I think my beer's turning to vinegar...

[Rkb1983]

I have batch number 5 in a brand new bucket fermentor right now, a brown ale, brewed on Wednesday night (today is Tuesday of the next week). I used US-05, sprinkled on top of the wort. The bucket had previously been used once to soak a blowoff tube in oxyclean free, but was rinsed well after that. Sprayed thoroughly with star san, including the lid and the rim.

Temperature for the first 3 days was about 64 or so, due to my cold downstairs and using a large bucket filled with water to regulate temperature changes. Regular airlock activity the whole time, smelled great!. Day 4, the AC went out, and temperature started to rise a little. I haven't been home the whole time since then, but I've been stopping by a couple times a day to change a frozen water bottle. Temperature slowly rose to low 70s. Airlock activity slowed down, but is still going. Even now it is bubbling once a minute or so. Yesterday, however, I smelled the airlock (had to give a little push to the lid), and I think I detect a vinegar smell. Same thing today. It's hard to say for sure, but it isn't quite as good smelling as it was before, and if I get a good wiff, it burns my nose. I haven't opened the bucket or taken the airlock off yet. I did notice a couple fruit flies buzzing around a day or two ago, but I can't see where they would've gotten in. The lid seems like it's pretty tight and took effort to put on, and if there are still bubbles coming through slowly, it should be a pretty tight seal, right?

I know that the best thing to do is to just give it the standard 3 week on the chance that it's fine and I'm jumping to conclusions, but it's bugging me (no pun intended).

So I guess my questions would be:

1) Is it really likely that I could have a vinegar batch on my hands given those circumstances?

2) If I do have vinegar, is there anything I can do with it, or will I just be making a 5 gallon contribution to the septic tank?

3) Do I need to do anything different to sanitize my equipment if this is vinegar, to keep it from happening to the next batch in this bucket? Normally I would soak in a little Oxyclean Free, rinse, and then Star San right before the next batch.

Thanks in advance for reading this far and any help you can provide!

 

[daksin]

The burn in your nose is likely CO2, not vinegar, but low 70's through the end of fermentation should not be a problem. If the fermentation started off strong and quickly, and you haven't opened the lid, it's unlikely the beer is infected. To answer your other questions, there's no saving a beer that's been infected enough to create vinegar flavors. Even though I doubt this will be the case, if it is, then toss the beer and bleach all of your equipment thoroughly. A 10% solution is extremely strong, but will kill most everything. You can spray that onto your fermenter and soak all your other equipment in a weaker solution.

 

[Calder]

Based on what you say, I'm 99% certain your beer is OK.

There is no saving a beer that has turned to vinegar.

If it is infected, soak the bucket in a mild bleach solution for a couple of days (a couple of tablespoons per gallon of water). Soak anything else in contact with it in the solution while it sits in the bucket.

Rinse everything that is soaked in bleach with HOT water several times. Cold water will not take the bleach film off the surface.

 

[andy6026]

The beer smells like vinegar? That's odd. Try using it to wash your kitchen floor and then see if they smell like beer...

Sorry to pull your leg - you're likely fine. The burning nose smell is that you got a huge whiff of carbon dioxide.

 

[jtratcliff]

too soon to panic.... Vinegar only comes from acetobacter eating the alcohol... The yeast have to finish turning the sugars into alcohol first. You haven't had time for vinegar yet. As others have said, you're smelling sometihing else...

 

[Rkb1983]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I'm feeling more hopeful. It's still bubbling every few minutes, but I realize that this may be off gassing that I didn't see on my previous brews because the big mouth bubbler didn't have as good of a seal on the top.

Now normally I would take 2 gravity readings right before I bottle, but with a bucket, is it worth doing that since I have to open the lid each time? It seems like it's a much bigger risk of exposure to oxygen and infection to pry it off twice before bottling.

 

[unionrdr]

You definitely got a snoot full of Co2, that's what burns your nose. It's likely a combination of that & green beer you smelled. Leave it be for 2 weeks or so, then test it with a hydrometer. Wait till the third day & test it again. If the numbers match, it's done fermenting. You also, as stated, must have alcohol before acetobacter can turn the alcohol into vinegar. Those fruit flies can't crawl through the airlock into the beer, but they do carry acetobacter, among other things. Other microbes can't get through the airlock either, unless there's a suck back. They're not ninja acrobats.

 

[Rkb1983]

Update: as always, relaxing and having a home brew was the answer. I bottled this on Friday after 7 weeks in the bucket (don't you hate when life gets in the way?), and it smelled and tasted fine. I will chalk this up to another learning experience and remind myself not to be worried by what I smell coming out of the airlock. I would say that I won't smell anymore and just let it sit, but I'm way too interested in the whole process. And if I'm not brewing for my own enjoyment, why am I brewing at all?

Hopefully if someone else gets worried someday they'll read this thread and feel better.