Never had an infection?

[JGF]

I've brewed probably 100+ batches - mostly extract but AG lately - without ever having an infected/contaminated batch. While we (I've brewed with a number of partners) have certainly been conscientious about sanitation but am not "crazy" about it. From looking at this board - it seems that infections are more common than I would have thought.

That's not to say we haven't had other issues - a stout that exploded a number of bottles in grad school. We got really(!) drunk drinking those not yet exploded bottles that night. Had a batch of ale get pretty pretty weird after re-using a scotch ale yeast from another batch. My first ever batch wasn't quite ready when a fire took our house back in 1996 but never had an infected/contaminated batch...is that rare?

 

[RM-MN]

Are you quite sure you haven't had an infected batch or have you just not noticed the infection because it was a wild yeast instead of a bacterial infection. Was your stout that exploded the bottles put in the bottles before fermentation was complete or did you massively overcarbonate it when bottling? A wild yeast can ferment sugars that are otherwise unfermentable and give you no discernable off flavors but can still bring you bottle bombs. BTDTGTS.

Last winter I seem to have gotten a wild yeast in my house such that my beers would ferment out like they should. I could open the fermenter for the first time after 3 weeks to find my beer "done" but within a day or so it would start fermenting again and finish out way lower than predicted. Even with successive hydrometer readings a few day apart remaining the same, when bottled these beers would continue to slowly build pressure getting me gushers when opened.

 

[bobeer]

I can say ive never had a bacterial infection that cause the moldy spore looking things on the beer. I've had bad batches though from poor brewing water and who knows what else. Never any bottle bombs either.
Better go find some wood to knock on now...

 

[riderkb]

Had a batch of ale get pretty pretty weird after re-using a scotch ale yeast from another batch.

I would count this as an infected batch if it happened to me.

All of my infected batches were back when we strained cooled wort through cheesecloth and topped up with tap water. We also used bleach to sanitize and then rinsed with tap water.

Full boils, wort chiller, and StarSan fixed all that.

 

[Weezy]

If you don't think you have infections, try this.... if you bottle, save one bottle and if you keg, fill and cap a bottle. stick the bottle in the back of a closet for a year and see if its over barbed when you open it.