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I can't unfortunately remember anything detailed about the smell other than I gagged when smelling it. It could have been the metabisulphite I was smelling, but I doubt it. Metabisulphite has a very distinctive, sharp, burny smell and even though I can't remember the actual odour very well...

I'll be brewing again soon using the exact equipment but with a slightly more stringent cleaning and sanitation process. I'm thinking of no-chilling in the same fermenter to give any scratch-resident bacteria the best chance of coming through (if nothing comes then I know the equipment wasn't...

3 Days. I pitched on the Thursday, cleaned up, then went to SWMBO's place for a couple days. Came back on Sunday morning. What you say makes sense. Any way to test the water so as to eliminate that? If I use bottled water I'd also have to get nutrient tablets somewhere, right? That and...

Added it as a potential cause. I usually pitch low and raise the temperature slowly (exact opposite to you) but I have no records on how long it took for fermentation to start on this particular batch. Never really take notice of that stuff. Surely getting a quick ferm going would only...

I'm on a paranoid kick now too. All of my stuff is currently sitting (except for one primary) full of BWV (bleach water vinegar) and I shake it up every now and then. 1 day before brewday I'll probably replace the whole lot with fresh BWV and use my sanitizer on brewday. My latest batch had...

While I understand the benefit of a decent no-rinse sanitizer a la Starsan, I don't think using sodium metabisulphite would have contributed other than in the rinsing stage or not having cleaned the equipment properly beforehand. So to summarize, possible issues could be (in my understood order...

I sanitize AND I just got an infection... After going through the ordeal of pouring it down the drain I wouldn't ever risk it again. Sanitation++ from now on.

For the quantities: 1 oz = 28.3 grams, 1 gallon = 3.79 litres. 2 oz / gallon = 56.6 grams / 3.79 litres = 15 grams per litre (roughly) 1 tablespoon is roughly 13.5 grams (I use heaped, so call it 20 grams) 1 tablspoons / 2 litres = 20 grams / 2 litres = 10 grams per litre. So the directions...

Thanks! You put my mind at ease... I suppose I really should have at least googled it myself first... At least it's definitely used to sanitize. I can't remember exactly how well I rinsed the fermenter, but the foul oudor wasn't anything that reminded me of the sanitizer... it was severely...

I think I'm going to have to start asking a couple friends if I can order to their addresses and get them to ship it to me. Good idea!!

Nochill batch is going fine. SG stabled out at 1.011 a couple days ago. Very cloudy, but fermentation has just finished so it should clear out soon enough. The whole exercise was to have a comparison between nochill and normal... that didn't work out...

Yes, I drink the tap water and I haven't had any issues with infections before (that I'm aware of - nothing as bad as this at least) I would love starsan specifically, but I can't find any online shops willing to ship to South Africa. Everyone seems to be willing to ship there wares to UK and...

No I didn't. I had just finished a batch of nochill in the boiler roughly 4 hours before (HSA be damned!) so I made the assumption that the hot wort flowing through it would have sorted that out. Straight after the nochill batch, the boiler was started again for this batch. I suppose that...

I place the fermenter under the ballvalve tap on the boiler, open wide and wait till it's all in.

I recently did 0.5kg (roughly 1 lb) of home roasted grain using a pestle and mortar. Worked, but my wrist is still sore after. Pasta maker perhaps?

(Long post ahead) Now that the infections anonymous introductions are over... What could I have done wrong? I'm going to work through brewday with you guys (unfortunately I don't have too many photos) and hopefully we can begin to pinpoint where I went wrong. Some basics: Yes, I am 100% sure...

Disclaimer: I only have a couple no-chill batches under my belt. I don't ever use glass (plastic fermenters, secondaries, cubes and boiler). I haven't done any detailed tests with any conclusive data capturing. Now that that's out the way... I would perhaps consider pre-heating the jugs...

Wait... What?

I would go for the propane. That being said, im on a big nochill binge at the mo. Even if i werent though, your stove is already struggling with a rolling boil at 4 gallons so you'd never be able to move to all grain until you can step that up (assuming you'd like to do ag eventually)...

Finished the no chill batch last saturday and the chilled version last night. Due to an equipment failure during the nochill version i had to dump all the trub from the chilled version into the fermentor just to try make it fair again. Not gonna be a thorough test at all but it will be...