Airlock activity BEFORE pitching yeast?

[tdexterc]

Hey guys, I've got a bit of a head scratcher I'm trying to figure out right now. I made a starter 2 days ago and brewed my beer yesterday. I wanted to wait for my starter to finish up doing its thing before crashing, decanting, and pitching it, so I left my beer sans yeast in the carboy over night, and all day today. I went to pitch the yeast tonight and to my surprise, I see bubbles in the airlock with alarming regularity... So I remove the carboy cover to find a layer of foam on the surface with small bits of hop trub clinging to it. To me, it seems like an open and shut case of an infected batch (which would be my first ever), but I'm pretty thorough with my sanitizing, so I'm hoping someone might be able to offer a different explanation? What's done is done though, so now it's just curiosity. Time to relax and have a homebrew!

 

[Pratzie]

Hey guys, I've got a bit of a head scratcher I'm trying to figure out right now. I made a starter 2 days ago and brewed my beer yesterday. I wanted to wait for my starter to finish up doing its thing before crashing, decanting, and pitching it, so I left my beer sans yeast in the carboy over night, and all day today. I went to pitch the yeast tonight and to my surprise, I see bubbles in the airlock with alarming regularity... So I remove the carboy cover to find a layer of foam on the surface with small bits of hop trub clinging to it. To me, it seems like an open and shut case of an infected batch (which would be my first ever), but I'm pretty thorough with my sanitizing, so I'm hoping someone might be able to offer a different explanation? What's done is done though, so now it's just curiosity. Time to relax and have a homebrew!

Can u post a pic? Sounds like an infection or possibly some wild yeast getting in their. How did u sanitize the carboy and everything else?

 

[Paps]

unless your into belgian style / lambics i would reccomend buying a new ale pail and seperate that one from your beer brewing stuffz (don't toss it,save it for lambic beers)

 

[tdexterc]

I should have taken a picture but I rocked the carboy around to oxygenate it before pitching the yeast... I sanitize my carboy with about 2 gallons of star san and everything else gets submerged in the star san once I empty the carboy. No need to worry about getting a different fermentation vessel, it's a glass carboy.

 

[Jlaw3000]

Not pitching right after brewing is basically leaving a free for all feast of tasty yeast and bacteria food... The yeast you pitch will outpace just about anything else but if you don't pitch anything the first little bit of wild yeast or bacteria that gets in there will start to take hold. I say pitch and let it ride

 

[eastoak]

if it is infected it may have been infected with something wild before it even hit the sanitized fermentor so segregating the fermentor in the future is pointless if you have a dirty hose, chiller, spoon or something else. clean and sanitize then do it again.

 

[gordbot]

I would vote for "pitch the yeast" ... smell/taste it after 5-7 days as usual ... if it tastes ok then it was possibly a "nice" wild yeast and proceed as normal. If it doesn't smell nice then ditch it, all you've lost is your yeast starter. Hopefully the infection was just residual yeast from your last batch in your hose, fermenter, or airlock.

 

[RLinNH]

I would vote for "pitch the yeast" ... smell/taste it after 5-7 days as usual ... if it tastes ok then it was possibly a "nice" wild yeast and proceed as normal. If it doesn't smell nice then ditch it, all you've lost is your yeast starter. Hopefully the infection was just residual yeast from your last batch in your hose, fermenter, or airlock.

Ditto

 

[tdexterc]

I pitched the yeast last night and it's chugging away, doing its thing. I figured the beer would be fine without yeast as long as everything was sanitized properly in the carboy and it had an airlock on it, but who knows what might have worked it's way in there before transferring to the carboy. If I get any crazy science experiments going on I'll post pictures. Who knows though, maybe it'll be my best batch ever and I end up with a new house yeast!

 

[tdexterc]

Quick update, everything SEEMS fine so far. I'm at full krausen and no funny looks or smells. It smells like every other pale ale I've made before so I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that everything will be fine with the batch. I'm going to give it a taste test in a few days though to see how it's going. I don't want to dump 3oz of hops for a dry hop into a batch that's gone sour!

 

[Bostonbrewin63]

3oz of dry hop for a pale ale! Hell yea I love it!

 

[tdexterc]

Yeah, I'm dry hopping with an ounce each of amarillo, centennial and simcoe! it should be QUITE hop forward, just how I like it!

 

[tdexterc]

Turns out (as I expected) that some sort of funky wild yeast got in there somehow. I went from a nice pale ale to what tastes like a saison. I'm not completely bummed about it because it seems to pass (for now) as drinkable but it's definitely got some funky tart grapefruit juice-type flavors going on now. Any suggestions on what to do with it? I hit my FG and was planning on dry hopping the hell out of it but now that it is really no longer a pale ale, what should I do with it? Dry hop at all? Bottle it up and call it good? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[Jlaw3000]

Neeoooooo! Don't dry hop, sounds delicious. Dry hopping and sours (or saisons for that matter) has not gone well in my experience. Make sure there is no airlock for at least a week and then bottle. Or you could go all out and age it for about 6 months and then bottle.

 

[tdexterc]

good deal. thanks for the advice! hopefully it will turn out alright and won't be a drain-pour!

 

[Paps]

If it's drinkable, well...........drink it.

 

[jonnojohnson]

I've just had a 2nd batch go bad this way
The first batch I kind of blamed myself since I brewed, transferred to the primary (Better Bottle), shook it real good to oxygenate then was unable to pitch yeast (long story) for 3 days!
When I came to the carboy to pitch the yeast there was also a nice steady bubbling in the airlock and it smelled off. Not vinegary at all but really not good. I pitched anyway and it seemed to ferment normally but the beer tasted awful and I had to dump it.

Fast forward a couple of months. I cleaned and Star-San'd the crap out of everything then brewed again. Did a nice quiet transfer to the BB but AGAIN I screwed up and didn't have my starter ready. 48hrs later I came to the BB and saw a foam on top and that same bad smell. I've pitched again but don't hold out much hope.

I did brew my first sour using that equipment back in February (WLP655) but between that brew and the first one that went bad I did at least one other batch that had no issues.
This fact and the fact that the bad beers don't smell or taste sour or acidic have me questioning whether the infections are coming from the sour bugs.

Either way I need to decide what to do.
Should I just get rid of the BB and all the post-boil transfer tubes, airlocks etc?
What other causes could there be for the infection? Could it be from other non-sour bugs in the WLP655?
I thought about keeping the BB just for future sours but since the bugs don't appear to turn the beer sour I think that's probably not right.

I've definitely done beers in the past where I've left the cooled wort > 48hrs and never had a problem as long as I didn't oxygenate.

Any other thoughts?

 

[tdexterc]

That's a bummer man... It sound's an awful lot like what happened to me! I wouldn't think that the WLP655 would be an issue especially since you've had successful beers in the same carboy before the two infected batches. I think I've narrowed the source of my infection down to some improperly cleaned/sanitized hoses from my brew kettle to my carboy. You always run a risk of infection from slow wort cooling prior to transfer to the carboy, along with additional contact by hoses/racking canes etc... I wouldn't get rid of the BB or the airlocks just yet, but transfer tubes are notoriously difficult to clean and cheap enough to replace every once-in-a-while. You might consider thoroughly bleaching the inside of the carboy, and making sure that there isn't even a speck of gunk anywhere in there. If there is even the tiniest speck of dried gunk on the inside of the bottle then no matter how much star-san you use, it will not be sanitized. I like to use a power drill with a brush attachment on a long dowel to get my (glass) carboys squeaky clean. The other thing which will certainly help is to pitch the yeast ASAP as I have learned. Obviously we all have unforeseen events which might hinder us from pitching as soon as we like, but the sooner you pitch, the better chance you have of the good yeast muscling out any unwanted wild yeast.

 

[jonnojohnson]

I tend to agree with you that it's unlikely that the BB was the problem. More likely the auto-siphon I use. In the trash it goes.

 

[austinb]

I tend to agree with you that it's unlikely that the BB was the problem. More likely the auto-siphon I use. In the trash it goes.

I you brewed a sour in your BB then I wouldn't be so sure that was not the issue. It is generally not recommended to use plastic fermenters for sours unless you plan on dedicating those fermenters to sours. Plastic is porous unlike glass which means more space for bugs to hide during your sanitation routine.

Did you pitch immediately for those beers that turned out ok since the sours? It could be possible that you have some wild yeast or bacteria hiding in the pores but it never was an issue with the other beers because of an immediate pitch which allowed your desired yeast to get to work before the bad bugs could eat enough sugars to produce any noticeable off flavors. Then for this latest batch where you didn't pitch immediately they were able to get a foothold allowing them to impart their flavors before your yeast consumed the rest of the sugars. You may want to set aside a little bit of one of those batches that turned out ok if you have any left and try some after 6 months or a year and see if they turn funky. If I were you I would get another better bottle or a glass carboy for your regular beers.

You can still trash your auto siphon. I don't find them necessary. I just fill my tube with a mild sanitizer solution and kink both ends. I then put one end in the elevated vessel and put the other end in a dish and un-kink it. The siphon starts automatically and I kink it again when beer comes through and put it in the vessel I'm transferring to and un-kink it....voila auto-siphon without any fancy gadgets that need to be sanitized properly.

 

[jonnojohnson]

To be honest I can't even remember if I used the BB as a primary for the sour or if I racked it straight to the glass carboy. The sample I took recently was lovely though.

For the intermediate beers yes I pitched within an hour or two of cool-down.

The "bad" beer - an American Barleywine - has pretty much finished fermenting. I measured it at 1.010 (down from OG of 1.070). The odor is very much still there (kind of soapy) and there is a horrible aftertaste (again kind of bitter and something like soap).
Any suggestions:
A) How to diagnose what kind of problem this is (what kind of bugs etc).
B) How to store it if I want to see if it will clear up. Obviously it's still in the primary BB. I could transfer it to a keg but I don't really want to risk infecting something else. Even though a keg is stainless there are lots of hard to reach places. Should I store it warm or cool? Transfer it to a bucket and back to the BB so it's not on the yeast cake? Is any of this worth the bother?