Question about Infections.

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Reverend JC

Reverend JC

2500 gallons year to date
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So, my first attempt at a lager has gone poorly. The first batch of yeast did barely anthing as far as fermentation. second batch seemed to be doing next to nothing until i moved it from my basement ( 65 degrees) to upstairs (72). It began fermenting again. When i tested with the hydro before i moved it upstairs i sampled some of the beer and it tasted off.

I think it may be infected due to the off flavor.

Can a beer be infected and show no signs of it visually? i.e. stuff growing on the surface.

The beer looks perfect.
 
I'm wondering if the high temps resulted in off flavors that you may be perceiving as infection. Even 65 is too high for a lager (unless you're going for a steam beer). You really need to be closer to 50 to truly be making a lager (which is why I haven't tried making one yet!)
 
Yeah, i know. With the first batch of yeast pitched fermentation got going and 2 days later i placed in a 50 degree controlled area. when i checked on it the fermentation had stopped so i moved it to the 65 degree basement and it still did not start up after 4 days, so i pitched some more yeast and nothing. So i brought it up stairs prepairing to give it a final good bye down the drain when i saw a the airlock move...............bubbles, one about every 10 seconds when it was really going and that lasted for about 5 days and today it is about 2 bubbles a second. Where i went wrong was with the intial pitch which we will not get into here.

But, i suppose i will taste it when i do a hydro tomorrow. If it is good, great. If it is off, i will bottle and let sit. If it is bad its going down the drain.
 
You will not see the amount of activity in your airlock from a lager that you would see in a ale. All this moving your primary around is disturbing the yeast and it is doing its best to work for you. When you change the tempertures it is fermenting at, it takes a while to adjust.
 
Well, i took the Hydro and it is at 1.01. Seems to have done a fairly good job. the only problem is i think it is infected due to the off flavor. now, keep in mind i have had beer from a local brewery that is ver very crappy and tasted like a band aid smells. My brew is not as potent of a taste but is similar, and yet still different.

Oh well, it tastes off so i suppose it is down the drain it goes!:mad:
 
How long did you leave it to lager before you moved it back out again? I thought lagers showed very little activity and took much longer to go through primary fermentation. Perhaps just leaving it in a lager temp environment for a month or two could fix things up.
 
Well yeah, longer time will fix it, but in the month it was at lagr temps it went from 1.054 to 1.034 and stopped. i brought it up to 65ish and it was still stuck, so i added more yeast, healthier yeast, and it brought it down to 1.01.

BUT........................it still has that faint taste of a medical product. Not as strong as i have tasted in tainted beer before but there is something there.

I am afriad to waste all of that time cleaning bottles only to have it taste like ass. and i only have the one keg right now so i can not waste it on this when i have the Cheese Carmel cream waiting to go in there.

If it tastes like ass going in will it loose that ass flavor?
 
Reverend JC said:
If it tastes like ass going in will it loose that ass flavor?
Click to expand...
It depends on the ass flavor.

Ass with bandaids will not heal.
Solvent-soaked ass will always burn.
Bitter ass may mellow.
Unbalanced ass might find itself an even keel.
Fruity ass is up for debate (in so many ways...).

The medicinal ass you mention probably falls somewhere between bandaids and solvent. Not looking good for your ass.
 
So, Yuri, with your sage wisdom would you recommend tossing it and going on about my brewing life?

I have a coulpe anchor steams i can wash me sorry away with, oh and one of their holiday brews.
 
I'm not one to recommend pouring anything down the drain, but medicinal flavors aren't usually remedied with time (or anything else). You do what you think is right. Oh, and let someone else reply with their opinion before acting on mine. I've been wrong before...

Anchor brews are always a good means of drowning sorrow.
 
I'm on my second Lager now. It's been in primary at 55dF for a day and honestly it's bubbling at least as much as the ale's I've done. Of course, this is up for major debate, but I pitched at 69dF, left it there for 8 hours (overnight). It was well started by morning and I threw it in the lager fridge. This is just my prefered method vs. making a starter to pitch in the full batch at lager temp. I have a hard time agreeing that that a short stint at ale ferment temps is really going to affect the finished product that much. Figuring that the lag time was probably 5-6 hours, I only fermented for 2 hours at the raised temp. What could that be, 2% of my total attenuation?

Rev, did you use an oxygen setup or just the old shake the carboy trick? My ferments have started so much faster since I've been oxygenating.
 
I do the shake the carboy deal.

I am not sure what to do for the oxygenizing of the wort. I suppose i could do a search for it, but im lazy and at work. I have aqurium pumps. would one of these with a new air stone work? or is there food grade items i should be using?
 
I read that an aquarium pump with an aquarium diffuser stone will be fine (once boiled to get rid of the nasties, of course). Apparently though, you'll want to add some sort of fillter, though, between the pump and the stone in order to filter out anything in the air. I think I read that sterilized gauze can be used for this. I was considering using one of those little black film cannisters instead. Fill it with sterile cotton balls and alcohol (everclear, vodka, etc), set it LOWER than the pump, poke two holes in the lid, drop the pump-side line down to the bottom of the cannister, and put the wort-side line near the top (NOT SUBMERGED in the alcohol). Let the pump bubble the air through the sterile cotton and alcohol and then be picked up by the upper tube.

It's probably overkill, but I think it'd work. The worst case scenario is that you get a little alcohol vapor in the wort, but that's kind of the point of the yeast to begin with, so it ought to be a non-issue. I'm just not sure that the alcohol is even necessary, since the air won't be in contact with the alcohol for more than a second or so... still though, I like to err on the side of paranoia. :)



But don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about. I haven't started brewing yet. I've just read a lot.
 
Toot said:
I read that an aquarium pump with an aquarium diffuser stone will be fine (once boiled to get rid of the nasties, of course). Apparently though, you'll want to add some sort of fillter, though, between the pump and the stone in order to filter out anything in the air. I think I read that sterilized gauze can be used for this. I was considering using one of those little black film cannisters instead. Fill it with sterile cotton balls and alcohol (everclear, vodka, etc), set it LOWER than the pump, poke two holes in the lid, drop the pump-side line down to the bottom of the cannister, and put the wort-side line near the top (NOT SUBMERGED in the alcohol). Let the pump bubble the air through the sterile cotton and alcohol and then be picked up by the upper tube.

It's probably overkill, but I think it'd work. The worst case scenario is that you get a little alcohol vapor in the wort, but that's kind of the point of the yeast to begin with, so it ought to be a non-issue. I'm just not sure that the alcohol is even necessary, since the air won't be in contact with the alcohol for more than a second or so... still though, I like to err on the side of paranoia. :)



But don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about. I haven't started brewing yet. I've just read a lot.
Click to expand...

Oh hey, I made one of these the other day with some 1/2 cpvc (~ 6"), 2 caps, some small (fridge line supply) copper tubing cut to about 1.5". Drilled holes into the cap slightly smaller diameter than the tubing, then heated them and pressed them in. Sealed inside with silicone (between the tube and the cap outside of the copper). You can sterilize the whole getup in boiling water. The one trick is the tubing needs to be heated and stretch fit onto the copper tube, or try to find a step down or something. I put in some activated charcoal in one end and then sterile cotton on the other. I think it is pretty sound. Gleaned the idea off of BYO I think. The one trouble is, you have to watch to make sure that little pump can provide enough pressure to sufficiently aerate after going through the whole path to the carboy. I noticed a dramatic drop in pressure after I put the simple system together so it might need a slightly more gutsy pump. Mine is the el-cheapo brand.

I also drew some arrows on for the direction of the air flow. PS I am not sure if regular cotton is sterile, so buy the boxes used for first aid if you try this.
 

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