Any miracle workers? Turning vinegar back into beer - or just put it on fish & chips?

[blueseamonkey]

Bottling day for my latest batch of beer. At 3 weeks in the primary it was tasting lovely, I left it a week longer and now it is vinegary in taste and smell. It had a small amount of whitish mould on the top this time - none a week ago. Is it worth me keeping this "beer" in bottles to mature, or should I just boil it up to concentrate it a little and use it as vinegar? (5 UK gallons of it!) Or should I brew a mild and blend the 2 to make a traditional London porter?

I know how the infection got in, and when, (moving the fermenter at 3 weeks and a crappy O-ring) so finding the cause is not a major issue. But I'm massively pissed off now as this was my last lot of ingredients - it'll be 3 or 4 months now before I can brew again

Also - anything special I need to do to sanitise my equipment, or just be extra careful next time? I have been using bleach & water, but plan to change to iodophor very soon - no Star San available here.

 

[Mb2658]

It acetobacter got into your beer and started working, there isn't anything that you can do to fix it. You might be able to stop the progression by pasteurizing your beer but it will still be sour. I'd do a good thorough cleaning and sanitizing of all of your equipment. Items containing plastic and rubber may need to be replaced. I have been fortunate enough not to have an infection yet but a lot of people who do have them end up replacing their tubing, buckets, airlocks, etc.

 

[Walking_Target]

A brett infection is one thing, you can generally wipe those out with a good chlorinated soak of some description. You might have to toss old buckets and tubing it it is a recurring problem.

Acetobacter infections mean anything that isn't glass or can't be boiled should be tossed as a matter of course.

Rubber stoppers, 3-piece airlocks, etc, that can be boiled, get a good 10 minute boil. Glass carboys get a treatment of a 20:1 bleach soak. Buckets get tossed or repurposed for non-brewing activities as HDPE buckets can take scratches that are almost impossible to sanitize.

I'm not sure about the Better Bottles brand for using a chlorinated rinse, but I'd start with something like Sani-Brew for a bit, then rinse thoroughly with RO or distilled water to help uptake free chlorine ions, then once you can no longer smell chlorine give it a go with some standard strength Star-San or Sani clean or other anionic acid sanitizer.

I had a batch of mead that turned to vinegar. I was lucky and used glass carboys, but ended up tossing all my plastics that even touched the batch, Hydrometer jar, stoppers, racking canes, the works. It was cheaper than ruining another batch of mead.