Have you ever infected your beer/wort??

Out of about 30 batches brewed so far, one had the classic signs of infection. Another had the 'band aid burps' that I think was infection, but may also have been cleaner or sanitizer contamination. The definitely infected batch had the telltale ring at the bottle neck and sour taste.

Possible off flavors from small scale infections bug me the most. These don't ruin your beer outright, but can skew flavors; especially as the beer ages.

Just heard a podcast by Jamil Z. in which he says he is so suspicious of junk lingering in bottles that he uses new bottles for every brew! His beers are apparently known for aging well over unusually long time periods; whether in bottle or in kegs.

I'd imagine the number of infected gallons to non-infected gallons of homebrew would put it in the tenths or hundredths of a percent.

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I go to the other end of the spectrum, i.e. that most (almost all) homebrewed beers are contaminated to some degree just not enough to make it a dumper. There was a study done a while back (I can't find it now) where a bunch of experienced homebrewers brewed the same beer and they all sent the beers to a lab...most were infected.

Clonefarmer said:

The buckets are good for about 10 batches before they start to make me nervous. Hoses and stoppers I change more frequently depending on their condition.

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Thats a joke correct? What the heck are you doing to the buckets that makes you nervous?

Use-> wash-> spray with (a) starsan or (b) iodophor and you good to go

This was planned>




Heres the whitelabs.com/qcday-2009>
http://www.whitelabs.com/qcday-2009.html#Microbiological_testing_overall

I had my first ever sub-freezing brew session this weekend. I decided to not use my garden hoses outside to avoid an ice slick. So I filled my bottling bucket with snow and water and put it on top of my fridge. I hooked the IC hose up to the spigot on the bucket and let gravity run the ice cold water through the IC. While adding more snow/water to the bucket on top of the fridge about a golf ball size chunk of snow fell into the brewpot. I'm REALLY hoping this errant chunk of snow doesn't cause my first infection ever. It is bubbling away like normal, so hopefully no errant bacteria/yeasts etc. got in there. I'm crossing my fingers cause this is my New Years Eve brew. (a hefeweizen for the BMC crowd, even though it's out of season).