Infected beer identification & advice

[byronyasgur]

Does anyone know what this is. I did a "no chill" in combination with a "real wort starter" and made the mistake ( presumably a mistake anyway ) of setting my fermentation chamber to 21C / 70F in preparation for the real wort starter to be ready a day later ( WLP568 ). A day turned into 36 hours and when I went to pitch this is what the wort looked like. I'd taken good sanitation steps but I suppose they weren't good enough ... or maybe just storing the wort at that temperature alone was good enough.

I didn't just jump to dumping it straight away. It didn't smell bad or anything and I was wondering if there was any way to either rescue it or turn it into a sour or something. I'm in the middle of reading this interesting article but I suppose it would be handy to know which infection it was ... assuming it's not just hot break or trub starting to float or something.

Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful, thanks

 

[kev211]

Definitely looks like an infection. What type? Couldnt tell ya. I would suggest perusing the infected beer thread to see if you can find a matching photo

 

[LLBeanJ]

You'll need to taste it. If sour, then lacto; if vinegar, then acetobacter; etc.

If the flavor hasn't gone south yet you can likely re-boil for 10 minutes or so and kill off the infection before it really takes hold. Of course, either way, that bucket will need some TLC to disinfect.

 

[byronyasgur]

You'll need to taste it. If sour, then lacto; if vinegar, then acetobacter; etc.

If the flavor hasn't gone south yet you can likely re-boil for 10 minutes or so and kill off the infection before it really takes hold. Of course, either way, that bucket will need some TLC to disinfect.

tasted it and actually I could barely taste anything but the wort but I think it was sourish - not vinegar anyway. I removed the pellicle because I figured I should and reboiled the wort - cleaned the bucket with VWP and a bath of starsan and I'm just about to pitch the starter - hopefully it takes off and I end up with something drinkable - thanks for advice - if nothing else all this has been an education

 

[Chesterbelloc]

Looks like lactobacillus.

 

[SHAIV]

I don't really see the appeal for no chill. I got something in my chilled beer and now I have a butter beer lol I think it could have been avoided if I had done a starter instead of pitching dry yeast on the wort. I think the lag time from the yeast hydrating and getting started gave something the chance to grow

 

[bfabry]

The appeal of no chill is not having to chill. Less equipment, less time, less water.

 

[SHAIV]

Less time? But the risk of having your wort contaminated is greater, the faster you pitch your yeast the less chance anything else can grow and eat your wort. To each his own but I'm actually thinking about pitching yeast as soon as temps drop to 80 ish and then continue chilling and transfer lol that's how quick I want to pitch!

 

[bfabry]

Probably not the place for the discussion, but, wort chillers can be an infection vector too, and less time in terms of less of a concentrated block of time. Less time on brew day. The vast majority of people I've spoken to who No-Chill have literally never gotten an infection doing it, I'd be surprised if the rate of infections among brewers who No-Chill is any higher than those who chill. There are other considerations but these are the ones that sway me. Like you said, to each their own.

 

[Calder]

tasted it and actually I could barely taste anything but the wort but I think it was sourish - not vinegar anyway. I removed the pellicle because I figured I should and reboiled the wort - cleaned the bucket with VWP and a bath of starsan and I'm just about to pitch the starter - hopefully it takes off and I end up with something drinkable - thanks for advice - if nothing else all this has been an education

A little lacto sour note with WLP568 wouldn't be a disaster.

I'm not sure you had anything there. Re-boiling was the safe thing to do anyway.

Good luck with the beer.

Vinegar will not develop until you have alcohol. You need alcohol and oxygen to get vinegar ....... and of course actobacter.

 

[byronyasgur]

i'm sort of thinking the culprit in this case was storing the wort at 70F for a day and a half, more than no chill as a process. No chill really appeals to me for a few different reasons and I've done it before successfully a couple of times. I suppose if you already have a chiller and have that as part of your process then it's just as handy to chill but for me I'll probably go with no chill unless I start getting infections, but in this case I think if I'd have kept the beer cold until I was ready to pitch I surely would have avoided this - I mean I'm pretty sure I had decent sanitation but time will tell. The fermentation looks good at the moment anyway. If I think of it I'll report here on the success or failure of the "boil recovery".

 

[Chesterbelloc]

Just remember as you brew more and more beasties are going setup around your brewhouse. Stay up on sanitation and you'll stay ahead of the game.

 

[SHAIV]

Ok I did a little research on no chill brewing. I've gathered that you fill a container with boiling wort and get all the air out. That makes more sense. That's the only way I would think to do it. The ops picture seems to have a lot of air space in their keg? Or container. I wouldn't like having all that air in a container with my wort

 

[RM-MN]

I'm not convinced that the OP really has an infected batch of beer. It looks to me like a bunch of cold break is on the surface. It should take more time to get a batch of bacteria to start and multiply to make that kind of surface.

 

[byronyasgur]

Ok I did a little research on no chill brewing. I've gathered that you fill a container with boiling wort and get all the air out. That makes more sense. That's the only way I would think to do it. The ops picture seems to have a lot of air space in their keg? Or container. I wouldn't like having all that air in a container with my wort

I'm no expert but when people do it like you described I think they can store their wort for extended periods, weeks/months. But on the other hand a lot of people just wait till the next day to pitch their yeast and I suppose correctly this is not really "no chill" ( or maybe it is I don't know ) ... but I don't think headspace is an issue in those cases. I do chill my wort down to around the 50C mark ( which is pretty east for me to do with a quick ice bath ) both to stop the hop isomerization ( so I don't have to recalculate all the hop timings ) ... and because I'm still not sure what sort of heat the plastic bucket can take without leeching something out ... I suppose what I do is not really "no chill" in the classic sense it's more "next day pictching" and because I do that I don't have to really chill the wort fully I let the fermentation chamber do that.

 

[byronyasgur]

I'm not convinced that the OP really has an infected batch of beer. It looks to me like a bunch of cold break is on the surface. It should take more time to get a batch of bacteria to start and multiply to make that kind of surface.

funny you should say because I thought it looked most like lacto but isn't that meant to be white - this was definitely yellow - I mean it was sort of the colour of the beer in a sense, and there was no foul smell or anything - I found that odd

 

[bfabry]

> I do chill my wort down to around the 50C mark ( which is pretty east for me to do with a quick ice bath ) both to stop the hop isomerization ( so I don't have to recalculate all the hop timings )

An important aspect of No-Chill is filling your FV/Cube with Wort *at least* above pasteurisation temperatures, so sterilise that sealed environment where the wort is going to hang out for an extended period of time. If you chill to 50C and then transfer to a vessel and leave for hours you're *really* inviting infection. I'd be surprised if you did that and didn't get an infection to be honest. You've bundled together a bunch of ripe-for-eating food in the danger zone temperature wise with some un-sterilised air and left them to sit.

> I'm still not sure what sort of heat the plastic bucket can take without leeching something out

If it's HDPE it'll be fine right up past boiling temperatures. Don't worry about it.

hop isomerization drops off quite rapidly, and wort will still pasteurise at anything north of 75C, so maybe you could modify your procedure to chill to 85C or so and then transfer to your FV so that isomerization is largely reduced but you're still killing any nasties in your FV. I wouldn't keep transferring 50C wort into a new vessel and then leaving it for 24h though.

 

[byronyasgur]

>An important aspect of No-Chill is filling your FV/Cube with Wort *at least* above pasteurisation temperatures, so sterilise that sealed environment where the wort is going to hang out for an extended period of time. If you chill to 50C and then transfer to a vessel and leave for hours you're *really* inviting infection. I'd be surprised if you did that and didn't get an infection to be honest. You've bundled together a bunch of ripe-for-eating food in the danger zone temperature wise with some un-sterilised air and left them to sit.

Yes you're right - I won't be doing that again.

If it's HDPE it'll be fine right up past boiling temperatures. Don't worry about it.

I don't know - are those standard fermentation white buckets typically HDPE?

hop isomerization drops off quite rapidly, and wort will still pasteurise at anything north of 75C, so maybe you could modify your procedure to chill to 85C or so and then transfer to your FV so that isomerization is largely reduced but you're still killing any nasties in your FV. I wouldn't keep transferring 50C wort into a new vessel and then leaving it for 24h though.

Nice tip about the temperatures and isomerization there - thanks - I'll keep it in mind - I might do that but what I've done in the past is just chill the beer to a lower temp and pitch sooner which seems to work fine

 

[RM-MN]

Yes you're right - I won't be doing that again.


I don't know - are those standard fermentation white buckets typically HDPE?


Nice tip about the temperatures and isomerization there - thanks - I'll keep it in mind - I might do that but what I've done in the past is just chill the beer to a lower temp and pitch sooner which seems to work fine

All of mine are HDPE. I've poured boiling wort into my buckets and put a lid on to let the steam pasteurize the lid and pitched the yeast the following day.:rockin:

 

[byronyasgur]

All of mine are HDPE. I've poured boiling wort into my buckets and put a lid on to let the steam pasteurize the lid and pitched the yeast the following day.:rockin:

cool info thanks - I'll try to idenfity mine for sure and then try that

 

[Honda88]

Looks like lacto, you did the right thing boiling again...I know you don't want to use the extra water but you should really consider using an ice bath to get down to pitching temps. I have pitched at 80F with the wort in an ice bath and the wort will come down to temperature fast enough to not hurt the fermentation. As far as infections go, just make sure you use star san or boil whatever is going to come in contact with the wort and you should be just fine.

 

[troglodytes]

My current Saison looks almost identical to OP's pic. If it is contaminated, it will be the second brew in a row, and this is after I cleaned the absolute crap out of my equipment after the last batch which ended up going south.

Thing is mine looks that way after only 2 weeks, and upon taste test last night, I tested no signs of contamination. The beer tasted green with a little alcohol harshness up front which should mellow with a little time. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out ok, which I think it will. I feel like both OPs and mine are really fully developed pellicles for such a short amount of time, if thats what it is. My hope/guess is that this is actually a mixture of yeast/ hot & cold break riding on CO2.