Brett Infection

Got a Brett infection in a porter of mine, so far it has touched the carboy, bung, airlock, blow off tube, blow off vessel, hydro tube, and sample taker. I have thrown away the bung, airlock, and blow off tube. I want to eliminate this infection completely and dump this beer, can it be done or should I just chunk everything and buy a new carboy?

WHAAAAAAA? Keep that stuff for funky beers and buy a few new items that are not touched by the delicious brett.

I was contemplating that actually, for brewing belgians and saisons. This porter taste like a damn roasted belgian.

hukdizzle said:

I want to eliminate this infection completely and dump this beer, can it be done or should I just chunk everything and buy a new carboy?

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No need to throw out everything, or anything for that matter. Wild yeast and bacteria are easily eliminated with an effective sanitizer.

Though, I recommend using a quat sanitizer (used in the food service industry) and not an acid sanitizer (e.g., Starsan). I use Proforce Quat (available at Sam's Club for $5) that makes 125 gallons of sanitizer. I've brewed several lambics using all plastic equipment and I've had zero cross infections.

Edit: One gallon makes 125 gallons of sanitizer...

Awesome news man, I will pick some of that up today and dump this out and commence to sanitizing. I keep all of my testing supplies in my bottling bucket so I will probably rip that thing apart and sanitize the **** out of it as well.

I may have heard a rumor that tiny amounts of quats kill beer head. Can anyone verify?

944play said:

I may have heard a rumor that tiny amounts of quats kill beer head. Can anyone verify?

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I've heard that rumor before too - for bar glassware.

Supposedly, some bars use a quat in their third sink (sanitation step) and don't let the quat thoroughly air-dry before filling the glass with beer. Until dry, quaternary ammonia leaves a thin "sheeting" film on the glassware that prevents the protein in the beer head from sticking to the glass. Thus, poor head retention.

I don't sanitize my glassware at home, so that's never been a problem for me.

Edit: If I remember tonight, I'll do a small "head retention" experiment with an unsanitized glass, quat sanitized glass allowed to air-dry, and a quat sanitized glass not allowed to air-dry. I'm curious myself.