Pumpkin Pie Spice Booger

[lalnx]

Ok, so I made a Pumpkin Pie Spiced Amber Ale, which by the way came out fantastic, I know I will be asked to brew it again, likely sooner than later. Spicing is where the odd thing came in, I made a tincture using 4oz Spiced Rum, 1 vanilla bean scraped and diced, and 2 tablespoons Pumpkin Pie Spice. After about a week, I poured about half of this liquid through a coffee filter and added at kegging, chilled and force carbed for a day or so. I sampled and decided I wanted a touch more spice so filtered the rest of my tincture. I poured what I thought was spices suspended in my remaining liquid into a filter, but plop, out came a giant brown snot wad. I added some beer to it to try and release a little more liquid from the mess, but it didn’t break up the booger.

Good news was that I did get enough to put my spicing right where I wanted it, but what the hell caused this snot wad? I picked it out with my fingers to discard, and it was like a sinus infection but brown! Could it have been caused by the “sulfating agents” listed at the end of the ingredients list on the bottle, or something to do with the vanilla bean, Maybe a combination of both with the addition of the Rum?

 

[ColumbusAmongus]

Hard to say there but I would vote fungal / bacterial growth. I have always been skeptical that your common proof vodkas and rums do the trick since 60-70% ethanol is the standard conc for sterilization.

Even then, ethanol doesn't kill spores so it isn't completely effective.

http://www.cdc.gov/hicpac/disinfection_sterilization/6_0disinfection.html

If you don't like reading I think that the key point is "...cidal activity drops sharply when diluted below 50% concentration..."

 

[lalnx]

I guess that could be possible, but those typically float, this was just more of a congealed mass on the bottom of the jar, and had zero off flavor associated with it. (the liquid, not the booger itself) I'm leaning towards the sulfating agents causing a gelatin like effect. I'm mostly wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.
I might have to do a little experimenting, put some spice in plain water, some in rum, see what happens, if nothing, then maybe it has something to do with the bean.

 

[Beernewb]

I guess that could be possible, but those typically float, this was just more of a congealed mass on the bottom of the jar, and had zero off flavor associated with it. (the liquid, not the booger itself) I'm leaning towards the sulfating agents causing a gelatin like effect. I'm mostly wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience.
I might have to do a little experimenting, put some spice in plain water, some in rum, see what happens, if nothing, then maybe it has something to do with the bean.

happened to me too...did a vodka/cinnamon tincture, poured it into a brown ale that I had at 50 degrees...this big white congealed looking mess immediately came to the top....like olive oil dressing in the fridge...major separation. So I et it rise to ambient temps and gave it a shake. Still looks lighter or unevenly disbursed on the upper half of the carboy, I am afraid to chill it back down for bottling.

 

[Mike37]

Same thing happened to me with vodka and pumpkin pie spice. The snot even got dumped into the keg by accident, but it quickly sank and got sucked out with the first pour. The beer turned out just fine though.

 

[Old_Raspy]

Exact same thing happened to me, word for word as you described. I just dumped the whole mass of "snot" into my corney and siphoned my pumpkin beer right on top. I will find out what happens soon enough.