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Bee in the brew pot

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Greathead

New Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2010
Messages
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Location
Laguna Niguel
I recently brewed up a batch of winter warmer. During the boil, I was fending off some interested bees. After 2 weeks of primary, I pulled the top off of my fermenter, and much to my surprise, found one of the bees drowned in my ale (not a bad way to go).

My question to the community: Could the fermented bee cause any problems with the beer? (tasters with bee allergies, flavor issues, etc.) Or maybe I could just write it off as the secret ingredient in my new beer - Jingle Buzz..

Has this happened to anyone else?
 
It all depends on if the bee was sanitized or not. If it landed and the boil and ended up getting a few minutes of boil time, I'm say you're fine. Even better than fine, because now you have a story and can use that cool name.

If the bee landed in there on the cool side, it could have introduced bacteria. How does it taste?
 
Silly guy, there are easier ways to get honey into your brew. :)

Seriously, it happens all the time and I've never heard of it causing a problem. Welcome to HBT!
 
I had an acorn from an oak tree land in a few brews ago at about 10 minutes into the boil. I figured it was fine since it was in the boil. I guess we shall see how it turns out. Acorn Bitter...
 
Brewed Jamil's Black Widow Porter a couple of months ago. As we were straining the wort into the fermenters, my son discovered a large bumble bee that had obviously gotten into the boil at some point. Beer is fine. Re-named to Bumble Bee Porter :mug:!
 
This has nearly happened to me a couple times...if you don't know how many bees live around your house, just try brewing a mead that needs boiling as part of the process (hop metheglin) outside in the summer!!!
 
Doesn't do much good to worry about the past. If something is really wrong, you'll know soon enough. I think I would just wring him out and pour another one.
 
This is hilarious. Give some guys a couple of brews and a keyboard and look what they come up with! Thanks for the feedback - the bee probably got in towards the end of the boil, so I'll just plan on tapping this in a few weeks and updating the blog.

IBeeU's = 18
ABeeV = 7.7%
HBeeT forum = good times
 
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