Chlorine dioxide

[defrandj1]

So, here is my situation. I made a starter this week that I used harvested America ale yeast. It was harvested from a beer I made 6 months ago a stepped up with two 2 L starters (so I could harvest from the starter). After 24 hours I pulled it off the stir plate and noticed it had an odd smell. Very sulfury. I am a brewer at a local brewery that has a lab so I took it to them and confirmed it was infected with pecdo. Crap right?



Well I figure I can use this as a chance to experiment. At my brewery, if we have infected yeast, we wash it with phosphoric acid. However, this has its downsides. It doesn't kill everything and it can hurt viability



After doing some research, some breweries are using chlorine dioxide to clean there infected yeast. Luckily enough, this is very easy to get. They make chlorine dioxide tablets for hikers to clean creek water.



I am going to split the starter into three different jars. One as a control, one using the phosphoric acid, and one using the chlorine dioxide.



Let me know what you guys think?



PS

I will share the results when I get them!



Cheers

 

[orangehero]

If you have time you can also plate it, isolate a clean colony, and grow that out again into a pitchable amount.

In what situations are you having to try to clean up contaminated yeast slurry?

 

[defrandj1]

I have done a lot of research on slanting and I personally don't feel like it's worth it.

I've only had that one contaminated yeast. Did some research about the chlorine dioxide I figured what the hell I'll try it. Since I have access to a lab, it made me curious.

On another note, it's almost impossible to keep your yeast contamination free, so if this chlorine dioxide works, I think it could clean your yeast before pitching.