Dumping this batch: Infected

[chefmike]

So I brewed a batch.

Pitched it on a cake. I did not really see it ferment, I was busy.

all is well....

then, four weeks later:

I say to myself, "Self, that ain't right." There was no head on this last week....

What to do? what to do? It smells fine... kind of...

So then a friend comes for a beer. He works in a lab. I show him... take a sample with a glass wine thief (and then boil it). He takes it to test.

 

[wormfishin]

And..........

 

[homebeerbrewer]

Looks fine to me. It could be late in starting since you pitched onto an existing cake. I'd give it some time, check the gravity, then decide whether it's infected.

 

[Tripod]

How long before the lab buddy gets some results? I'd love to know what he finds...

Good Luck!

-Tripod

 

[chefmike]

Sorry... hitting the chat too hard.

He emails me:

Good news is there's no botulism toxin in what I have, but I would seriously recommend NOT drinking it. There are way elevated levels of mycotoxins, which I know yeast can produce, but not in these quantities. I mean I feel like you ether backed the truck up to a Bavarian ye-old contaminated grain farm, or blew the fungi in on purposes. I mean I could pick out zearalenones from the noise of the other mycotoxins, and that's never good. I haven't even been able to rule out ergoline alkaloids. I doubt their present, and I'm running a few tests over the weekend to confirm, but your beer is way more alkaloidic than it should be.

From my plating and DNA tests I think you have at least three separate fungi presences in addition to yeast. Can you let me know what you seeded it with? That will help me pull out the noise.

In addition to the fungi you have between 4(very complex)-19(very simple) different bacterium. This is from the plasmid separation and growth pattern of the various colonies. It's unlike to be 4 because that would be a very complicated set of bacterium (like MRSA), and if I had to guess I would say the real number is around 9-11.

The chary on top? On a simple visual inspection of the beer under a standard light microscope (@50x & 100x), one can clearly see many happy single flagellum protozoa running through your beer like police in a high school drinking party.

My conclusion is that at some point, and probably for several hours, your beer has been exposed to air. I can't really pull out if anything was there before, or which organisms came first (other than the protozoa were unlikely the first on the scene), but you got a whole little ecosystem up running now. That would also make sense as to why we didn't see botulism: there was probably too much oxygen.

Do you want any further analysis, or are you happy with this. When I have time I plan on making a Picasa album entitled "Life in Mike's Beer" and I'll send it to you all.

AMDG,
Q

 

[chefmike]

The botulism question arose from the batch being no chilled... I never saw ferment happened and we were debating wether yeast would grow in the presense of botulism toxin... it was ruled out though. Since it is not in there, I will test it for SG now and see what we have... none of these nasties really scare me like botulism toxin.

 

[Parker36]

Haha, that is awesome, BE sure to keep us updated with the albums

 

[chefmike]

 

[chefmike]

 

[chefmike]

The album is named "Top 10 Things in Mike's Beer that will Kill you"

I would do more, but I only have so much time. The ones that aren't all green or red were taken with natural transient light (yes one of the fungi is bright orange on it's own). The green and red ones were taken with blue and green florescent light (green will activate things that florescence red, blue will activate things that fluoresce green). Magnification range from 40-5000x

 

[android]

hell man, i say you at least try it. i'd like to see a similar analysis of a flanders or lambic, i bet the same recommendation would be made. that looks like a nice, healthy wild fermentation to me.

 

[chefmike]

 

[android]

boy, i missed those pictures by a minute... maybe have your enemy try it and see what happens.

 

[chefmike]

 

[zac]

Id try a sip.

 

[bierhaus15]

Please everyone, remind me WHY I should not dump infected batches from now on?!

 

[chefmike]

I still kind of want to see what it tastes like.....

 

[Parker36]

I'd be curious what you could find in a standard krausen for comparison.

 

[Parker36]

PS: Stop filling up your carboys with dirty towels, less risk of contamination that way:cross:

 

[chefmike]

Oh... the likely method of infection was from a fruit fly who got through between the airlock and the carboy edge (which is chipped deeply).

 

[BeerPressure]

he knows all that yet cannot spell cherry?

 

[chefmike]

I'd be curious what you could find in a standard krausen for comparison.

Good call. He said he knows yeast pretty well though. I will sample my next batch and have him run it. Could be fun. The pictures are amazing, regardless.

 

[chefmike]

he knows all that yet cannot spell cherry?

he's from the south! thats how they say it down here.... :fro:

 

[TheMan]

I would try it. I had a batch that got infected, tasted so horrid...we bottled some anyway. 3 weeks later, it doesn't taste half bad. Will try again in a couple weeks.

 

[Hoppus_Poppatopolis]

That first picture looks like my daughter's tub drain.

 

[chefmike]

I would try it. I had a batch that got infected, tasted so horrid...we bottled some anyway. 3 weeks later, it doesn't taste half bad. Will try again in a couple weeks.

hey, you pay shipping and it is yours... here is a little quote about one of the mycotoxins present:

ZEA has also been shown to be hepatotoxic, haematotoxic, immunotoxic and genotoxic

 

[MR2Aaron]

hey, you pay shipping and it is yours... here is a little quote about one of the mycotoxins present:

ZEA has also been shown to be hepatotoxic, haematotoxic, immunotoxic and genotoxic

That's probably what makes it taste good.

 

[Revvy]

Please everyone, remind me WHY I should not dump infected batches from now on?!

First you have to make SURE it's a infection...many new brewers THINK when they are looking at perfectly normal Krausen that what they have is infected. You wouldn't believe how many new brewers, especially the first time the ferment in a carboy as opposed to their buckets freak out.......

There are more freakout/false infections in this hobby and on this board than there actually are REAL infections.....

Then you have to decide if it's a TASTY infection or not.....

 

[StunnedMonkey]

"Mike and his buddies prepare to keg his latest IPA"

 

[Tripod]

PS: Stop filling up your carboys with dirty towels, less risk of contamination that way:cross:

You beat me to it!! I thought the same when I looked back at this thread today!:fro:

I would also be curious about a lab sample in a normal krausen...forgot who asked that but +1...

-Tripod

 

[Revvy]

You beat me to it!! I thought the same when I looked back at this thread today!:fro:

I would also be curious about a lab sample in a normal krausen...forgot who asked that but +1...

+3...I betcha normal krausen has a lot of nastiness in it....

Just remember kiddies, Nothing pathogenic can live in beer, including botulism. So the only "poisoning" you can get is liver poising...but we're all in the same boat with that anyway, so you are in good company.

I came across this from a pretty well known and award winning homebrewer railing against a fellow brewer (it was on one of those "color coded" brewboards where they are a little less friendly than we are.) I just cut and pasted it and stuck it in a file...here it is.

Can you get a PATHOGEN from beer. No. NO *NO* Did I make that clear? You have a ZERO chance of pathogens in beer, wine, distilled beverages. PERIOD!

Pathogens are described as organisms that are harmful and potentially life threatening to humans. These are some 1400+ known species overall encompasing viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and helminths. Of that group, we are only interested in those that can be foodborne. Quite simply, if it can't survive in food, it isn't in beer. That knocks out all but bacteria and fungi. Viruses need very specific circumstances to be passed around... like on the lip of a glass or bottle, not the beer in it. **Ahhh...CHOOO!**

Pathogens as a rule are very fastidious beasts. Meaning that they want very specific temperatures, acidity, nutrients and other conditions to thrive.

Bacteria that *could* live in wort, cannot survive even a little bit of fermentation. There are several reasons for this. One is in the 'magic' of hops. It is the isomerized alpha acids that provide a preservative effect to the beer, which happens to inhibit pathogens! Good deal for fresh wort!

Another reason is the drop in pH from fermentation. Next, yeast emit their own enzymes and byproducts, all in an effort to make the environment hostile to other creatures. The major one is alcohol, of course, but their enzymes will break down less vigorous organisms and they become sources of trace nutrition. Now the latter is very minor compared to the effect of alcohol, but it exists! Most of the time these enzymes work on the wort, not organisms until late in the process. Good deal for beer! ...uh, wine too.

Oh, Botulism specifically... did you know that this is an anaerobic pathogen? It's toxin is one of the few that is broken down by boiling. Did you know tht it is strongly inhibited by isomerized alpha acids, even in water? Since fresh wort has a healthy amount of oxygen in it, the beastie cannot even get started, then once the O2 is used up, it doesn't have a chance against the hops or the yeast.

All that is left are a handful of acid producing bacteria that'll ruin a batch of beer. Overall, there are less than 200 organisms that can survive in beer and lend flavor effects. None of these for very long, or very often. Lambic being the sole exception, and if pathogens *could* survive, that'd be the style where you find 'em.

 

[flyangler18]

I would argue that there are probably detectable populations of all sorts of non-Saccharomyces organisms in a batch of fermenting wort; you can take that with a grain of salt as I'm not a scientist nor do I play one on TV.

Somebody page Pseudochef.

 

[Smogre]

This is no infection. It's a brown version of a black hole and should be sent to Stephen Hawking for further analysis.

 

[chefmike]

My friend is going to run a normal krausen in his lab for kicks and giggles. We will see what is in there. That will also help him understand what is going on in here. Basically it is like this never got pitched on a cake of yeast. But I saw that part.

This is, I believe a VERY unique situation, hence my attention to it. I have not yet tested SG to see if a ferment happened. It is the farm full of protozoa that are still LIVING that makes me wonder what the heck is going on in there.

Since the whole thing is an experiemnt at this point... I am taking suggestions as to how to proceed. I am considering using a bunch of one time use equipment (hose, bucket, etc) and bottling after more time.

And my buddy is still playing with the cultures and all.

 

[beerjunky828]

Subscribed

 

[carnevoodoo]

Taste it!!

 

[Rip]

Just for clarity: how was that sample handled after it left the turkey baster? Sterilized container? Air tight? how was it stored before analysis? etc... Just had to ask, curious about all these protozoans/fungi.

Now I'm wondering what kind of stuff lives in our wert before it's done fermenting? I can imagine some transient life forms probably end up in the trub once the brew hits a few % alcohol. Very interesting!

Mike
(now where'd I put that amoeba smiley?)

 

[Baja_Brewer]

Pull a sample, apply to mouth....

I don't know about all this fancy chemistry/bio stuff, but I say give it a good old taste test

 

[chefmike]

Just for clarity: how was that sample handled after it left the turkey baster? Sterilized container? Air tight? how was it stored before analysis? etc... Just had to ask, curious about all these protozoans/fungi.

The sample was pulled with a glass wine thief and put in a pint mason jar that had been previously prepared for yeast harvest. The jar had air space for sure. It was held at room temp (70s) before analysis, as that is what it was sitting at when sampled.

The latest theory is that if a fruit fly got in there, this was mainly asurface colony that is protected from the rest the batch, therefore everything on the bug is now culturing.

Oh... it is BierMunchers Centennial recipe, modified a little for grain on hand.

 

[Tripod]

Oh... it is BierMunchers Centennial recipe, modified a little for grain on hand.

And modded to include fruit fly.