How do I know if my beer got infected?

[Bobb25]

Yesterday I brewed my second batch, a California Common. I had tried to use a screen in the funnel when siphoning from the brew kettle to the fermentor. Unfortunately there was so much gunk from the pellet hops that the screen clogged. I stopped the siphon and all I could think to do at the time was dunk my right hand into a nearby bucket of star san and then reach in and extract the screen. In retrospect I can think of several other options , live and learn... I did a gravity reading, and pitched the yeast. Today it is happily bubbling away. But the question remains, how will I know how badly I screwed it up ?

 

[unionrdr]

A lot of people on here have done that & it turned out fine. But if it gets slimy white bubbles & funk growing on top,it's infected. It should be ok,seeing as how others on here did.

 

[JimRausch]

Well, to answer the title- it'll look bad, smell bad and taste bad.
But, relax. If you do a search on this forum you'll find posts where people have dropped alot worse stuff in their wort and didn't have any problems.
You starsaned your hand which won't sterilize it, but will kill alot of the local bacteria. Then you pitched a large amount of yeast into an environment favorable to their growth. They took off like a maniac and usually prevent anything else from growing in 'their soup'. No guarentees in this life, but most likely you'll be fine. RDWHAHB!

 

[k_mcarthur]

While good sanitation is paramount in making great beer I have found that as long as you pitch a large healthy yeast colony little oops moments don't always end in tragedy. I think we all have had a blonde moment and thought "crap I just ruined this batch" but it all works out in the end.

 

[kef300]

It should be fine. I did the exact same thing once fishing out the gasket for my airlock. The beer turned out fine.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Bamsdealer]

You won't know for a while but you're probably fine. Ive done worse and have yet to screw up bad enough to get an infection. Good luck.