.
also, i would be very very interested in giving him a sample of apparently "normal" beer from a secondary and see what he finds. i'd bet it might be suprising.

I feel like this thread would really bother this guy:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f45/has-anyone-seen-yeast-starter-saga-234201/