I wonder what's the longest you've left at room temp in bottles? I have a batch I bottled in April and have been off and on in fridge and room temp. Been a couple of weeks at room temp though and I'm skeptical. I used pH strips and it's definitely a bit high but I suspect the pH strips are inaccurate.
3 years.
You must be a demi-godDid it taste good? I've heard flavor begins to suck...
It was a lambic-style sour that kept getting more and more sour very very slowly in the bottle, so the pH of the last bottle I drank was probably around 3.4 to 3.5. I bottled it after almost a year in a tertiary glass carboy and it was pretty sour at that point, but it got progressively more sour as time went on. I love sours, so I thought it tasted better after 3 years than it did early on.
I guess that's a bit different non-sours being that pH can be higher.
At this point, I'm not sure if there's anything we can do to convince you otherwise, so it might just be best to give up homebrewing altogether. But to sum up, alcohol, pH, and hops' antibacterial effects make botulism incredibly unlikely. Boiling your beer after it's done is just going to ruin it, so if you're considering doing that, just stick to commercial brews and find a different hobby.
I can jalapenos with vinegar and no heat. pH works great. 1/3 vinegar, 2/3 water, last forever. Pickling FTW.
I do jalapeños as well. I do 50/50 vinegar and water with a 10 minute boiling water bath. I have had jars for years and opened them up and had no problems.
I'm not gonna worry about this imaginary danger. Not because there are other, more likely risks in brewing and drinking beer. Rather, because it's an imaginary danger.
I'm not saying it's rational, actual clinically diagnosed OCD, the 0.00000001% chance of it happening means its stuck in the back of my brain forever and ever.
People today have a lot more to worry about than beer.
Looks like oatmeal with blueberries.So would a lot us on here, but we prefer the term; "Detail-Oriented".
I suggest simply refraining from brewing in the event of incarceration and in the meantime; a form of active cognitive therapy:
Here's a pic of botulism that you can base a halloween costume on...focus on the fun in translating the image into a human-wearable outfit:
View attachment 859215
I made a Christmas Ale many years ago. A small batch with only about a dozen bottles. I let the bottles sit in my closet for 12 months before ever chilling and cracking one open. We consumed about half that first holiday season and I left the rest in the closet and my wife and I enjoyed one every Christmas for the next three years.
YeahI’ve quit worrying about contracting botulism from homebrew. Now I worry about dying when a meteorite crashes through my roof while I’m hiding under the bed during the zombie apocalypse. I mean, the odds of that happening must be at least an order of magnitude greater than getting botulism from homebrew, amirite?
Yes, barrel aged is a thing, but a lot of those are higher alcohol. I'd be more worried about low alcohol (less than 6% beer), high pH sitting at room temperature in low oxygen places with seals.
Yeah, I haven't read much research done from hops, but I can imagine that is a big thing that prevents the growth of the bacteria (and subsequent toxins)!
Kinda odd how your definition of "low alcohol beer" is "less than 6%." 4% to 6% is the most common ABV range on the planet for beers, and thus "average alcohol beer." 90%+ of the beers sold around the world are in between 4% and 6% ABV (most mainstream lagers are typically around 4.5%, 5%, or 5.5%). I don't consider something "low alcohol" unless it's under 4%. Most of the beers I make nowadays are between 3% and 5% ABV. I only consider it low alcohol if it's under 4%.
I am only saying 6% because that is the threshold for the bacteria growth for C. Botulinum which causes botulism.
I'm more likely to get botulism from honey than from low-ABV, low-pH beers, but I still eat honey quite often.
I think you’re getting an awful lot of heartburn over nothing.Yeah
I'm not exactly rational. I know that. Albeit I feel a bit better about it
Honey is known to often have the spores that cause botulism. The spores themselves are practically harmless to us because our bodies can filter them out. However, infant botulism exists because infants have not developed those anti-bacterial mechanisms, so it is possible for bacteria to grow in an infants stomach thus creating the toxin.
The average pH of honey is 3.9. The range of honey. Typical range is 3.4 - 6.0, according to U.C. Cal/Davis.
Also here is a study done on the risk of pathogen in low alcohol beers. It is a real risk
So, what if I just agree with you and say forget beer, and you should just really drink hard liquor.
I'm not going to disagree with the honey part because my point was that there's virtually zero risk of me getting botulism from honey, which ACTUALLY causes botulism quite often (almost always in infants). You can come up with theoreticals for botulism from beer, but you can't actually give a single example of anyone ever having gotten botulism from beer. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's incredibly unlikely.
The production of the toxin that causes botulism from honey does not occur in the packaged honey but in the stomach of the person who consumed it. This is largely believed to be due to the immune system being unable to prevent this. It mostly happens in infants under 1 years old because their immune system hasn't developed the proper defenses yet, but it very rarely also occurs in adults (known as adult intestinal toxemia).
