Hi. My name is CalmYourself, and I had an infection

[MacBruver]

Can you get Betadine or Povidone-iodine from a drug store or pharmacy? It's used to clean skin/wounds in a medical setting - I would imagine it's available world-wide. It's about the same thing as Iodophor, except marketed for medical instead of food service use.

This is what I would do. You should be able to find this pretty readily at a drug store, as it is one of the most common disinfectants used in medicine.

CalmYourself- what is the best way you can describe the smell of the wort? That can indicate what kind of infection it is. Did it smell like vomit, garbage, mold, etc?

 

[jds]

Please, never mix bleach and vinegar. The combination could give off chlorine gas. Chlorine is a respiratory irritant that attacks mucous membranes and burns the skin. I understand the solution you are useing is diluted with water but even a lite exposure can be dangerous.

The following is an excerpt from the "Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry" website. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/MHMI/mmg172.html

Excerpt trimmed

I don't mean to be an alarmist, but mixing bleach and vinegar is a really bad idea. I just don't want any harm to come to you or your family. If you haven't already, move the vessel you are soaking your equipment in outdoors immediately.

See the following link for a paper from the Oklahoma State University on use of bleach as a sanitizer in the home. Bleach will begin to release chlorine gas at a pH below 5. Above that, it's just fine. You are correct that pouring vinegar and concentrated bleach together is a bad idea, but their use in diluted form as a sanitizing agent would not be expected to liberate chlorine gas. The point of using vinegar is to get the solution to a pH between 6.5 and 7.5, where the hypochlorous acid is most effective.

In summary: Don't mix straight bleach with vinegar, but there is no need for OP to fear his bleach-water-vinegar sanitizer.

The link: http://groups.ucanr.org/ucfoodsafety/files/58229.pdf

Edited to add: OP, switching to a betadine-based sanitizer sounds like a pretty good idea. let us know how it turns out. If you can buy syringes in South African pharmacies, having one will help a lot in making accurate measurements.

 

[robbiex0r]

If the wort smelled "rotten" as you described, and certainly if it smelled like rotten eggs, I would say it is sulphur dioxide. I'm sure others can contribute their opinions as well.

 

[CalmYourself]

CalmYourself- what is the best way you can describe the smell of the wort? That can indicate what kind of infection it is. Did it smell like vomit, garbage, mold, etc?

I can't unfortunately remember anything detailed about the smell other than I gagged when smelling it.

It could have been the metabisulphite I was smelling, but I doubt it. Metabisulphite has a very distinctive, sharp, burny smell and even though I can't remember the actual odour very well, I know it wasn't anything like that.

As for the Bleach + Water + Vinegar, I'm confident I'm doing it within safe ranges.

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I'm still leaning towards not cleaning properly. I doubt it's the water as the no-chill batch I made just before is still going fine.

Oh well, potentially a fluke, or potentialy not an infection after all (but I highly doubt it). Either way, the next batch is on in 7 days