Excited and worried at the same time

[Evan_L]

Bottled my first competition beer (and my second original recipe) tonight, a lemongrass ginger saison. Completely amazed at the 3711 for dropping from 1.058 to 1.002! Tastes great so far, can't wait for it to carb up.

I need to submit 3 bottles so the first 6 were impeccably cleaned and sanitized. I usually keep the well rinsed bottles in the garage and just sanitize before filling. Due to my schedule this week I needed to get this done tonight, and after re-cleaning the first 32 bottles, I slacked and just sanitized the last 16 to save time....what a stupid move. As I shook out the last un-re-cleaned bottles from the san bucket I noticed some mold floating.

I've read a hundred "OMG is it ruined" threads but upon seeing the mold, I promptly forgot all the advice I have previously read! So....is it ruined lol. Seriously, I marked the bottles (clean+san vs. just san) so it's no biggie if I lost a few, but should I even try drinking them?

Also, I have yet to see this but I usually leave just the blow off in a bucket with 12" of sanitizer for the duration of fermentation with no issues. This time however I noticed some nasties (mold?) floating in the blowoff bucket. They appeared sometime in the last week. It has been quite warm, about 80* in the house, pretty good environment for growing that crap. I'm sure it didn't grow legs and crawl up the blow off to infect the batch. Am considering tossing the bucket but is that overkill?

 

[unionrdr]

Just soak the bucket with PBW for a day or two. The mold usually floats loose by then ime. Bottles too. but if any mold was in those last bottles,the beer likely won't be good. I clean & rinse my bottles,then put them on the bottle tree to drip dry. Then store in covered boxes. They olny need sanitizing on bottling day.

 

[nukebrewer]

I've seen mold float in my tub of oxyclean or starsan and I've never had any issues. I didn't realize what it was at first, but once I realized what it was I kinda freaked out. By that time the beer was already bottled so there was not much I could do about it. After a while of not having any issues I decided that the soaking had removed all the mold. Nowadays I check inside all my bottles and won't use one if it's moldy. I'd say you have a fair shot at them being good to go. I would certainly try them before I made any decision about whether to toss them.

BTW, is this competition the Just For Fun comp at Willibrew?

 

[Evan_L]

Yup, I take it you are in the same comp?

 

[nukebrewer]

I am. I've got mine entered in the IPA category. Good luck!

 

[Evan_L]

IPA was my first choice but that filled up so damn quick! Good luck to you too! Are you going up for the judging?

 

[nukebrewer]

Yeah, I'll be there. IIRC, the rules say you have to be there.

 

[Evan_L]

Seriously!? I have yet to see any rules, I asked for more info and the reply email said all I need is whats on the willibrew web page!

 

[nukebrewer]

The rules are under the entry form on the contest page.

 

[Evan_L]

Those i have seen, it seemed like there would be more. Is the label we are supposed to rubber band on a standard thing, like official BJCP or something?

 

[nukebrewer]

Now that, I don't know. I'm assuming it's a standard bottle label, but I think I'm going to send them an e-mail to make sure.