first unintended infection...

I've had 2 sour beers so far, one is in a dedicated sour fermenter, the other is in glass...
So, this hit both fermeters and i did grind up grain probably 20 minutes before transferring to these vessels so i have a feeling something got in from the air. Tastes fine though, so i'll prolly just keg it and be off to the races... however, i did break my auto siphon (i've had it for 3 years now, my original!) so i needed to replace that anyways... and tubing is cheap time to bleach bomb the fermenters though!

Why all the headspace? That is probably why you got infections in both carboys. The greater the headspace, the more likely you have cooties in your carboy.

And when you grind the grain shouldn't matter, as you mashed and boiled afterward, right?

The grain was for a different batch that I was doing that day... these were already done fermenting like 2 weeks previously; the headspace wouldn't matter at all though. Out of the years I've been doing this, this is the first time I've had an infection and for it to hit both with the same thing only leads me to think one thing, the grain.

Maybe, but you should also consider that keeping sour and normal beer fermenters side by side is probably not the best idea. I'm more inclined to believe cross contamination vs. something to do with grain getting something in the air. Were their airlocks on these carboys?

My sour beers are no where near my normal beers though. All my sour equipment stays in a different room... I don't even wash stuff in the same sink lol

And yep! Airlocks were on

Rivenin said:

I've had 2 sour beers so far, one is in a dedicated sour fermenter, the other is in glass...
So, this hit both fermeters and i did grind up grain probably 20 minutes before transferring to these vessels so i have a feeling something got in from the air. Tastes fine though, so i'll prolly just keg it and be off to the races... however, i did break my auto siphon (i've had it for 3 years now, my original!) so i needed to replace that anyways... and tubing is cheap time to bleach bomb the fermenters though!

Click to expand...

If I understand you, there was one intentional sour, and one unintentional? I would suspect cross contamination from something else. When I rack, I normally take a hyrdometer sample. Perhaps something didn't get quite clean during the racking and a bacteria transfer took place. How long after racking did you see the pellicle in the unintentional sour? It's possible the bacteria transfer may have actually taken place prior, but it wasn't noticeable until after you racked (coincidentally).

well the two shown were identical batches that were not supposed to be soured. i have a few other sour batches going in the other room that have been fermenting for a few months now un-touched.
the pellicle was there within 4-5 days, the nice ice stuff, then went to the bubbles pretty quickly after, maybe a day or two.
in the picture i had just moved them though, so it got a bit disturbed. 3

but i hadn't taken a hydro sample just yet, i just transferred to those carboys.

i put cranberry in with one of them and bottled it, put fresh raspberries in the other and thats fermenting out at the moment and i'll bottle that soon. figured what the hell? cranberries and raspberries and a lacto infection don't seem terrible