Ant climbed into cooling wort and died

[Wheatmeister]

I removed the carcass. What do think the chances are the batch is infected/ruined?

 

[je5450]

Pretty minimal. Even if the wort was cool enough for any bacteria on the ant to survive there should be enough yeast to outcompete it.

 

[Wheatmeister]

Pretty minimal. Even if the wort was cool enough for any bacteria on the ant to survive there should be enough yeast to outcompete it.

Thats my hope. I pitched onto a yeast cake and its off to a slow start which could make matters worse..

 

[flatfour64]

I had a small brown beetle fly into my wort at some point on my last batch of pumkin beer. Same deal, only not sure when it flew in, I think it was during the boil at some point, which would be fine I think. I saw the carcass in the kettle while siphoning to the ferementer! Ferement seemed to go as usual. I will be kegging this one this weekend, it was an expensive and labor intensive brew, so I hope it tastes delicious!!!

 

[nickmv]

So, I don't know if anyone else does this, but I started a new method to protecting my kettle. Some people cover loosely with the top of their kettle, but I've come up with a better solution.

I have a bunch of old towels I use for brewing (things always get messy, as you know). So, I take one of these towels (still clean), and fold it into a nice square that fits over the kettle. I then spray 1 side really well with StarSan and place the towel over the top of the kettle (StarSan'd side down obviously). I then wrap it under my immersion chiller's copper lines so as to capture any possible leaking water or condensation. This keeps bugs, and more importantly YEAST, out of my beer.

I keep it like that all the way through the process of pouring the beer into the carboy (I remove the chiller first, of course). I typically try to filter as much hop gunk so I typically place a paint strainer bag over my funnel when transferring to primary.

 

[Paulgs3]

One thing to ponder, is way back in the middle ages when beer was being brewed, they had no idea about sanitation and sterility. And beer back then was good enough to keep being brewed for centuries forward.

A little protein never hurt anyone. Good clean/sterile technique is important, but don't let a mishap get you down. The monks in Bavaria didn't care 1000 years ago.

 

[homebrewdad]

Chances are all but zero of infection. Most commercially processed food contains a small amount of ground of insect bits - relax.

 

[Ben58]

I had a small brown beetle fly into my wort at some point on my last batch of pumkin beer. Same deal, only not sure when it flew in, I think it was during the boil at some point, which would be fine I think.

Beetle Juice Beer!

 

[Jakeintoledo]

Did somebody notify the family?

 

[jordanmills]

Gonna go with zero.

 

[dryboroughbrewing]

I'd just laugh at the ant and move on with my day.

 

[louie0202]

Nothing wrong with a little infection

 

[prrriiide]

Pink Panther Pale Ale?

Deadant...deadant...deadant, deadant, deadant, deadant, deadaaaaant

 

[Wheatmeister]

Gonna go with zero.

Ok, we'll go with this.

 

[JordanThomas]

Zero chance. Plus, ants are full of protein. MMM.

 

[CGVT]

Did you make the little bastard spit out the wort after you pulled him out of the kettle?

 

[philber]

But it really depends on where your fingers were just before you pulled out the ant!

Next time a chocolate covered ant would have given you some great flavor with that protein.

 

[sweetcell]

Wheatmeister, did your batch turn out OK? i awoke this morning to an ant in my starter. it wasn't there 7 hours ago when i went to bed, and the starter is done now so it crawled in during the last hours of the starter.

i know that fruitflies are bad news as they are covered in bacteria (notably acetobacter). just checking in to see what your experience was with an ant. normally i wouldn't worry about it since the starter now contains alcohol, unfortunately aceto lives ON alcohol. thanks!

 

[JKaranka]

I'd chuck a rat in there to compensate!

 

[RIC0]

Lucky dam ant.

I'm sure if most of us had our wish when our day comes it would be to drown in a vat of wort or even beer for that matter.


I wonder if he looked at his buddies and said, hold my wort and watch dis...