You guys are being way too cruel, but the situation was laughable. How do you know that the assistant wasn't Trappist Artist's 10 year old son that religiously fills bottles while I, sorry, he, caps them. Just because it's a cleaner doesn't make it toxic. By your responses, I bet a few of you had your mouths washed out with soap for minor vocal infractions when you were young, and none of you died, or you wouldn't be here to chastise Trappist for what happened. Lots of scientific discoveries are made by accident, and this may be one of them.
One-Step is a "no rinse cleaner", so how bad can it be. If I'm not mistaken, it's in the same family as Oxy Clean, which advertises that it cleans with oxygen (however that may work). It's not supposed to be stored in solution in a sealed container, because the release of oxygen will build pressure. The assistant may have inadvertantly added oxygen which would enhance initial fermentation. Gone may be the days of aeration stones and vigorous shaking.
Just because something is a chemical doesn't make it toxic. Everything we brew with are chemicals. Maltose, sucrose, calcium chloride, citric acid and good old water (h2o) are chemicals. The day may come when every recipe says add 1 tbsp One-Step with Irish moss.
We need someone with a chemistry backround to verify this, or say it's a bunch of **** made up for some guy that screwed up.
Someday, Trappist Artist may be our savior, because he won the Nobel Prize for home brewing.
As for the name, my imput is something evil and bad, maybe Death by Caustic, black label with lots of bones, skulls, maybe even fire. There is nothing cooler than skulls and fire, and with a name like Drink this and die it would definately be a hit!
