What To Do With Possible Infected Beer?

[Manwich]

Hi,

I am just wondering what to do with a possibly infected beer.

Here's the story, a Killian Red Ale clone brewed up fine. OG 1.046, FG 1.006, so not that big of a beer. When bottling, had a little taste, not bad.

Last week, I had one of the first bottles, tasted good (not great, still learning) needed more hops, nothing wrong.

This weekend, I tried two more bottles.
First one, a gusher, band-aid smell I didn't want to risk it.
Second one, no gushing, but a very strong sour vinegary smell, poured it out into a glass and definitely sour but not as strong as whiffing out of the bottle. I drank about half of it before I couldn't stand the taste, and I'm not dead yet.

Now I'm scared of the remaining bottles and I don't know what to do
1) let it age out, does an infection age out?
2) dump the experiment?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Hockeyhunter99]

let them sit for another two weeks and check them. the sour one could be infected but to know for sure, wait.

if they are infected, (truly infected). use them in cooking. some on here will advise dump it. others will tell you to let it sit for even longer.

personally, i have three bottles left of the worst beer i have ever tasted. (i won't dump)

 

[Grinder12000]

Dump them and move on - the longer you have them sitting around the longer you will know you are a failure and a pathetic loser !

LOL - I made myself laugh!

 

[Verio]

Yeah I'm the opposite of Hockey. I kegged a beer that smelled funky out of the secondary, and I tried two glasses full before I dumped the whole thing.

 

[ThereThere]

They are perfect for beer bongs for your "friends."

 

[msarro]

Did you sanitize your bottles? It sounds like some maybe weren't.

 

[SirCaptain]

Yeah I'm the opposite of Hockey. I kegged a beer that smelled funky out of the secondary, and I tried two glasses full before I dumped the whole thing.

Verio's comment would make sense if you had been kegging, but since you weren't, I see no harm in keeping it around for a while.

I'd keep it if you can. You never know how it might turn out some other time.

If you really need the bottles, dump 'em and keep a couple to try later on.

 

[Manwich]

Alright, I'll keep them.

Yes, I washed in Oxyclean, rinsed in warm water twice, then sprayed with StarSan. This is the first time I used StarSan, so maybe it wasn't as sanitized as previously when I would dip the bottles in bleach.

Is it worth it to dip the bottles in StarSan instead of spraying it down? I only have one cleaning bucket, so that means getting another bucket and my water is super hard too.

 

[Kurtamous]

Alright, I'll keep them.

Yes, I washed in Oxyclean, rinsed in warm water twice, then sprayed with StarSan. This is the first time I used StarSan, so maybe it wasn't as sanitized as previously when I would dip the bottles in bleach.

Is it worth it to dip the bottles in StarSan instead of spraying it down? I only have one cleaning bucket, so that means getting another bucket and my water is super hard too.

For bottles, you would be better off sanitizing them by boiling them opposed to using a cleaner like StarSan, assuredly better than something like oxyclean or bleach (not that they don't work, but I find these strong bases need to be washed out several times over to rid the smell.) A good boil for 10-30 minutes will kill everything and you when your done you don't have to wash out any cleaning agent.

The astringency (vinegary) you taste is likely the cause of a bacterial infection.
The band-aid flavors could be from chlorine-based cleaners interacting with chemicals in the brew. Not bacteria per say, but not good either =(

If the brew was fine and the infection was confined to the bottles, there's a chance some are not infected so its your call to pitch them all or not, but infected brew won't become "uninfected".

I'm pretty bad about sanitizing things myself but boiling the bottles never fails.

Good luck buddy!

 

[Verio]

I used to use the high temp feature of my dishwasher to sanitize my bottles. Don't use it for cleaning, as the solution will not always reach way up there, but if you have a high or ultra high temp, it will sanitize them.

I haven't had anything infected yet, in a bottle.

The jury is still out on that keg though. While I don't know if it's infection... the beer was downright nasty.

 

[dcott]

Since you tasted it before bottling and it did not taste infected, it would seem that the issue occurred somewhere during bottling/in the bottles. Also, since you seem to have experienced variability regarding the infection, it seems like a bottle to bottle issue.

Couple questions/thoughts to help pinpoint the issue (I'm sure you did these things, but it can help to lay every step on the table):

Even after cleaning, did you visually inspect the bottles to completely make sure there wasn't anything stuck inside even after washing?

When you clean/sanitize your bottling bucket, do you completely remove, clean, and sanitize all the parts of the spigot (grommets, etc) and inside the hole for the grommet?

If you use a bottling wand, how clean is the inner workings of that?

When Bottling, did you completely boil your priming sugar long enough to ensure sterility?

How did you sanitize your caps?

Again, just trying to think of possible causes for the infection. Also, as a side note, infections wont age out.

 

[Hockeyhunter99]

it does sound like it might be individual bottles. i personally don't need bottles enough to dump them to start over (7 cases so far ) leaving them alone in this instance would be alright. i agree that the infection won't go away, but it might not be in all bottles. put a few in the fridge at a time. pop them one at a time. if it seems bad, dump individual bottles at a time.