Dump it, or don't???

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sven137

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
I had a couple of downers kill what otherwise was going to be a great brewing experience. Tell me what you think...

With some tax refund money I purchased a SQ-14 Burner and a 10 gal Polarware Pot and went about brewing my first full boil. That all went great, but in my haste of wanting to brew on my day off, I didn't do a yeast starter for a tube of White Labs yeast. No big deal I know, except this tube ended up being bad. First time not doing a starter, and it just so happens it's the first bad tube I've gotten, my bad luck.

Luckily, Midwest had sent me an extra pack of Munton's dry, so after giving it almost 24hrs without one single bubble, I re-hydrated the Munton's and went about pouring her in. This is where I screwed up again.

In trying to get the stopper out, I drove it almost down into the beer, not a big deal I know, but annoying, now I was going to have to carefully fish it out with a screw driver that I conveniently forgot to sterilize. I had done this before wthout touching the bottle with the screwdriver with no problem, but this time it slipped and the plug fell into the beer with a bit of greasy screwdriver dirt in the middle hole.

I cussed, sterilized a new plug, and put her in. This morning the batch is fired up and going great.

Here's the ultimate question. Upon telling my brother, who is a more meticulous and experienced brewer than myself, this story, he said that I might as well throw the batch out. That seems a little drastic to me. I have had some other screwups in my short amateur career, and with upwards of 20 batches and two years under my beer belly, have yet to have an infected batch, but granted, this batch does seem like a batch of firsts thus far. The boil went so good, and the beer was no doubt going to be good until all this happened. So what now?

Don't know why it would matter, but the batch is a Midwest Supplies recipe for 5gal. Irish Red Ale brewed to spec. (1lb grain steeped to 155deg, 6lbs liq malt, 1oz hops 60 min, 1oz hops 2 min) chilled in 15min (with my also new stainless wort chiller thank you very much)1.040grav, fermenting at about 65-67deg in a 6.5 gal car boy.

Would you throw it out, or keep-a-fermentin and hope for the best?
 
I made one of the most disgusting batches ever. It smelled like Bush's Baked Beans and tasted like vomit. Specifically apple vomit. I nuked the hell out of some champaign yeast in a porter, and it was one of the worst things I have ever consumed. I didn't dump an ounce.
 
I spit in my beer and it turned out good. In a couple months give some to your brother and tell him to relax.
 
First things first, I'm suprised nobody mentioned this. Your White Labs yeast was probably fine. Just because you weren't getting any activity in the airlock doesn't mean is isn't doing its thing. Plus you didn't make a starter so you could have been having an extended lag time. It may have taken up to 72 hours to start showing signs of fermentation.

As to throwing it out. Don't!!! It will most likely be fine and when it is drink it in front of your brother and when he asks why you didn't offer him one, tell him if I listened to you it would have been down the drain anyway.
 
That sounds like a standard Allan brew day... I ve had to fish out bungs with coathangers that i pushed through (of course i didnt sterilize it, that would have been thinkin)

Youd be surprised what will and wont screw up a beer. The times I do everything wrong, it s all right. and the times I do it all right, everythings wrong...

Cheers
 
Seems to me there is no harm in keeping it... even if it turns out bad you didn't really lose anything. Just wait it out, by some odd chance maybe it turns into your best brew ever and you can call it Grease Monkey's Screw Driver or something and have a good story.
 
Keep it. Drink it or give it to someone who will.

You don't even know if there were any germs on that screw driver. Grease germs? Never heard of 'em.

OK, really, that screw driver was probably infested with germs. So what. They gotta be tougher than yeast and booze.
 
I dunno, how many germs can live in a petroleum (guessing) based grease? There wasn't enough grease (guessing again) to cause and off flavor. Sure there were germs, but there were probably enough yeast in that packet to win the war over the sugar.

Shade Tree Ale has a nice ring to it.
 
I think out of the 20 or so batches I've made, 15 or so were Wyeast smackpacks, only 3 White Labs Tubes, and 2 were dry packs. This is the first Liquid I've done without a starter. Started yeast batches always "started" my primaries within hours for obvious reasons. Midwest emailed me back today saying I should have given it at least 72 hours to start, and from what I'm gathering from you guys, they're right. Guess I'll have a multi-yeasted batch here. Hope it turns out good.

I really wasn't that worried about infection until my Bro said that. I kinda thought what one of you said. Whatever bacteria got in had to win the battle over potentially a billion hungry yeast cells. After what I've learned in Microbiology and in Nursing, I should be confident in that, but I really respect my Bro's opinion on brewing matters.

The silver lining is that the Double Brown I have in my first kegged beer is incredible, after I thought I had fermented it at too high a temp. One of the best beers I've had. I will never go back to bottles.
 
I made one of the most disgusting batches ever. It smelled like Bush's Baked Beans and tasted like vomit. Specifically apple vomit. I nuked the hell out of some champaign yeast in a porter, and it was one of the worst things I have ever consumed. I didn't dump an ounce.

I believe this is called "Jumping on the Grenade"
 
I was impatient with a Wit and added some dry ale yeast. Not sure if the belgian yeast got going or not, but that was a darn good batch of beer.

I highly doubt you will get infected by that screwdriver. Now if you touched it with your fingers, then maybe.

Let it ride and drink some good beer when it's all done. Promise.
 
Im learning this time thing is a good idea. I bottled my California common 3 weeks ago and tried 1 at 1 week. Just awful! 2 weeks later it tastes really good.
 
Back
Top