Infection??

[jackohiro]

Hi there,

I have had this brew on for about 3 weeks.
Its a Pale ale extract with added cascade hops.
Wheni opened the top there was a very strong alcohol smell and odd appaerance as shown in the pick.
Is this an infection? Thanks for the help.

 

[ChefRex]

Most infection threads I click on are normal, you sir have an infection!
Sorry.

 

[jackohiro]

That's a shame. Thanks for the heads up.
Is there anything that can be done to bring the beer back from the grave?

 

[Qhrumphf]

The damage with the beer is done. You could rack it into a carboy and leave it for a year and hope a tasty sour beer develops, which is entirely possible, but it's just as likely that whatever while yeast and bugs got in there will make it taste like dirty diaper or vomit or something equally nasty. So if you don't want to wait on a crap shoot, dump the batch, and replace any plastic equipment that touched it. I'd opt for the rack and wait method myself.

 

[fearwig]

Did your yeast take off or fail? I don't see a krausen line. If this tastes OK and is near the original gravity you could likely skim and pasteurize (heat above ~160F and cool quickly) and repitch. Probably not worth your time, but it would save your ingredients and not cost you too much effort. Then again, starting over wouldn't be the end of the world on an extract batch--most of your time expenditure is in bottling, IMO, so the ingredient waste is your main issue here. Good luck either way.

Edit, NM didn't read: 3 weeks. Trash, buddy, it won't taste good any time soon. No need to replace your equipment, just soak in bleach solution (~20-to-1). Nothing survives that, porous plastic or not. The original contaminants are probably in your kitchen or all around you anyway, you're not going to gain much by replacing that $20 brew bucket (or whatever). Just gotta watch your brew day sanitation next time.

 

[FredTheNuke]

I vote for the Wild Lambic experiment. If you do let us know how it tastes in 18 months!

 

[tennesseean_87]

Taste it. If it's good, package and consume immediately. If not, dump it.

 

[jrc64]

Hi there,

I have had this brew on for about 3 weeks.
Its a Pale ale extract with added cascade hops.
Wheni opened the top there was a very strong alcohol smell and odd appaerance as shown in the pick.
Is this an infection? Thanks for the help.

Yikes, that one is definitely infected! Sorry for your loss.

 

[fearwig]

Taste it. If it's good, package and consume immediately. If not, dump it.

Err, careful bottling, if you do that. Bugs will eat "unfermentables" and blow up your bottles. You can pateurize, repitch and then prime + bottle but don't just prime and bottle unless your FG is really so low you know the bugs are done eating (like close to 1.000).

 

[midfielder5]

That is an infection.

Feel free to post your methods and we can trouble shoot to see where it may have gone astray.

and bleach bomb everything, at the very least.

 

[cluckk]

Rack it into a secondary with an airlock and forget about it for a year or so--except to make sure the airlock doesn't dry out. You will have a beautiful beer when it is done. Welcome to the world of wild yeasty beasties.

As for the plastic fermenter, I'd mark it for use with soured beers in the future and replace it.

 

[fearwig]

As for the plastic fermenter, I'd mark it for use with soured beers in the future and replace it.

I don't want to knock anyone, but this cracks me up when I hear it. What's in there you can't kill? MRSA? Space bugs? I know hobbyists are superstitious, but if you use almost any amount of bleach and get a reinfection it's from your brew setting or your tools, not some bugs hiding in the pores of your plastic.

Yeast is hardy, it takes a biggish dose of bugs to take hold in wort. Y'all should try growing mushrooms if you want to see sterility, this just takes sanitation.

OK, no--I take it back. Send me your contaminated 6+gal brew buckets. I'll quarantine them for you.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Depending on where that contamination is, it can be pretty pervasive. I'm certainly behind trying a bleach bomb first (I've cleared an infection with a bleach bomb myself without further issues), but some of these critters are good at protecting themselves, and if they get themselves into a scratch in a bucket or inside the nooks and crannies of a bottling bucket spigot or inside some tubing, you may not be able to get them out.

 

[fearwig]

I think at least some of this comes from an over-reliance on starsan. Bleach is not "no rinse", so it's not for everything, but there is nothing it won't kill in adequate concentration. Heat is the same--with the exception of spores, which you won't really encounter in wet places like brew buckets, boiling (or realistically 180f+) kills anything--and HDPE buckets are boil safe if it comes to that. You can't get that kind of absolute sterility from a low pH sanitizer, that stuff is for bottles.

Now, if you want to avoid lacto and wild yeasts and you've had problems in the past, what you really need to do is stop brewing in your kitchen, 3' from your trash can! That said, I do it too because I don't really have infection issues and it's convenient. I'd never secondary there.

 

[Oceantendency]

You had quite a huge headspace in there, is it a 5 gallon bucket? I def would go buy a glass carboy just barely big enough to hold that stuff and go for the Lambic style. I would def do a bleach bomb as well on everything you brew with, even if this didn't touch it. Looks like a big infection.

 

[tennesseean_87]

Err, careful bottling, if you do that. Bugs will eat "unfermentables" and blow up your bottles. You can pateurize, repitch and then prime + bottle but don't just prime and bottle unless your FG is really so low you know the bugs are done eating (like close to 1.000).

Notice I said immediately, i.e., before they can get that bad.

 

[feelfox]

look this

 

[fearwig]

Notice I said immediately, i.e., before they can get that bad.

Right, my point is the infection is already in there--it will keep eating the stuff the yeast couldn't eat no matter how "bad" it is. In fact, if you bottle after an infection starts but before it has finished up, you are pretty much guaranteed to have 50 bottle bombs, unless your recipe had almost full attenuation to begin with (no crystal, low mash). Three gravity points is enough to carb a beer. Now imagine what 12 or 15 from a full-bodied beer would do. Because if your FG is 1.012 your bacteria/wild yeast are going to have 12 points of sugar to eat (plus a few, depending on ABV).

If you bottle this right away, you should a) taste it to see if that's a good idea because it's probably not, b) KILL it by pasteurizing, c) repitch some neutral yeast and prime as usual.

Anyway, probably moot, probably this is going to taste like poo and should be discarded (or kept for a year in secondary and prayed over, if you want to wind up on Hoarders).

 

[fearwig]

look this

Looks like yeast.

 

[adrock430]

OP, that looks like an acetobacter infection. If it tastes fine should be okay to bottle. You'll get scum in the bottle and it make gush a bit early in priming (prior to 1st month in bottle) but it most likely won't overcarb.

In the future, limit contact with oxygen when the yeast is done fermenting. Acetobacter feeds off of alcohol with oxygen to produce vinegar.

 

[jackohiro]

I ended up discarding this brew. I liked the idea about straining and racking to a secondary for a year or so but as i have limited equipment, i decided i will start over. I have spent hours looking at this on the net and this forum has still been a lot more helpful so thank you everyone who is posting.

 

[jackohiro]

Hi again, a new brew is starting to worry me again.
Extract kits with added saaz.
Is this looking infected?

 

[Hopinista]

Not necessarily, just looks like krausen... what are you fermenting in? It looks like a giant tupperware

 

[jackohiro]

Yea its a coopers plastic tub. Ive never used saison yeast before. Have you had any thing look similar. Its been fermenting about a week now

 

[fearwig]

I do see some floaties--might be yeast. Kind of looks like hop seeds but I wouldn't expect dry hopping here? I'd give it another week to finish, with less peeking. If there's a white skin on top, then you can worry (otherwise taste, measure fg, etc). Foam is fine.

Only difference in a saison yeast from other ales will be the smell, which should be like ripe fruit.

Consider moving your fermentation site away from your kitchen, if you haven't. In terms of bugs that can hurt beer, kitchens are dirtier than bathrooms.

 

[jackohiro]

Thanks for the tips!! Would be lost without this forum

 

[fearwig]

Thanks for the tips!! Would be lost without this forum

Now that I'm not looking from a phone I think you're probably OK, I've had weirder looking foam.