Is this going to hurt?

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Don

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I just finished an AG Irish Red Ale last night (LATE), had the carboy on the table pitching the yeast when... I knocked a box over on the shelf above the carboy and a opened bag of Plain Light Spraymalt Extract fell into the funnel. The best I could figure is @ 3 oz. of the power ended in the carboy.
The only think I could do is plug the carboy and shook it up real well to try to mix it up the best I could.

Today it's working but what should I expect.

Should I rename my Irish Red Ale?
 
That small amount of extract isn't going to directly affect the taste of the beer. But I might be worried about contamination. Most of the ingredients that we make beer with (malt, malt extract, specialty grains, etc.) harbour the exact types of bacteria and wild yeasts that are prone to infect your wort.

You will probably be fine, particularly if you pitched a good quantity of yeast that takes of right away. But you might want to be extra careful at monitoring this batch for off flavours BEFORE you spend time bottling/kegging.
 
I'll agree with FlyGuy. Extract and grains are positively crawling with, among other things, the precise kinds of wild yeast that would just love to infect your brew. Good luck, and keep your fingers crossed, but, yeah, there's a distinct possibility that, at the least, you got some wild yeast in there. Geuze, anyone?
 
NEVER LEAVE A MAN BEHIND!!!!

Oops. Sorry. Wrong forum.

I'm sorry to hear you dumped it. I would have let it go. The clumps of DME wouldn't have made it through your racking cane when going to secondary, and I've dropped far worse than DME in a batch (no comment) and had it come out fine. Next time, don't be so jumpy. Just let it go and see what the results are. If it smells horrid when you go to bottle, dump it. If you bottle it and after a month it tastes like Jim "the sweaty guy from high school"'s gym socks dump it. Otherwise you may have dumped a perfectly good Red.
 
Sorry man. That gravity **** sucks sometimes. On Mars...that wouldn't have happened.

This one is for you dude...

APA_Kegged.jpg
 
never dump a beer out until after it's fermented out. You already spent the money and time brewing so letting it sit in a fermentor isnt going to hurt anything
 
Pumbaa said:
never dump a beer out until after it's fermented out. You already spent the money and time brewing so letting it sit in a fermentor isnt going to hurt anything

Even as a newbie, I'd have to second that. It's not the $$$ lost so much as it is that there is a reasonable chance you are okay. Worst case is you do a few tastes along the way and hope for the best. If it goes bad, then dump it.

BTW, next time you're going to dump a batch... CALL ME!! I'll come pick it up (within reasonable range) and nurse it along.

Tony
 
One thing I have learned for these forums is that beer usually turns out fine despite minor problems we might encounter in brewing. A little bit of DME would have probably dissolved into the wort and been fermented out. There might have been a chance of infection but the process of creating DME destroys most organisms so there probably wasn't many left to compete with that large bunch of yeasts you just threw in.
I'd say chances are good that Red Ale would have made a good batch of beer. Even more than the cost of the beer I would lament the loss of 4+ hours of my time. I enjoy brewing but mostly because of the result.
Craig
 
MAN! Im drinking an infected beer that tastes like markers, but ITS STILL BEER! I dont want to make you feel worse than you do, but ouch.

Good luck next time!
 
I would have said to keep it and see. DME has very little water in it, so I wouldn't be too worried about the bacteria. Now we'll never know. :(
 
Only batch I've dumped had a very obvious ropy infection. It looked gross and I wasn't about to even try and taste it.
 
Well I've learned two lessons here.

the most important is.. I will think long and hard before I ever dump again.
Second is, don't sweat the little stuff!!







Life's too short to drink cheap beer!!!

Don
 
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