Finally ruined my first brew (Sanitizer Suckback)

Well, after more than 3 years of brewing and probably 30 or so batches, I have finally ruined one.

I made Biermunchers Cream of Three Crops, and after a couple of days (at 68F) it almost blew the airlock off the fermenter, so I put a blowoff tube on and ran the blowoff to a pitcher of iodophor solution.

The beer fermented for an unusually long time, but was I worried? No. For I know by now to just RDWHAHB. I've stressed plenty of times over a batch I was sure was ruined, which turned out to be fantastic. I knew this beer would be great.

Three weeks went by, and I had picked up some gelatin from the grocery store. To prepare for the gelatin, I crash cooled to 35 F.

When I grabbed the carboy yesterday, I noticed the pitcher was empty, and thought it was odd. Then I noticed that the level in the fermenter was about 1/2" - 3/4" higher than before. I put two and two together and CRAP!

I haven't dumped the beer yet, its a hard thing to do. But I am 99.99% certain that even if the batch tastes fine, I don't want to drink or serve this beer to anyone.

Lesson learned:

1) When the blowoff tube is no longer needed, put the airlock back on.

2) When cooling, do not have anything in the airlock that you don't want in your beer.

My brewing buddy and I learned that lesson the hard way with two of our first three AG brews... He puts a blow-off tube on everything at his place, period. I don't think he owns an airlock (or didn't, before our painful lesson).

2 of our first 3 AG brews were an Oktoberfest and a Pilsner. Sure enough, as soon as we lowered the temp for lagering, we sucked up all the liquid in his blow-off bucket; he used (maybe still uses) bleach water for this role.

I feel your pain - my condolences!

I wouldn't throw it away. It may be fine.

It's not ruined. It was my understanding that iodophor doesn't last longer than 24 hours mixed up ANYWAY. So maybe whatever iodine that was in there is rendered ineffective.

Also, you just further diluted a diluted solution of iodine. There is no way that you got too much iodine in there to make it undrinkable.

You need iodine to live, so you should just call it Life Line Ale?

devilishprune said:

It's not ruined. It was my understanding that iodophor doesn't last longer than 24 hours mixed up ANYWAY. So maybe whatever iodine that was in there is rendered ineffective.

Also, you just further diluted a diluted solution of iodine. There is no way that you got too much iodine in there to make it undrinkable.

You need iodine to live, so you should just call it Life Line Ale?

Click to expand...

I did leave the iodophor in that pitcher for well over a week, with CO2 bubbling up through it the whole time.

Like I said, I haven't thrown it out yet. I hope you are right!

Iodine mmmmm.... is that what we need to take if that nuk plant in japan goes Bang.

uhh, I doubt that the iodine just evaporated. By all means taste it, but better safe than sorry...

Well maybe I miscommunicated. I'm not saying that the iodine necessarily evaporates, but I am saying that the sanitizer loses effectiveness over a certain period of time due to an evaporation of some sort. I don't know the mechanism.

I will stand behind the fact that that amount of iodine won't harm you, even if it's still all in there.

Let's assume that you had 2 L of iodophor in your beer, none of which had evaporated, diluted to 12.5 ppm (mg/L) (the proper concentration). So, 25 mg iodophor total in 23.5L.

Edit: I just read from a couple sources that extended consumption of over .75 mg of iodophor can cause goiter. This is in conflict with some other sources that say that the upper intake limit of iodine is 12 GRAMS. Basically, I'm confused. But if we go by the lower limit, and I assume that you are kegging, you would have 25 mg iodophor /40 pints = .625 mg per pint. I still wouldn't worry about it unless it tastes bad.

What color was the solution when it got into your beer?

From my understanding of free iodine, once the iodophor is mixed into solution, the iodine will evaporate slowly. If the bucket full of solution was sitting for 1 week+ with CO2 bubbling through (increasing liquid:gas diffusion layer) then a significant amount would have evaporated out of the solution.

Moral of the story; I would drink it, but maybe only 1 every few days or so.

Rate of evaporation of a liquid iodine solution

Evaporation of iodine from a skin smear <-- This is best case scenario, in a deep liquid it would not evaporate quite that quickly.

Lesson is switch out the blow off tube after violent fermentation is over and use airlock, filled with Vodka or diluted StarSan.