Potential infection?

[Tfo98]

Hi everyone

Just looking for a quick bit of advice. I’ve had this Mangrove Jacks NZ Pale extract kit on since 27th November, was dry hopped with pellets for around 4 days at the end of primary and was transferred to a bottling bucket to help it clear/remove from yeast cake around a week ago.

I’ve added finings twice (chitosan and isinglass) and this has appeared on the surface in the last 48hrs, not sure if it’s an infection or yeast rafts/hop floaty bits (technical term ) maybe?

Thanks for any help and I hope you all have a very merry (and drunk) christmas!

 

[IslandLizard]

Welcome to HBT!

[...] and was transferred to a bottling bucket to help it clear/remove from yeast cake around a week ago.

Leaving (finished) beer in a bottling bucket for a week can cause problems, including infections, depending on how good your sanitation regimen was/is.
Lifting the lid (to take the picture) lets fresh air inside the headspace, which can also cause infections.

Just leaving the beer in your fermenter for a week would have cleared it, colder temps helping the precipitation process.

It's hard to tell exactly what's floating on the surface. Any infections would be in the beer, but some manifest themselves by developing a pellicle (a skin-like sheet) that floats on top. These little flakes could be the beginning sign of that. Let's hope it's not.

Have you tasted the beer lately?

 

[MaxStout]

There's no need to rack to a secondary vessel. Leave it in primary until you're ready to package. Having the beer sit on the cake up to even a few months is not detrimental like it is in production breweries where the pressures are greater. Yeast autolysis is not an issue at the homebrew scale. If you want clearer beer, you can cold-crash a few days before packaging, or let it clear in bottles. Kettle finings like Whirlfloc can help.

Each time you rack to another vessel you expose the beer to oxygen and spoilage organisms.

You can also choose yeast strains that are more flocculent.

 

[RM-MN]

Prepare to bottle that beer now. It won't be helped by leaving it any longer and as mentioned, having moved it to the bottling bucket and again opened the lid to take the picture has removed any trapped CO2 and allowed bacteria in. Take a hydrometer sample before adding priming sugar and drink it when done sampling. If it tastes good, consider yourself very lucky and get it into bottles ASAP!

 

[hotbeer]

It's either good beer or bad beer. You really won't know for certain till you bottle or keg it and get it carbonated properly.

Whether or not it's infected, it is what it is. And the question is really only whether or not you and any of your drinking buddies will like to drink it.

For the one beer I bottled and found out that it was indeed infected. It went to a much lower SG while in the bottles of 1.001 instead of the 1.010 or so that it's predicted FG was supposed to be.

Some weren't too bad to drink. Particularly the ones I kept till they were several months older than their bottling date. The gushers were a pain to deal with. But I found if I put the bottles from the fridge into the freezer for about 30 minutes, then opened them I could pour them without a gusher. Had to let them warm up some and gas off before drinking though.

 

[Tfo98]

Thank you all for your advice!

I definitely left it longer than I wanted to, just taken a reading, it’s stable at 1.006 and it tastes fine, citrusy like expected because of the dry hops.

As for sanitation I’m always pretty thorough about this, soak in weak boiling water/bleach solution overnight then rinse several times before another soak in chemsan, I was very worried it was the start of an infection though. I’m happy to bottle ASAP (even happier to drink), I have a king keg also so would it be better to bottle or keg it at this stage?

 

[Miraculix]

Thank you all for your advice!

I definitely left it longer than I wanted to, just taken a reading, it’s stable at 1.006 and it tastes fine, citrusy like expected because of the dry hops.

As for sanitation I’m always pretty thorough about this, soak in weak boiling water/bleach solution overnight then rinse several times before another soak in chemsan, I was very worried it was the start of an infection though. I’m happy to bottle ASAP (even happier to drink), I have a king keg also so would it be better to bottle or keg it at this stage?

Whatever you can do faster. Do it now. If kegging, add some sugar to get rid of the dissolved oxygen.

 

[IslandLizard]

I have a king keg also so would it be better to bottle or keg it at this stage?

I would probably keg this, for a few reasons:

1. You can drink it sooner (force/burst carbonate),
2. when the keg is stored cold (kegerator/keezer) any possible/lingering infection will not develop as fast,
3. it won't need 2-3 weeks of bottle conditioning, which could allow a possible infection that crept in to develop and create havoc (bottle bombs).

On a positive note, those little flecks floating on the surface could very well be yeast rafts. Those are harmless, and chances are your batch is very fine.

If you decide to bottle, bottle one or 2 in a plastic (soda) bottle. This as a telltale to the progression of the bottle conditioning, and any development of a possible infection.

 

[skunkape]

Just curious - have you guys ever seen one of these "Is this an infection?" posts that actually did look like something nasty and bacterial? They always look ok to me.

 

[IslandLizard]

Just curious - have you guys ever seen one of these "Is this an infection?" posts that actually did look like something nasty and bacterial? They always look ok to me.

Oh, yeah!
Most of the infected ones showing pellicles, or remnants of them, after racking/bottling/kegging.

 

[day_trippr]

Yup. There have been some epic pellicles accompanied with "Is this infected?"