A Sad, Sad Sight ...

This was the view of my kitchen sink today. Within 6 weeks of bottling, my brown ale turned to vinegar gushers - an acetobacter infection. Aaarrggghhh!

What did you do wrong?

Right. What do you think lead to this infection? Whatever it was I would like to know so I don't ever have the same thing happen to me. Thanks

Looks pretty cool if you ask me.

I'll raise a glass to your fallen comrades.

Ouch.

Not good.

I think (hope, pray) I've tracked it down to the bottling process. There was no indication during fermentation or at bottling time and the first few weeks it tasted fine. Then within a week and a half it turned spritzy and vinegary. Then within another week it was outright gushers.

The day after I bottled the infected batch I brewed another batch in the same fermenter and it has been fine so it doesn't appear to be the fermenter. However, the spigot on my bottling bucket is a couple of years old as is the bottling wand. They are both a little beat up and I think the bacteria took hold there. I cleaned and sanitized everything but from what I've read bacteria can be very tenacious if they find a scratch or crack to hide in.

So I've replaced the bottling bucket (it's old, too), spigot, siphon hose and bottling wand. My autosiphon is fairly new so I didn't replace that. Time will tell. I'm brewing again next week so we'll see what happens. The kicker is that for a couple of weeks this was my new favorite beer. Guess I'll just have to brew it again.

Since it is all of the bottles it is not a bottle sanitization problem. It definitely is a cold side problem. Sounds like bottling bucket problems or hoses. Since you replaced them you should be good.

It sucks to brew a good batch and have it go bad. You just need to be super vigilent with sanitizing everything after the boil.

I have ben lucky and have never had an infected batch, but always think about it, so I am obsessed with cleaning and sanitizing everything.

On the bright side .... a dozen bottles ready to go back to work.

My condolences...but let me add how much I appreciate your methodical approach to rectifying the situation! Well played, sir...well played. This is a passion and requires a certain amount of willingness to live and learn....I think your sink picture would make a fine tattoo

A coworker has offered to take any of my bad batches to make hooch from. He's a ChemE so God only knows what he would do with it. Fortunately I'm yet to blow one, if I do, it it won't go to waste.

soccerdad said:

On the bright side .... a dozen bottles ready to go back to work.

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Bottles are cheap - I would ditch those puppies.

I've always been diligent about sanitizing and have always followed the same routine without taking any shortcuts and never had a problem. What I neglected to take into account was just the general wear and tear of gear, especially plastic. No matter how carefully I treat it, after 40+ brews passing through the same bucket, spigot, hoses and bottling wand, a little nick here and a little scratch there can add up over time and give more opportunity for bugs to find a hiding place that cleaners and sanitizers can't reach. These are all relatively inexpensive items (about the same cost as one batch of beer) so I think from now on I will make a regular practice of replacing them once a year.

I am actually not too concerned with the bottles. Glass is a hard smooth surface that is easily cleaned and sanitized and not prone to scratching, especially the inside of a bottle. I emptied the gushers, rinsed them with a hot high pressure bottle washer and soaked them in Oxyclean. The one additional precaution I will take is to bake them in the oven for an hour at 200F before I use them again.

As someone already said, live and learn. I'm bottling my next batch this weekend. So I will hold a brief memorial service for the beer that died way too young and move on to the next one. Semper fermentis!

That's a cool picture, though.

paperairplane said:

Bottles are cheap - I would ditch those puppies.

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Uh no. The world is full of spoiling bacteria and wild yeast. It's on the tip of your nose right now, as well as every surface in your house.

Brewers need to be able to sanitize properly. Once cleaned and sanitized, whatever was in there will not be a threat.

I've since put the bottles back in circulation and had no problems. Quite poetically, I used them to bottle the re-brew of the batch that went bad. No issues so far.

Malt vinegar?

Time to fry up some fish 'n' chips, season the fish with your homebrew malt vinegar, and have a proper beer to go along with it!