Is there no danger of creating something toxic?

[julia_marshmallow]

ok.

I must admit. I am a newbie but I love beer. So I have decided to make one, against the odds.(and the torment: Why don't you just buy?)

I'd rather look stupid than sorry, however.

So here goes:

Is there any chance with all the fermenting and the brewing, of watching over temperatures and time, that I will end up with a toxic substance?

....which could be deadly?

I hope not.

 

[worksnorth]

I really think that you would have to TRY to make something so nasty that it would actually be toxic. As in let it some how rot at a very early stage and then force yourself to drink it. Actually, that is a style I think! Hah
However! Very early on in my own brewing I managed to make two batches that were disgusting, safe to drink, but disgusting. I didn't like them so I pitched them. If you happen to make something disgusting, pitch it or see if your friends will drink it. Lol
Hard to mess up if you keep things clean and perform the appropriate steps at the appropriate time
Cheers, you are gonna love brewing!!!

 

[hercher]

Follow the instructions, and your beer will be good, not toxic. (Well, unless you drink the entire 5 gallons in one shot!)

As for why you don't just buy beer, there should be no torment. The beer you make will be unlike anything you can buy. You can take pride in the fact that you will have made it yourself. As you master the process of homebrewing, you will come to realize that the beer you make is better, at least subjectively, than anything you can buy.

 

[unionrdr]

If you follow proper cleaning & sanitation practices,you aren't going to produce a toxic waste dump. The boil pretty much kills anything that could hurt you. Sanitize anything that touches your wort/beer & keep the fermenter sealed up,& it'll be fine. No worries about this sort of thing.

 

[DrunkleJon]

I agree. I started making beer because, well, why not? My first few batches were drinkable but nothing special. As my technique got better and my attention to detail (and temperature control, temperature control is key to making great beer) got better so did my beer. And I mean it got exponentially better. Unless you intentionally mix something deadly in with your beer/wine, just by following a recipe you cannot possibly make something that will taste good/bad, or do anything more than get you drunk, give you a hangover or a case of the farts.

 

[unionrdr]

It seems to me that a significant number of people think that it'll be toxic sludge if you make it yourself,'cause only the pros know what they're doing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We use basically the same process pro brewers do,just on a smaller scale. And some of the things they have to worry about on their large scale don't concern us on our small scale. It all evens out one way or another. You'll be surprise rather quickly at how laughably easy it is to make beer. I sure was.

 

[JonM]

When you get the torment of people asking "Why not just buy beer?" I like to respond with, "Why does Grandma bake cookies when she can just go to the store and buy some?"

 

[kh54s10]

The only way you might make a toxic beer is if something that was not supposed to get in there did. Like using a pot or something that at one time stored pesticides.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Hey! don't knock my Pesticide Pils. It tingles so nicely on the way down.

 

[freisste]

Hey! don't knock my Pesticide Pils. It tingles so nicely on the way down.

My farts kill mosquitos....

 

[two_hearted]

There's been a ton of the threads lately...

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,there's another like thread going now. More or less unfounded worries in brewing beer vs distillation.

 

[Randy_Bugger]

The pathogens E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium could not grow in the mid-strength or full-strength beers, although they could survive for more than 30 days in the mid-strength beer when held at 4°C.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22004814

So, if you inoculate your beer post fermentation and pre carbonation with certain pathogens and then refrigerate it right away, you could get food poisoning.