Repeated infections (need advice)

[TheMadKing]

What are you calling a pellicle? Do you have photos of it?

 

[IslandLizard]

Can you possibly say which country or region you're in? It may help us understand the dilemmas you're facing but also help us point to alternatives and resources.

Brew on premises outfits, like the one you're using can be mixed blessings. Relying on someone else's equipment and community usage can be challenging, although everything that gets boiled is pasteurized enough. It's the cold side equipment where problems may start, then compound.

Unwanted Brett can certainly play havoc with your fermentations in a place like that.

 

[Steamy]

Can you possibly say which country or region you're in? It may help us understand the dilemmas you're facing but also help us point to alternatives and resources.

Brew on premises outfits, like the one you're using can be mixed blessings. Relying on someone else's equipment and community usage can be challenging, although everything that gets boiled is pasteurized enough. It's the cold side equipment where problems may start, then compound.

Unwanted Brett can certainly play havoc with your fermentations in a place like that.

Scandinavia

 

[Steamy]

What are you calling a pellicle? Do you have photos of it?

Not my picture but prety much looks like that

 

[Steamy]

One thing I didn't see posted yet is your general recipe and process.
All grain vs extract.

While all of the above is useful info, we may be solving tomorrows problems but missing todays.

Also, consider small-batch in your kitchen. There is a whole sub-forum here of 1-gal brewers. You only get 8-10 beers per batch, but very achievable with limited home equipment. Then you can see if you still experience the problems or use to help sort out where the infections may be occurring. Additionally a 1 gal batch is more expensive per oz, but cheaper per batch - especially if it gets dumped.

As an experiment, maybe try fermenting a quart or more of apple juice. Just as a control group fermentation to see if you can narrow down the contamination source.

The recepies were all grain. an IPA at around 7% ABV from mostly pale malts, simco and citra hops, and a wheatbeer from pilsner and wheat malt with some saaz hops. I doubt the recepie is the problem since especially the wheatbeer tasted really good, then just got completely watered down after the pellicle formed.

The more i think about it, the more the plastic components make sense.

Ill consider it, but id rather just get my own 5 gallon equipment for a higher yield per brew. But ill consider to start with that as im wasting ingredients at this moment.

 

[Steamy]

PBW is already excessively expensive in the U.S. when bought in small (1 or 4 pound) containers. I can only imagine the unbelievable prices you're seeing.

Through our group grain buy we often buy a 50# bucket of PBW and split it among members. It comes out at about $3.60 a pound that way, which is still pushing it, IMO. But a tablespoon (or 2) in a gallon of warm/hot water works like a charm and 5 pounds lasts a long time that way. It can be reclaimed and reused, alas the released oxygen depletes fast.

I mentioned these alternative brewery cleaners, before:

Homemade PBW is 30% Sodium Metasilicate (sold in the U.S. as TSP/90) + 70% "Oxiclean."
Looking closer at the original brand's PBW MFDS, it seems to contain a fair amount of washing soda (Sodium Carbonate), and a small amount of other additions (EDTA and a wetting agent) one may never notice. So something like this should do it:

30% Sodium Metasilicate (TSP/90)
40% Sodium Percarbonate
30% Sodium Carbonate (washing soda, soda ash)​

The latter 2 is the basic makeup of "Oxiclean."

You could use regular TSP (TriSodium Phosphate) instead of TSP/90 (hardware store) if it's more available or much cheaper. TSP got a bad rep in the 70s for the phosphate content.

A mixture of Sodium Percarbonate and washing soda is sold here under the brand "Oxiclean" but also under many generic brands at around $2-3 a pound in larger tubs.
None of those are 100% pure Percarbonate, many contain 40% or more washing soda (Sodium Carbonate, soda ash), which the Percarbonate turns into after shedding its Oxygen when added to water.

Perhaps you can compound your own from those basic ingredients. I feel the oxygen component in PBW/Oxiclean is highly overrated, so aside for applications where the (homemade) PBW actually counts, I stick to using washing soda for most regular brewery cleaning. Washing soda runs around $1-1.50 a pound in big boxes. Most (old fashioned) powdered laundry detergent consists mainly of washing soda, but the fragrance and some other stuff that's added makes it unusable in a brewery.

Caustic Soda - Beware!
Very dangerous stuff!
Yes it can be used, pros do, but it's highly caustic. Even when highly diluted (1-5%), it dissolves the skin on contact and a small splatter (drop) in your eye can (and will) cause blindness if not treated immediately (thorough eyewashes then looked at and treated by a medical professional, ASAP).

Washing soda or homemade PBW are much safer and easier to use in day to day (home) brewery operations.
But contact with eyes is still dangerous if not treated, while prolonged contact with skin should be avoided.

Good information!
Ill look at some places to see if i can find that. Worst case scenario ill get the Caustic soda, some gloves and a mask.

 

[S-Met]

Good information!
Ill look at some places to see if i can find that. Worst case scenario ill get the Caustic soda, some gloves and a mask.

And goggles.

TSP or TSP90 are frequently found in the USA in hardware supply stores and sometimes paint shops. It's a great cleaner.

 

[IslandLizard]

Worst case scenario ill get the Caustic soda

I really need to urge you to stay away from caustic soda (NaOH or KOH).
I'm serious, there are much more suitable, friendlier cleaners commonly available that get the job done just as well, and much safer.

As I said before, washing soda (Sodium Carbonate) is fine for 99% of most general brewery equipment cleaning. If you can get and add some TSP or TSP/90 it will fortify its action, working quicker, more thoroughly, especially when hot.

Other cleaning materials that come in handy:

• A stiff non-scratching nylon hand brush.
• Non-scratching nylon scouring pads (ScotchBrite type and generics). The soft ones can be used inside plastic vessels.
• BarKeepers Friend (BKF). It's a non-scratching oxalic acid based scouring powder, good for cleaning up tarnishes, beerstone, etc. on stainless steel, while re-passivating it.
• Various size brushes to clean inside tubing, valves, threaded connections, etc.

 

[deeve007]

If you want to brew at home on the cheap, this blog post got me started on how to do that: https://homebrewanswers.com/minimum-equipment-all-grain-brew/

And because I only have a 16L pot and didn't want to purchase a bigger one, I split my grains in half and soak/boil in two batches, combining into fermenter, and it's worked really well for the past two brews doing it this way.

 

[Miraculix]

If you want to brew at home on the cheap, this blog post got me started on how to do that: https://homebrewanswers.com/minimum-equipment-all-grain-brew/

And because I only have a 16L pot and didn't want to purchase a bigger one, I split my grains in half and soak/boil in two batches, combining into fermenter, and it's worked really well for the past two brews doing it this way.

What I was doing a lot in the past, was just boiling a higher gravity than the final wort should have and then thinning it out with water when it went into the fermenter. I lost a bit of efficiency this way but gained some time overall. You just have to adjust for different hop utilisation due to higher gravity when boiled, that's all.

 

[deeve007]

I tried that once and it seemed to go "okay" but a bit of researching online and I recall there being some possible issues doing this versus splitting the grains. And since I work from home I can do it easy enough over two days between work stuff, so no biggie.

 

[Miraculix]

I tried that once and it seemed to go "okay" but a bit of researching online and I recall there being some possible issues doing this versus splitting the grains. And since I work from home I can do it easy enough over two days between work stuff, so no biggie.

Efficiency and hop utilisation being the main possible issues, but it's easy to account for those. If you boil aggressively and long, the more concentrated wort might caramelise a bit more than it would when boiling with its gravity after thinning instead, but that's about it!

 

[Saunassa]

Scandinavia

I agree, don't use caustic soda, no telling what is trapped in crevices and likes. Not worth the risk.
Eliminates as many things from the cold side, don't bother with the strainer between the kettle and fermenter. Lots of surface area that could harbor something.

Scandinavia? Put everything on the sauna top bench, +180F temps will help kill stuff off but could melt and deform plastics.