What to do with infected oatmeal stout?

[ljbrisson]

I brewed an oatmeal stout two or three weeks ago. I think I introduced some bacteria into the beer when I was checking FG about a few days ago. There's a significant pellicle forming on top, but the beer tastes perfectly fine as of yesterday.

As I see it, there are three options.

1) Suck it up. Keg it, drink it quickly and clean out the kegs and the line really well.
2) Bottle it. FG was around 1.012 so the bugs probably don't have enough food to burst the bottles right? Also, don't know how a sour stout will taste, or even if the bugs in my house turn out anything drinkable.
3) Dump it.

I'm leaning towards 1. I'm sure a lot of people have had this problem. How did you deal with it and what do you recommend?

EDIT: Forgot to mention - the beer tastes perfectly fine as of yesterday.

 

[pwndabear]

i personally would not let the bugs get into my kegging system, but then again I dont have a kegging system.

If it were me, I would bottle it up and drink it young.

 

[storunner13]

I'd do a variation on 1. Keg it and let it sit to see if flavors the bacteria impart will mellow..or maybe be good? I wouldn't drink it young unless the bacteria don't do much to the flavor, etc.

 

[ljbrisson]

Hmm, good point. I thought about this. However, the reason I'm leaning towards drinking it ASAP is because I'm not convinced that time will do anything but harm this beer! I've seen some of the mold in my basement and it's not pretty.

 

[jmhart]

Personally, I'd let it sit. Buy a new fermenter and put this one (w/ beer) in a closet and forget about it.

See what it does, see how it tastes.

In the end, I'd bottle it instead of kegging it.

 

[Irrenarzt]

Throw some campden up in there. You might be able to save it.

 

[storunner13]

Whoa. Campden. Never thought of that. Try it! Let us know if it works!

 

[Seamus]

Good excuse to relegate that fermentor and keg to sour beers, if you like them anyway.

I'd go with Irrenarzt's suggestion first.

 

[LakewoodBrew]

Campden tablets or flash pasteurization (push beer through copper tube above a burner) would be my vote.

 

[pwndabear]

really, thats too invasive. you dont want to give the bugs time to do their thing.

my thinking is to bottle it to keep it out of you keg (again, i dont own a keg so idk how easy it is to clean it out, if its easy, keg it) and drink it young so the bugs dont get a chance to ruin it.

 

[ReefkprZ]

I would be tempted to squirt it into a fermenter and let it rock on the funk for a while and see what kind of sour I wound up with. I wouldn't worry about a funked batch, too many people go out of their way to funk up beers, you may have gotten lucky. or you may make some bitching vinegar....

 

[Revvy]

Before we start declaring anything wrong, can we see a picture of this supposed pellicule? We really can't judge anything, just because YOU call something something. On here I've heard of all manner of self diagnosis from new brewers who THINK their beer is matching a description they read in a book... A scared new brewer could just as easily declare yeast rafts, or a new krauzen or a hop oil skim on the surface.

Everyone wants to jump in and help, but lets make sure there is a real problem....Daily people post their "infections" and daily we point out that what they are seeing is really yeast rafts.

When someone mentions that their beer taste fine, I tend to think there really is nothing wrong. Before we jump on the ops bandwagon let's realize for all we know this is his first batch and he THINKS something is wrong when it really isn't.

Taking a grav reading really SHOULDN'T be a cause of problems if you sanitized......

 

[onthekeg]

Also cleaning and sanitizing a keg that had a sour beer in isn't anymore difficult than cleaning a keg that had anything in it. Bacteria or lacto isn't really a super bug either.

 

[Irrenarzt]

Whoa. Campden. Never thought of that. Try it! Let us know if it works!

I've done it fairly recently, it works. I had a batch that I was brewing on a windy day in the garage and a rogue whirlwind got into the garage right when I was about to pitch and blew the lid off and threw a bunch of dust right into the batch. A week into primary, I pulled the lid and I had a white pellicle forming so I pitched the campden and it came out OK in the end. It's worth a shot.

 

[Aschecte]

pics? why do you think a sanitized hydrometer caused infection?

 

[ljbrisson]

I don't think it was a sanitized hydrometer. Usually, I spray an iodophor solution onto a turkey-baster and draw up enough beer to take a reading. The last time I drew a sample, some beer spilled back into the fermenter, a little less than half the baster. I'm pretty sure this caused the infection.

I'm thoroughly cleaning all equipment with a long PBW soak and later on a heavy iodophor solution to get rid of any lingering bugs.

I bottled the batch yesterday. I figured, I have all these bottles lying around, why risk introducing some nasty bugs into my kegging system? The bottles I use are pretty old, with very thick glass, so I'm not too worried about bombs. I'm kind of interested to see what the bugs in my basement will do to an oatmeal stout.

EDIT: Probably should have read the rest of the responses before I bottled! I think this was the best option though. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[ljbrisson]

Fair enough, maybe I wasn't clear in the OP. I've been brewing for 3 years, all grain for about a year. I've brewed enough good batches and seen enough pictures of positively-identified infections to know that this is, in fact, an infection. Regardless, I bottled the beer so, if it's not infected, then I'll still have beer to drink.