another infection paranoia thread...

[dawn_kiebawls]

I recently brewed a Saison (a tank 7 clone) and feel like this was my 'least sanitary' batch I've done yet. Not like I had filthy hands or was using dirty things on the cold side, just not as anal as I usually am. Anyway, It's been in primary for ~20 days has been acting strange. I pitched WLP590 warm at about 73F, kicked off in 12 hours and kept going for about 10 days. Airlock stops completely. I'm letting it condition before racking to a keg and I noticed the airlock has some small amounts of activity in it after being completely dead. So, I'm wondering if the beer is maybe just losing some of the CO2 in suspension and off-gassing or if there may be some other activity getting started. I just pulled a sample and it is at 1.000, corrected for temperature. There is no pelicle forming and I cant taste any off flavors, its just slightly tart, with a fair amount of heat on the back end of the pallet. Eventhough i know its not a sign of fermentation I will continue to keep an eye on the air lock because with how long it took me to pull a sample from the Speidel if it continues to build positive pressure it is either still working itself below 1.000 or is off-gassing. Thanks for the help and insight. Cheers!

 

[brownni5]

No pellicle, no off-flavors, no infection. Airlock activity can indeed come from gas escaping the beer, especially if it is moved for any reason. Also a Saison yeast - I'm not familiar with that one, but STA-1 positive yeasts can also act funny. If it's at 1.000, it's done, or close enough to keg.

 

[couchsending]

Sounds like a standard Saison fermentation to me. It’s just off gassing. It might get down below 1.000 but not that far. What’s the ABV?

If it’s going into a keg and you’re just gonna force carbonate it and keep it cold there’s no reason not to transfer it now.

Just keep in mind that you should be extra careful when using diastaticus yeast. Make sure you are incredibly anal with cleaning any gear that touches that yeast. You don’t want subsequent batches to experience that same amount of hyper attenuation. In general I don’t use my thing diastaticus and if I do I use it in my gear I use for making beers with Brett and bacteria.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Sounds like a standard Saison fermentation to me. It’s just off gassing. It might get down below 1.000 but not that far. What’s the ABV?

If it’s going into a keg and you’re just gonna force carbonate it and keep it cold there’s no reason not to transfer it now.

Just keep in mind that you should be extra careful when using diastaticus yeast. Make sure you are incredibly anal with cleaning any gear that touches that yeast. You don’t want subsequent batches to experience that same amount of hyper attenuation. In general I don’t use my thing diastaticus and if I do I use it in my gear I use for making beers with Brett and bacteria.

Unfortunately I dont have an accurate ABV, I broke my graduated cylinder on brew day so I wasnt able to take an OG reading. I bought a new one to check FG, and have several batches planned for the coming week so I will calculate my Brewhouse Efficiency and come up with a close guess.

I certainly have some reading to do about diasticus yeast, as well as the STA-1 gene. Sometimes it seems like the only thing I do right on brew day is sanitize, so I'm not overly concerned about it. This batch was thrown together at the very last second and I was rushed the entire time so I got sloppy. I've been debating over whether or not to convert this fermentor to my sour/funk primary anyway so if any future batches start to display similar characteristics the decision will be an easy one! Thanks for the help

 

[brownni5]

Check out for a good video on diastaticus yeast.

I seem to be in the minority on this forum - most are terrified of diastaticus yeast, I am not. Ample cleaning will take care of it just like any other yeast. I flip back and forth between diastaticus and non-diastaticus yeast all the time and have never had a problem.

 

[day_trippr]

"terrified"?
I must've been away when that came up.
I use at least two strains that are STA+ active. nbd...

Cheers!

 

[tripelthelightfantastic]

so do you do anything special to sanitize a corny keg after it has had a STA+ yeast in it?
maybe a first sanitize with Iodophor, then one Starsan, and/or pouring boiling water in it to soak?
Stainless steel doesnt like bleach and scrubbing the inside is not easy.