Hello fellow brewers,
I come to you in the darkest hour of my brewing career. I've brewed about 10 or so batches so far without any major hitches, aside from overcarbonation. But in the past two weeks, I've lost TWO different 5gal batches to infection - I THINK it's lactobacillus. I don't know what to do aside from throw away all my plastics, airlocks, and start over.
Here's what happened in chronological order:
WARNING: The saga is long, and involves three beers - an apricot/peach wheat, a Berliner weisse, and a saison.
7/21/13:
Brewed 5 gallons of wheat beer, cooled, poured wort into a new plastic fermentation bucket, & added a nice 1L Kolsch yeast starter.
7/27/13:
Brewed a Berliner weisse. Chilled, poured wort into a 6.5 gallon glass and pitched 2 vials of White Labs lactobacillus.
A couple hours later in the day, I took 6 lbs total of peaches/apricots, blanched them (~40 sec in boiling water followed by ~1 min in ice water), peeled the skins off, chopped them up, and froze them in tupperware containers overnight.
The following day...
7/28/13:
I took the tupperware containers out, allowed the peaches/apricots to thaw, and then added them directly to the original wheat beer in the plastic bucket.
Glancing at the Berliner weisse, I saw what I assumed was the formation of a lactobacillus pellicle - so I was excited that my intentional infection appeared to be working. (See first picture)
7/29/13:
After giving the lactobacillus in the weisse a head start in souring the beer, I added 1 vial of White Labs European ale yeast (no starter).
At this point, I don't notice any airlock activity in the apricot/peach wheat beer - even though the fruit is clearly in there. This has me worried, but I press on.
8/4/13:
I rack the apricot/peach wheat beer to a secondary 5gal glass container. There are what I thought were yeast rafts clinging to the fruit in some parts. I discard the fruit and secondary fermentation commences.
I leave the Berliner weisse alone - although I never was certain whether the European ale yeast took off.
8/9/13:
Checked the apricot/peach wheat beer in the secondary. Very clearly infected (see second picture), even though at NO POINT did it come into contact with anything that touched the Berliner weisse (which I never removed from the primary fermenter anyway). My suspicion was the fruit - as I did not really pasteurize it... (although I did boil the whole fruits for the blanching, and followed that up with freezing overnight).
At this point, the apricot/peach wheat has a more brilliant pellicle than my Berliner weisse! (See third image: this is what the Weisse looked like at this point, and still looks like today to be honest).
8/10/13:
I bleached the living hell out of both my plastic fermentation bucket and my plastic bottling bucket for good measure. I also bleached the fermentation bucket's lid & airlock, assuming that everything that came into contact with the peach beer was infected. I diluted 3 cups of the concentrated Chlorox bleach in 6 gallons of hot water, per the instructions, and let it soak overnight.
8/11/13:
The next day, I rinsed the bajeebus out of both buckets, lid & airlock, then soaked them in oxyclean, then rinsed several times again, then soaked in star san, then rinsed again, and when I was satisfied that the bleachy smell was gone for good, I soaked the buckets in star san again.
Determined to press on with my brewing, I brewed a saison the same day, cooled it down, poured it back and forth between both sanitized buckets to oxygenate, put the saison in the plastic fermentation bucket, and pitched a robust & healthy 1L Wyeast 3711 starter. I was sure that nothing could survive the overnight bleaching and repeated rinses & sanitizations, and felt I was safe.
8/12/13:
The following day I was alarmed to see no airlock activity, but realized that the bucket lid was slightly ajar, but not so much that I would worry about stuff getting in. I could make out a nice thick kreusen, and not long after I properly closed the lid, airlock activity was evident.
8/14/13:
Well, as primary fermentation was winding down, to kick up the abv and dry out my saison, I pitched 1 lb of dissolved, boiled, cooled cane sugar. As I opened the lid of the bucket to pitch the sugar in, I noticed that in addition to the kreusen, a white milky layer was starting to form on top, looking much like image #1 (the Berliner weisse).
COULD IT BE THAT MY ARCH NEMESIS LACTOBACILLUS HAS RETURNED?!
How is this even possible? I bleached the snot out of my buckets after my apricot/peach wheat beer infection, and at NO point did either beer come into contact with ANYTHING that touched my Berliner weisse.
My best theory is that the infection of the apricot/peach wheat came from the fruit themselves, and somehow the lactobacillus in the fruit was able to survive in the plastic or rubber stopper/airlock despite my extensive bleaching.
Irrespective of how it happened, I'm now deeply saddened and too paranoid/traumatized to brew, or bottle my barleywine/imperial stout (which are both still in secondary fermenters and appear to be perfectly fine - a little more bulk aging certainly won't hurt).
So, for the kind few of you who managed to read through all of that, how do you think did my saison got infected despite all the precautions I took, and what do you think I should do at this point?
My diagnosis is to just throw away all my plastic material, or just reserve it for my Berliner weisse when it comes time to transfer/ bottle.
Just so majorly bummed that I had to lose 2 batches (so far) before learning this lesson.
I come to you in the darkest hour of my brewing career. I've brewed about 10 or so batches so far without any major hitches, aside from overcarbonation. But in the past two weeks, I've lost TWO different 5gal batches to infection - I THINK it's lactobacillus. I don't know what to do aside from throw away all my plastics, airlocks, and start over.
Here's what happened in chronological order:
WARNING: The saga is long, and involves three beers - an apricot/peach wheat, a Berliner weisse, and a saison.
7/21/13:
Brewed 5 gallons of wheat beer, cooled, poured wort into a new plastic fermentation bucket, & added a nice 1L Kolsch yeast starter.
7/27/13:
Brewed a Berliner weisse. Chilled, poured wort into a 6.5 gallon glass and pitched 2 vials of White Labs lactobacillus.
A couple hours later in the day, I took 6 lbs total of peaches/apricots, blanched them (~40 sec in boiling water followed by ~1 min in ice water), peeled the skins off, chopped them up, and froze them in tupperware containers overnight.
The following day...
7/28/13:
I took the tupperware containers out, allowed the peaches/apricots to thaw, and then added them directly to the original wheat beer in the plastic bucket.
Glancing at the Berliner weisse, I saw what I assumed was the formation of a lactobacillus pellicle - so I was excited that my intentional infection appeared to be working. (See first picture)
7/29/13:
After giving the lactobacillus in the weisse a head start in souring the beer, I added 1 vial of White Labs European ale yeast (no starter).
At this point, I don't notice any airlock activity in the apricot/peach wheat beer - even though the fruit is clearly in there. This has me worried, but I press on.
8/4/13:
I rack the apricot/peach wheat beer to a secondary 5gal glass container. There are what I thought were yeast rafts clinging to the fruit in some parts. I discard the fruit and secondary fermentation commences.
I leave the Berliner weisse alone - although I never was certain whether the European ale yeast took off.
8/9/13:
Checked the apricot/peach wheat beer in the secondary. Very clearly infected (see second picture), even though at NO POINT did it come into contact with anything that touched the Berliner weisse (which I never removed from the primary fermenter anyway). My suspicion was the fruit - as I did not really pasteurize it... (although I did boil the whole fruits for the blanching, and followed that up with freezing overnight).
At this point, the apricot/peach wheat has a more brilliant pellicle than my Berliner weisse! (See third image: this is what the Weisse looked like at this point, and still looks like today to be honest).
8/10/13:
I bleached the living hell out of both my plastic fermentation bucket and my plastic bottling bucket for good measure. I also bleached the fermentation bucket's lid & airlock, assuming that everything that came into contact with the peach beer was infected. I diluted 3 cups of the concentrated Chlorox bleach in 6 gallons of hot water, per the instructions, and let it soak overnight.
8/11/13:
The next day, I rinsed the bajeebus out of both buckets, lid & airlock, then soaked them in oxyclean, then rinsed several times again, then soaked in star san, then rinsed again, and when I was satisfied that the bleachy smell was gone for good, I soaked the buckets in star san again.
Determined to press on with my brewing, I brewed a saison the same day, cooled it down, poured it back and forth between both sanitized buckets to oxygenate, put the saison in the plastic fermentation bucket, and pitched a robust & healthy 1L Wyeast 3711 starter. I was sure that nothing could survive the overnight bleaching and repeated rinses & sanitizations, and felt I was safe.
8/12/13:
The following day I was alarmed to see no airlock activity, but realized that the bucket lid was slightly ajar, but not so much that I would worry about stuff getting in. I could make out a nice thick kreusen, and not long after I properly closed the lid, airlock activity was evident.
8/14/13:
Well, as primary fermentation was winding down, to kick up the abv and dry out my saison, I pitched 1 lb of dissolved, boiled, cooled cane sugar. As I opened the lid of the bucket to pitch the sugar in, I noticed that in addition to the kreusen, a white milky layer was starting to form on top, looking much like image #1 (the Berliner weisse).
COULD IT BE THAT MY ARCH NEMESIS LACTOBACILLUS HAS RETURNED?!
How is this even possible? I bleached the snot out of my buckets after my apricot/peach wheat beer infection, and at NO point did either beer come into contact with ANYTHING that touched my Berliner weisse.
My best theory is that the infection of the apricot/peach wheat came from the fruit themselves, and somehow the lactobacillus in the fruit was able to survive in the plastic or rubber stopper/airlock despite my extensive bleaching.
Irrespective of how it happened, I'm now deeply saddened and too paranoid/traumatized to brew, or bottle my barleywine/imperial stout (which are both still in secondary fermenters and appear to be perfectly fine - a little more bulk aging certainly won't hurt).
So, for the kind few of you who managed to read through all of that, how do you think did my saison got infected despite all the precautions I took, and what do you think I should do at this point?
My diagnosis is to just throw away all my plastic material, or just reserve it for my Berliner weisse when it comes time to transfer/ bottle.
Just so majorly bummed that I had to lose 2 batches (so far) before learning this lesson.
