TrojanAnteater
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2008
- Messages
- 85
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This is just an absolute nightmare. My last 2 batches have soured in the primary. I can tell just by smell. Both are IPA's. I had another IPA batch before that which even got infected, though that batch smelled and tasted awesome until it got infected in the bottles. Overall, these would be my 4th, 5th and 6th batches total (I can't brew that often).
I'm totally at a loss here. The first sour batch I'm almost certain went sour in my yeast starter, which leads me to believe the infection might be coming from the little plastic funnel I use from my mom's kitchen to transfer from the boil to the growler. I used this same funnel to transfer this last batch from kettle to carboy. Both times I scrubbed and sanitized the funnel (first time w/ Iodophor, this time w/ StarSan). Still, after the 5th batch I threw away my plastic bucket just cause who knows if it had scratches in it or whatever.
I sanitize like crazy. i use to use Iodophor, I just switched to mainly StarSan. I sanitized this carboy once with iodophor after having scrubbed, washed with soap and water, and then I sanitized with StarSan before transferring the wort. I am using the correct concentrations. This last IPA I even dumbed things down, did extract w/ some steeping malts, was only gonna do a primary without a secondary, but here we are infected again after 4 days in the fermenter. I used smack packs these last 2 times and I sanitize the bag before opening. To aereate the wort I put sanitized foil over the top of the carboy and shake for a while.
The only possible ways I think this could be getting infected are-
1. during wort cooling, the lid is cracked barely because I have my copper wort cooler in it. Wort gets cooled to 70 in around 10-15 minutes. I really doubt this is cause of infection though.
2. Plastic funnel - I dunno... maybe? How likely do you think that is??? Could this make an entire batch go sour???
3. Copper wort cooler - I doubt it cause I even put it in the pot at 30 minutes this time instead of 15 minutes.
Is anything standing out to anyone here? I know its probably almost impossible to know since you can't follow my every step. I can't keep wasting money like this on spoiled batches though, but it kills me not to know what is going wrong. The very last thing I may do here before throwing the towel in for a while is buy a brand new funnel and do tiny little batches with simple dried yeast in growlers just to see if they turn sour.
I'm just desperate here, and even though I have a few bottles of my last good batch from back in februrary to drink, I am definitely not relaxing or not worrying
I'm totally at a loss here. The first sour batch I'm almost certain went sour in my yeast starter, which leads me to believe the infection might be coming from the little plastic funnel I use from my mom's kitchen to transfer from the boil to the growler. I used this same funnel to transfer this last batch from kettle to carboy. Both times I scrubbed and sanitized the funnel (first time w/ Iodophor, this time w/ StarSan). Still, after the 5th batch I threw away my plastic bucket just cause who knows if it had scratches in it or whatever.
I sanitize like crazy. i use to use Iodophor, I just switched to mainly StarSan. I sanitized this carboy once with iodophor after having scrubbed, washed with soap and water, and then I sanitized with StarSan before transferring the wort. I am using the correct concentrations. This last IPA I even dumbed things down, did extract w/ some steeping malts, was only gonna do a primary without a secondary, but here we are infected again after 4 days in the fermenter. I used smack packs these last 2 times and I sanitize the bag before opening. To aereate the wort I put sanitized foil over the top of the carboy and shake for a while.
The only possible ways I think this could be getting infected are-
1. during wort cooling, the lid is cracked barely because I have my copper wort cooler in it. Wort gets cooled to 70 in around 10-15 minutes. I really doubt this is cause of infection though.
2. Plastic funnel - I dunno... maybe? How likely do you think that is??? Could this make an entire batch go sour???
3. Copper wort cooler - I doubt it cause I even put it in the pot at 30 minutes this time instead of 15 minutes.
Is anything standing out to anyone here? I know its probably almost impossible to know since you can't follow my every step. I can't keep wasting money like this on spoiled batches though, but it kills me not to know what is going wrong. The very last thing I may do here before throwing the towel in for a while is buy a brand new funnel and do tiny little batches with simple dried yeast in growlers just to see if they turn sour.
I'm just desperate here, and even though I have a few bottles of my last good batch from back in februrary to drink, I am definitely not relaxing or not worrying