Forgot to sanitize Thief, should I worry?

[darth5aint]

It's late and I plan on bottling tomorrow, took a gravity reading four days ago. On that day I sanitized the thief took sample, tasted awesome, not so much on smell but not horrid. I cleaned it after and put it back in the box I keep all my brewing supplies. Tonight when I took off the lid there were about a dozen or so 1/4 - 1/3rd inch diameter floating white specks even though i recalled it being clear on top last time. Anyway this threw off my thought process, i had to tell myself to relax, and I took the sample with thief forgetting to spray it down with sanitizer first. How likely is it that I could have introduced an infection that could pop up down the road after all the beers in the bottles already

sorry if this message is rambly im kinda tired after cleaning all the bottles in prep for tomorrow

 

[jethro55]

It is very hard to say. A picture would help maybe.

If you sanitized the wine thief inside and out, then it should be OK.

There is a thread here called "Post your infection". It is a long one, but many have posted pictures and comments to help us decipher what we see. You can look through those posts and try to find something similar.

 

[cluckk]

You can get white floating specks on your beer from the yeast--or several other sources. If it is Brettanomyces, instead of stopping at specs you'll start to see what looks like a web forming on the top. This is the pellicle that Brett forms. If you have a Brett infection, don't worry, you'll still have beer. You'll just have to wait several months for it to finish chewing through everything left by the original yeast. I'll post an image of an Extra Stout I inoculated with Brett C. You can see through the wall of the carboy the pellicle forming (though you can't see the web that it looked like earlier on). For the most part don't worry. Beer has been brewed for millennia in far less sanitary conditions. If it is infected, chances are you'll still have something drinkable.


The smaller carboy in back had Brett C added in secondary.

 

[PhelanKA7]

If there was alcohol in the fermenter the odds of infection are slim to none.