Bugs in fermenter?

Hi all,

Not quite sure where this post belongs but this topic seemed most fitting at the time. Recently my boyfriend and I have gotten in to home brewing, and have successfully completed a few batches no problem. However, the new place we're living at and the location of where we placed our fermenter may not have been ideal.

Two weeks ago we started a batch of some beer, and today went forward with bottling it. It was fermenting in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy with a three-piece airlock. We used a blow off tube going from the airlock to a bucket filled with sanitizer water. This was all placed on the ground in an outdoor stairwell that gets no light at the apartment building we live in. No issues over the two weeks until today. We siphoned the fermented beer from the carboy to a fermenter bucket to avoid taking the sediment with it, so when siphoning, once we reached the point where it was taking sediment with it from the bottom of the carboy we stopped siphoning. We then bottled our whole batch.

Now to the gross part. When I was cleaning out the carboy that had all of the sediment in it, I poured it out into my kitchen sink which has a strainer. I let this sit to try and strain away as much of the liquid to get rid of the sediment for about 15 minutes. When I came back, I saw about 4-5 dead cockroaches and other misc. floating body parts within the sediment. I've never seen roaches in our apartment, so I can only assume that they must have come from the carboy. I'm assuming that the blow-off tube may not have been submerged completely, allowing for these gross pests to enter the tube, and subsequently drown in our fermenter.

Now that we've got all these beer bottled, is it a waste? I've seen a few other posts of people finding bugs, never roaches though, within their fermented beer and all say there should be no issue with this. However, I'm assuming they entered after all our boiling processes were done, and there was quite a few of them..

What do we do? Would you guys still drink the beer? Or call this a lesson learned?

I understand that not having the blow-off tube completely submerged is stupid, but when we let it sit for those two-weeks it was. We have another batch working now, that I'm not putting in the same place, where the fermenter is off the ground, and anything open to air is now saran wrapped or covered with cheese cloth.

Help?

Thanks!

 

Christmas 6 packs for all your friends and family...

 

I am not very sure on the safety end of things, but I would personally dump it...

 

Well, the big chunks would not have made it through your racking cane and bottling tube. I'll assume the alcohol will kill any lingering bacteria. I think it will be fine, but you will probably have a hard time getting over the mental picture of the roaches in your strainer. Drink one. If there are off flavors, then dump it (Christmas 6 packs for all your friends and family).

I had a thermometer break in my wort, it left "lead" pellets in my beer. I still bottled it.

 

Dump. Definitely dump.

 

I am not a fan of just dumping beer but I could not deal with cockroaches being in my beer.I think this is a batch that Revvy may even dump.

 

I've just added a fourth thing to my reasons for dumping.

1) Poison
2) Broken glass
3) Bird poop
4) Cockroaches.

You'll never be able to enjoy this beer if you keep it. Chalk it up to a learning experience and brew another batch. Sorry for your loss.

 

Was it a mercury thermometer? Or do you mean the pellets that are added to weight a floating one?

Either way, that's probably a bigger health worry than a few cockroaches. I might do cockroaches, but I'd never do mercury or lead. I am pretty sure that alcohol increases the absorption of both of these heavy metals.

I forgot to add - there was also broken glass right?

Not to be rude, but you're kidding right?

 

* * * *

 

Personally, I wouldn't even think about trying one. I'd have to dump it and chalk it up to experience. That's pretty gross and until TSHTF I ain't drinking Roach Brew.

Oh, sorry this happened to you guys also.

Rick

 

Guess you didn't dry-roach on purpose?
If it taste good, still give it as gifts..
Igotsand

 

Dumping beer should be mourned with flags at half mast along with wailing and rending of garments, but that is far better than sucking down a draft of marinated cockroach excrement.

 

You forgot to add "hear the lamentation of the women!"

 

Didja ever see "Bizzare Foods" on TV? Extra protein! I would definitely fill a few bottles, but that's me.

With all that weird bacteria and fungus that brewers add on purpose, and that look like The Blob, why worry about a few blattidae?

+1 on Dry Roaching.

 

It there any way the pellets (they may not even be made with lead anymore) or glass shards could get through the racking cane AND the bottling wand?

Anyway. It is already bottled. Maybe I'l use a strainer when I pour it into a cup.

 

I broke a thermometer into my bottling bucket before I added anything so this isn't exactly the same but from what I understand mercury thermometers are hard to come by these days. I wouldn't worry another it personally. I guess the broken glass would worry me. Your call.

 

roaches won't kill you.. broken glass and mercury can. If the thermometer was silver, that's mercury.. if it's red it's some form of alcohol (pure ethanol, toluene, kerosene or Isoamyl acetate). Not something that is worth it for me..

 

As long as there aren't any legs and antennas floating around in there, I'd drink it.

 

At least try it. You owe your efforts that much. If it is bad no bid deal. Then we will toss out dry-roaching as a new fad!

 

I guess I should clarify. The bottom of the floating thermometer broke and the weights spilled out when I was cooling the kettle. None of the red liquid spilled from the thermometer. I found quite a few of the weights under my trub when I siphoned off the beer. Like I mentioned before, I highly doubt the weights and the glass made their way up the racking cane and then through the bottling wand.

 

i find it almost impossible to believe that cockroaches could have made their way through a blow-off tube and a three piece bubbler to make it into a fermenter. Did you leave the fermenter out overnight before you dumped it?

 

I know technically, the alcohol in the beer will neutralize any potential pathogens, and you definitely will not get sick from drinking it, and you won't even be able to taste it, but I still would not drink it.

 

were those weights lead?

 

Yes. How on earth did they get in there. That's horrible.

 

Give Bear Grylls a shout. He wouldn't even bat an eyelid whilst quoffeing a few pints of that.

 

I'd drink it. If people can actually eat cockroaches with no ill effects then this isn't going to stop me drinking cockroach ale....

 

Unless the thermometer was more than 50 years old, the pellets are steel and the red liquid is alcohol.

 

After doing some internet research, weighing the pros and cons of dumping it, and factoring in the hard work and effort, not to mention the cost of ingredients, I have come to a conclusion....


ick.

 

would you drink a homebrew that was given to you and you were told it had cockroaches in it? Nuff said