Mold in the blow-off tank... I'm freakin' out!

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ScarySouthernMan

ScarySouthernMan

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I had mold start growing in my blow off tank. I had two fermenters run into the one tank, both tubes submerged.... I shoulda switched back to airlocks when the fermentation slowed down I guess.


Am I looking at infection? The beer is 3.5 weeks old. I plan to bottle tomorrow.


Any thoughts would be appreciated...


Thanks,


Scary
 
Mold in the blow off jar after 3.5 weeks. I am not surprised.
 
freak not. replace or clean the blowoff hoses and tank and hope for the best.
 
As someone else first said on here: Bacteria aren't Ninjas.

Is there mold on your beer? If not, you should be fine.
 
The Co2 was flowing from the beer and into the blow off container with a positive pressure. You have no worries.
 
Thank you all for your responses. I've replaced the the blow off tubes with regular airlocks. Yes I put Star San in the blow off the last time I replaced the water in it about two weeks ago. I guess it wasn't enough?

I had hoped the CO2 principle kept me safe.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks again so much,

Scary
 
The blowoff's only purpose is to give intense amounts of krausen a place to go. Once the most active fermentation is done (less than a week), just put an airlock on instead. That way, you also have part of the cleanup done.
 
Saccharomyces said:
I use plain water in my blowoff bucket. I have had mold, bugs, etc. in it never a problem. As long as you don't suck the liquid back into the fermenter there is zero chance of contamination.
Click to expand...

I would still be careful about cleanliness. The blowoff hose gets lots of nasty residue built up on the inside, and over time, mold or bacterial contamination will propagate up through it and could infect a batch.
 
This just happened to me as well. A check of the beer shows what looks like it COULD be mold, but the krausen residue is so think I can't tell. I left the blow off on for about 11 days, kept telling myself to change it and kept getting distracted. I'm panicked.
 
How does this happen? If I have a blowoff rigged, I check that thing all the time to pour off excess liquid and see when I can replace with a regular airlock
 

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