Saison with strange swirling effect

[blitzd]

I've brewed up a Saison from an Ontario Beer Kegs extract kit, with the only variance being that I used the WLP568 yeast with a 2L starter. Fermentation has gone great and after 2 weeks I've gone from 1.061 OG down to 1.007. Temps were 72f or so for about 3 days, and then I slowly raised it up to 82f in the course of a week and a half. The beer tastes extremely tart, and very citrusy - I'm not so sure about the flavours at the moment, but I'm sure they'll mellow out with a bit more time. I'm new to the Saison style, but after trying a couple this weekend I think it's in the ballpark.

So, all of that aside - the thing that has me posting this, is that when I took a sample today I noticed that moving the hydrometer in my sample jar caused the beer to have a strange swirling effect, much like you'd see with carrot juice. I've never seen that in any beer before, and just wondering if it's common? I thought it may just be from sediment, so I put the sample jar in the fridge for a few hours, but even still just barely stirring the top of it still has the same effect after a few hours of chilling.

 

[blitzd]

So, this brew ended up being infected, most likely with lacto based on the extremely sour taste and film that has begun forming in the bottle necks. It's overpoweringly sour, and will most likely go to waste. It's semi-drinkable when mixed 1/4 to 3/4 with something else, but doesn't tend to result in anything particularly tasty when mixed with anything I have tried as of yet. It's definitely gotten more sour since I wrote the original post.

Anyways, I soaked my carboy in a PBW mix for about 24 hours after I racked/bottled that brew, but I didn't soak all of my equipment. Will PBW do the trick to rid the lacto infection from the equipment, bottles, etc? I have already re-used the bottling bucket for another brew as it's also one of my primary fermenters, but the PBW wash (it didn't soak, just scrubbed) must have gotten rid of it there as the brew has been going 3 weeks now and has no signs of infection. I'm mainly concerned about the tubing, siphon, and bottling wand, as I usually just soak them in star-san solution before bottling, and want to be sure that will cut it. If not and the PBW will, then I'll soak them in that. The bottles are also an issue as I had collected a mix of chimay/duvel/westvleteren bottles to handle higher CO2 volumes, and don't really want to get rid of them.

In retrospect I think this must have gotten infected right in the starter, I don't think the tinfoil on the top of the 1 gallon jug I used cut it in my kitchen. Any future starter I'll do in the brew room downstairs.

It could have also happened during cooling, but I was pretty anal about sanitizing everything both before and after it came into contact with my wort.

Any tips on fighting off lacto would be great, thanks!

 

[JeepDiver]

Everything should be cleaned before being sanitized. PBW is a cleaner, starsan is a sanitizer. You should be using BOTH on anything that contacts your wort post boil

 

[blitzd]

Thanks, I am using both - PBW after brewing or before putting equipment away, and star-san before using anything... I'm a bit paranoid that everything is infected now though, so I'm thinking I'll re-clean everything with PBW or Oxy before the next bottling session too. I was mainly concerned about PBW being effective at knocking out lacto (or other bacteria), but a bit more research on it has eased my mind.

 

[mb82]

PBW will not get rid of lacto, that is star sans job. PBW will clean all the little bits of junk from everything.

 

[unionrdr]

I'd clean everything really well with PBW,then a good rinse. The sanitize with starsan before putting them away. I do that with everything,tubing & all. The sanitize again right before use. I also got a 66" long,3/8" ID line cleaning brush from keg connection to clean my tubing with.