Who has done this (contaminated beer)?

[RavenChief]

OK confession time.
Today I ruined an entire 6 gallon batch of beer. I was starting to bottle my beer when I realized I had not removed my blow-off tube and bottle from my fermenter. I tap from the bottom and the contiminated water in my blow-off bottle was sucked down into my primary. This stuff was a mixture of blow-off and water and some Starscan. Had to dump the whole batch

 

[HI_SALENITY]

I'm guilty of doing the same thing to a porter.

 

[ChshreCat]

Why did you have to dump the whole batch? Starsan is perfectly safe, it would have killed anything that had been in it and there was nothing in the blow off that wasn't already in your beer.

Sorry, man. You just dumped 5 gallons of perfectly good beer.

 

[goose1873]

shouldn't have dumped it!!! the sarstan would have staralized the water and it would have been fine....

 

[goose1873]

Why did you have to dump the whole batch? Starsan is perfectly safe, it would have killed anything that had been in it and there was nothing in the blow off that wasn't already in your beer.

Sorry, man. You just dumped 5 gallons of perfectly good beer.

...you beat me to it...

 

[snisleziggy]

That's one thing I've learned from this site....NEVER dump your beer unless you are 110% sure it's completely ruined, and then still, you should check again to make even more sure. lol Sorry to hear that happened BTW.

 

[RavenChief]

Thanks for the advice. I know that the beer probably would have not have been "unsafe" to drink. However, I would not want to actually put that to the test... This was quite a bit of Starscan...

 

[jdinger29]

I offer a service here, next time bottle it and send it to me, I will do some highly sophisticated testing and send you the results. It might take the whole batch of beer but you will at least have the comfort of knowing.

 

[RedGlass]

Rough luck, Raven. Should've seen it through.

I have a pale ale I'm getting ready to bottle that got about 6-7oz. of starsan up the blowoff last week during a particularly cold night. My plan is to do exactly the sort of "highly sophisticated" testing jdinger mentioned. I'll report back....

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

Sorry Raven, but I've got to agree with the others. No need to dump, and to use your words, you should have put it to the "test". Then you'd know. And know that RDWHAHB really means something.

 

[RavenChief]

You guys are great!
I guess I should not have been quite so quick to pull the plug.
I know that Starscan is non-toxic, but I was not too sure about what a largish quantity would do to the beer. Also the very dark brown water from my blowoff jug had been sitting open for a week. So mixing this dreck with my beautiful beer just kind of shorted out my brain...

 

[TheMan]

I agree with everyone else. And furthermore, it was finished beer...so there is extremely little chance that any organisms could live in the alcoholic environment. At least you learned for next time.

 

[AnOldUR]

I know that Starscan is non-toxic . . .

If his fly was open, would anyone tell him?
:cross:

 

[Shooter]

If his fly was open, would anyone tell him?
:cross:

What do you mean?!?!?

I assume he's talking about the SciFi character, Starscan. I think he's Starbuck's cousin.

 

[Revvy]

You don't dump your beer, for making a minor little mistake. Your beer is hardier than that.

And you don't dump something because you think it's going to turn out bad. You only dump a beer that you KNOW is bad, and you give it at least a couple of months in the bottle before you even make THAT decision.

Read theses two threads that were compiled for nervous new brewers to realize that your beers are not a weak baby that is going to die if you look at it wrong.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

Our beer is really resilient despite the boneheaded things we do to it. And even if something appears to be wrong, often time and the yeasties go along way to correct itself.

And if everyone dumped their beer just because of a common thing like an airlock suckback, no one would be brewing. We ALL have had sanitizer from our airlock get into our beer at one time or another. There's a ton of panic threads on here about that, and the answer is always the same, RELAX.

I think about it in terms of my time and money, I'm not going to dump 30 or more dollars worth of ingredients, 6 hours of brewing time, and at least 2 months from yeast pitch to cracking the first bottle, on what could be a minor mistake (that may not even harm the beer anyway,) until I have exhausted all probability that the beer won't improve. And even then that means at least walking away from the bottles for maybe 6 months or more.

And so far I have never beer wrong.

After all these years of brewing I still haven't had a dumper.

And I've made some big mistakes.

But I have never had a beer that wasn't at least palatable, after all that time.

They may have not been stellar beers, but they were still better than BMC or Skunky Beers in green bottles that people actually pay money for.

So just read those threads and next time, relax, and give your beer a chance to prove how strong it really is.

 

[Revvy]

Oh and people have drank diluted starsan with no ill effects. It's pretty much one of the ingredients in coca cola. A couple gallons of it wouldn't even harm your beer. The starsan would have been consumed by the yeast anyway.

 

[Shooter]

Oh and people have drank diluted starsan with no ill effects. It's pretty much one of the ingredients in coca cola. A couple gallons of it wouldn't even harm your beer. The starsan would have been consumed by the yeast anyway.

Agreed, you can safely rack beer onto several cups of Starsan in your corny with no ill effects. In fact, I'm drinking that beer right now. Well, okay not RIGHT now, but I do have it on tap.

 

[dotnetdotcom]

The starsan would have been consumed by the yeast anyway.

Maybe BP should try it on oil?