2nd Brew concerns

[akimmy2018]

Hello everyone,

I just have a few concerns I'd like to have some opinions on. Both of our two brews were extract recipes with the first home brew being an amber ale and went off without a hitch. We brewed a spiced pumpkin beer yesterday and had two mishaps and was curious if I needed to dump it now or if we should just monitor it over the next week or so. First mishap was adding the pumpkin spices, they were supposed to be added at the end of the 60 minute boil, but we realized after we added the wort to fermenter and filled with water to make 5 gallons. We added it then and mixed it prior to pitching the yeast. I am fairly positive we should be good on that, just not sure if there are any consequences doing it at that point.

The second issue is more of a concern. It was my first time using a wort chiller and in the process of cooling it and trying to add the 2 initial gallons of cold water to the fermenter. I grabbed the hose and filled it with the water that was circulating through it, then added the wort. I didn't sanitize the inside of the wort chiller and the cold water came in through our hose in our back yard. Just curious if this is cause for concern, or if we should just continue to monitor and see if we get lucky.

Sorry for the long text, I just wanted to make sure I gave enough detail expressing my concerns!

Thanks in advance!!

Andrew

 

[jdauria]

As for the spices, you should be OK, chance of infection is slim. Next time, what I suggest is to do a spice tea...boil a cup of water, add the spices to it, let it cool to room temp, then add the spice water while straining out any spice sludge. Cheesecloth is good for that.

As for the chiller, so of I am reading right, you have either a plate chiller or counterflow chiller. So in both of those, the hose water and wort don't touch either other, so safe there, however, depending if you cleaned it last time, you don't know what could be growing on the inside of the wort part. It's always best to run hot wort through to sanitize it. So really there is no way to say if it will be OK or not, just look for a pellicle growing on top of wort instead of normal krausen.

 

[hotbeer]

As far as dumping a batch, why would you do that until you know there is actually a problem. Wait till it's finished fermenting, cleaned itself up somewhat and then taste it if nothing fuzzy is growing on top. If it tastes somewhat like something you might drink then bottle or keg it.

On the chiller, I think we need more info. If it was a simple coil that you put in the hot wort and ran water through the coil, then the hot wort will have likely sanitized it. However if its a chiller were you also have to circulate the wort through it then maybe you have more to "worry" about, but still, don't dump it till there is an actual problem you can see or taste.

 

[cubalz]

If you used an immersion chiller, the heat of the wort should take care of any bacteria on the coils but it is optimal to place the chiller in your boiling wort 15 minutes prior to flame out. This will kill any baddies that happen to be on your coils. I personally would not dump anything out until it is done fermenting and you taste an issue. You have nothing to lose at this point, the hard work is done.

 

[GoodTruble]

There is a small chance something potentially harmful made it in (but there is always some chance of that - all we can do is minimize that chance). No way to know without just letting it play out. 95% chance it will be fine.