recurent infection problem

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Akavango

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2011
Messages
439
Reaction score
22
Location
Cork
I have a problem with infection during the dry hopping stage. I don't know what to do anymore to prevent it.

When I move the beer in the secondary the beer is fine then I dry hop and several days later I have the infection you can see in the picture.

I bleach my fermentation buckets, then rinse them heavily and finally sanitize if along with the syphon. For the dry hopping I use a brand new muslin bag which I boil and then dip in starsan and use fresh hop from a newly opened package.

Can anyone spot a mistake I might be doing? Any help greatly appreciated.

photo.jpg
 
Infected siphon hose would be my bet. Replace it.
And why are you sanitizing after sanitizing? Bleach and vinegar are a great NO-RINSE combo. If you rinse, seems to me you're opeing the door for infection as well.
 
Replace everything plastic. You may not be able to get the infection bleached out.
 
I will replace the syphon hose but I use it also with other beers that are not dry hopped and they turn up fine.
 
replacing everything plastic is not the solution unless you know with certainty that a certain plastic item is 1.) contaminated and 2.) can not be cleaned. if those two criteria are not met then there is no point in buying new plastic since, by the logic of replacing all plastics, you would have to buy new stuff again after the next infection. there is no evidence that souring bugs are totally resistant to soap, water and sanitizers just because they are in or on plastic. many brewers on these boards, including me, use their plastic equipment for both sour and clean beer without problems.

it is interesting that you are having this problem only with dry hopped beer and not the other beers which seems to indicate that you are fine (as far as sanitation) up until the dry hopping procedure.
 
You could skip racking to secondary altogether. Just dry hop in primary.

Do you sanitize the instrument you use to open the bags of hops?

You could also remove the muslin bag from the equation. Just dump the hops in.
 
You could skip racking to secondary altogether. Just dry hop in primary.

Do you sanitize the instrument you use to open the bags of hops?

You could also remove the muslin bag from the equation. Just dump the hops in.

Yes I do sanitize the cisors to open the bag of hops.
As for not using the muslin bags, you loose a lot of beer with this method. Admittedly a lot less than if I have a infection.
 
it is interesting that you are having this problem only with dry hopped beer and not the other beers which seems to indicate that you are fine (as far as sanitation) up until the dry hopping procedure.

I know I'm very puzzled by that.
 
Are all the hops from one supplier?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Are all the hops from one supplier?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Yes they are but unfortunately in Ireland you don't have much choice. As there is only one with a decent selection.
 
Are you sanitizing the muslin bag?

Edit. Never mind, guess I can't read today..lol
 
The problem may be with the floating hop bag. Go over all your sanitation procedures and equipment. If no fault is found there submerge the hop bag with sanitized weights for your next brew which is dry hopped. Stainless steel ball bearings or something like uncolored glass marbles.
Starsan is a wet sanitizer. When it dries the protection from bacteria is gone. I don't know which sanitizer you use, but that bag is floating above the protective CO2 layer and could be the collection point for bacteria.
 
Much easier to just skip the bag altogether, IMO. If you tilt the carboy while you rack the last bit of beer out, you won't lose any more beer than you would using the bag. Cold crashing helps even further.
 
Much easier to just skip the bag altogether, IMO. If you tilt the carboy while you rack the last bit of beer out, you won't lose any more beer than you would using the bag. Cold crashing helps even further.

I don't use carboy but buckets, and I can't cold crash unfortunately.
 
The problem may be with the floating hop bag. Go over all your sanitation procedures and equipment. If no fault is found there submerge the hop bag with sanitized weights for your next brew which is dry hopped. Stainless steel ball bearings or something like uncolored glass marbles.
Starsan is a wet sanitizer. When it dries the protection from bacteria is gone. I don't know which sanitizer you use, but that bag is floating above the protective CO2 layer and could be the collection point for bacteria.

I'll try that. Thanks.
 
Back
Top