DrSteveBrewle
New Member
Hello. This is my very first post. I have been brewing on and off for a while. I got started with the Mr Beer kits. This is my first 5 gallon batch and I made my own pail with a valve for easy transfer into a glass secondary. I checked on my beer 10 days after I pitched. It had this really strong alcohol taste, so i panicked and siphoned into my secondary, because I thought I needed to get it away from the yeast so it could filter out all of the badness and clear up. After cleaning my pail, 2 days later the smell is still stuck onto the pail, and it almost has a smell of plastic-like toxins or something. I then found out that my pail is not Food Grade. I thought that all HDPE pails were Food Grade but I was mistaken. The FG was where I needed it to be. It did have a very vigorous fermentation. The fermentation temp got up to 75 degrees some days, so is it just fusel alcohol? I don't think I gave the wort enough oxygen before I pitched. Did the strong fermentation strip toxins from the pail and into my beer? Im going to let it chill in my secondary for a while at a lower temp, and hopefully it'll be ok. Is it just really green, or did I ruin my beer? I will end up throwing this pail and getting a new one, no sense in risking future batches. Any help would be greatly appreciated.