My son created swamp water stout.

10 days ago I brewed an imperial stout, put it in the 8gal fermenter, and stuck it in my swamp cooler (big plastic container). Well, being sneeky, I covered the whole thing with a blanket to keep it out of sight from my (nearly) 2 y/o. Well, this weekend I was gone and came home to see the air lock down in the water along with a couple toy cars. The towel covering the fermenter was soaking wet and the entire lid was covered in swamp cooler water. I have no idea how much of that bacteria/germ filled water made it down the hole in the lid into the beer.

It fermented for over a week before that nasty water got in the beer, so I am hoping the alcohol got up high enough to kill stuff off, but when you introduce contaminated water into your beer, what are the odds of spoiling/infection?

With a week of fermentation behind you, you have a good chance that your yeast will have such a head start (and have made enoug alcohol) to stop anything else from growing - save the few souring/gushing infections.

Let it ride. You will probably end up with nothing other than good beer.

What kind of cars were the toy cars?

You could call it a Ferrari Imperial Stout

You have to love 2 year olds, they can cause more damage than a tornado in a lot less time.

wfowlks said:

What kind of cars were the toy cars?

You could call it a Ferrari Imperial Stout

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The blue one was that crazy car on Cars with the huge multi winged spoiler. Not gonna name it Civic or Honda stout. :cross:

Waynep005 said:

You have to love 2 year olds, they can cause more damage than a tornado in a lot less time.

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Two smashed metal domed tweeters, dents in speaker grilles, and a hole in the wall (from the knocked over tower speaker). That was another surprise I had not too long ago.

I recommend selling the child for beer money.

Joe13 said:

I recommend selling the child for beer money.

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+1 to this...

I've got 4, and I think I could get at least a case of decent beer per kid...

Can't trade my 5y/o in, he helps me cap the bottles. He does keep bugging me with the prospect of making root beer.

I woke yesterday to discover that my two year old daughter had covered my creme colored furniture with black Sharpie.

I'm contemplating listing her on craigslist. At least the furniture in my jail cell will be protected from her menacing ways.

Just took a gravity reading and a taste test. All is well. Will bottle part of it soon. I guess the ~10.4% AbV killed the bugs.

Bugs tend to work slower, so you might find off flavors creep in over time. The one bad batch I had tasted ok when I first opened a bottle, subsequent bottles got worse as they aged.

OP, if it's not bad now, odds are that it won't be bad, period. Relax.

Oh my god!!! I think I am going to have to build a cage or something for all my stuff!! My wife is 18 weeks prego, I didn't even think about the damage kids will do!!

Involve your kids in brewing and drop the fear of destruction my 4.5 year old helps with building new stuff ( just put a hopper together for my grain mill), he helps me turn on the stir plate, measure og, fg, wash bottles, read the temperature during brewing etc. start with little tasks, but do plan to spend more time then usual. He watches bubbles with me, and i will explain everything, it teaches him to respect it, and he knows not to touch my fermenters.
Last weekend we went to 2 brothers for some grub and a tour, and he told me in front of everybody, papa let's get some builders to make a new basement, and then you can build it just like here with all the tanks! I had him repeat that to swmbo!
so relax, and involve them in the process.....

i dont blame you on not naming it honda. Stick with your title Swamp Water Stout

So, how'd it turn out?

I just bottled my first batch about three weeks ago. Upon opening the fermenter all the way for the first time (that is, when racking to the bottling bucket), I was careful to not spill any of the swamp cooler water from the top of my fermenter onto the floor in my apartment. Unfortunately, my freshly fermented beer wasn't so lucky. In my state of still getting the hang of the process, I carelessly poured a whole bunch of water RIGHT INTO MY FERMENTER.

I was sure it was gonna get infected and taste terrible. I tasted a bottle or two after a couple weeks of conditioning, and they tasted a little off. But now they taste great! I think the swamp water added a very nice touch (not really, but it doesn't seem to have done much harm).

Waynep005 said:

You have to love 2 year olds, they can cause more damage than a tornado in a lot less time.

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Yes they can.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/toddlers-cover-house-flour-mom-films-aftermath-15005935

gratus fermentatio said:

Yes they can.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/toddlers-cover-house-flour-mom-films-aftermath-15005935

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Wow.... these kids.... Wow...

TrainSafe said:

I woke yesterday to discover that my two year old daughter had covered my creme colored furniture with black Sharpie.

I'm contemplating listing her on craigslist. At least the furniture in my jail cell will be protected from her menacing ways.

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Those MAgic Erasers work wonders on things like this.

I have 3 kids - 5,3,1 and I have been there and done that with them writing on walls, furniture, heck anything but the paper we give them.... WTH!!

When I read swamp water in the title I got excited thinking you meant the drink swamp water. Since that's what an Arnold Palmer is called down here.

jacobev said:

So, how'd it turn out?

I just bottled my first batch about three weeks ago. Upon opening the fermenter all the way for the first time (that is, when racking to the bottling bucket), I was careful to not spill any of the swamp cooler water from the top of my fermenter onto the floor in my apartment. Unfortunately, my freshly fermented beer wasn't so lucky. In my state of still getting the hang of the process, I carelessly poured a whole bunch of water RIGHT INTO MY FERMENTER.

I was sure it was gonna get infected and taste terrible. I tasted a bottle or two after a couple weeks of conditioning, and they tasted a little off. But now they taste great! I think the swamp water added a very nice touch (not really, but it doesn't seem to have done much harm).

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Too funny, glad it has worked out so far

looneybomber said:

Just took a gravity reading and a taste test. All is well. Will bottle part of it soon. I guess the ~10.4% AbV killed the bugs.

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I wonder what that ABV would do to the kid...

gratus fermentatio said:

Yes they can.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/toddlers-cover-house-flour-mom-films-aftermath-15005935

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That's funny. when my son was in his crib he'd always fuss and wake us up on saturday mornings about 0700. Then one saturday we woke up at 10:00 and is was frightfully quiet. We went down to the kitchen to find he had figured out how to lower the side of his crib. He had spread sugar and pepper all over the kitchen table. It looked wonderful.