My first infection. Can this be salvaged?

[archer75]

This occurred during secondary. I went ahead and transferred it to a keg. Is all lost?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35826316@N00/9591097815/

 

[eastoak]

depends on what you mean by lost. it does have an infection and it's probably no longer the beer you set out to make. you may like the resulting beer or you may not, let us know.

 

[archer75]

Is it safe to drink?

What kind of infection is it?

 

[Shakybones]

It's safe.

How's it taste?

 

[archer75]

Tastes normal for the most part. Probably could use a few more weeks. Tastes a wee bit astringent.

 

[Shakybones]

Then drink and enjoy. Heck, maybe even give it a week or two in the keg for giggles and see how the flavor changes. If it's really awesome, you might harvest the bugs for your next batch of ill-beer.

 

[austinb]

Is it safe to drink?

What kind of infection is it?

According to joy of home brewing and many other home brewing books. There are no known fatal pathogens that can survive in the alcohol in beers. I read in another post here that worst case scenario you get a little gas so you should be fine drinking it if you like it.

It kind of looks like the brettanomyces (brett) pelicle that was on my flanders red for a while. Brett is a wild yeast often used in farmhouse style beers and sour beers such as flanders reds and oud bruins. It is however, a wine makers worst nightmare. It looks like you use a plastic bucket fermenter, if it is in fact brett you may want to get a new bucket fermenter or go with an easier to clean glass carboy because Brett can be hard to clean from plastic and may infect future batches. Although don't throw the old bucket away yet! If you are not familiar with flanders beers go find a bottle of rodenbach flanders red and see if you like it. If so you can use that bucket to get one started (they take 1-2 years to finish).

 

[archer75]

According to joy of home brewing and many other home brewing books. There are no known fatal pathogens that can survive in the alcohol in beers. I read in another post here that worst case scenario you get a little gas so you should be fine drinking it if you like it.

It kind of looks like the brettanomyces (brett) pelicle that was on my flanders red for a while. Brett is a wild yeast often used in farmhouse style beers and sour beers such as flanders reds and oud bruins. It is however, a wine makers worst nightmare. It looks like you use a plastic bucket fermenter, if it is in fact brett you may want to get a new bucket fermenter or go with an easier to clean glass carboy because Brett can be hard to clean from plastic and may infect future batches. Although don't throw the old bucket away yet! If you are not familiar with flanders beers go find a bottle of rodenbach flanders red and see if you like it. If so you can use that bucket to get one started (they take 1-2 years to finish).

Thanks for the feedback.

I have 3 glass fermentors. One better bottle, one plastic conical and this bucket. I was fermenting 4 batches at once and shuffling things around so I ended up using this bucket as a secondary. It's generally not my first choice.

I am familiar with brett and sours and have sampled many. Just never made any myself.

In all my years of brewing i've never had an infection so I had never much looked into them and was a little freaked out by seeing this.

But thanks to you guys and some of my own homebrew I feel better now!

Many thanks!

 

[eastoak]

you will not have any more problem cleaning off brett than you do cleaning off any other yeast. me and many other people use plastic fermentors for both clean and sour beer with no problem, i've never had an unintentional sour beer. good sanitation should be a normal part of brewing so if this is your first infection you should be fine in the future.

 

[austinb]

you will not have any more problem cleaning off brett than you do cleaning off any other yeast. me and many other people use plastic fermentors for both clean and sour beer with no problem, i've never had an unintentional sour beer. good sanitation should be a normal part of brewing so if this is your first infection you should be fine in the future.

Or as eastoak suggested just clean it really well and relax, don't worry, have a homebrew....maybe even this one! If you find that after cleaning it well you still have issues then look into converting it to a sour and wild ale fermenter.

 

[archer75]

I generally go overboard with sanitation with my stuff. So how this slipped past me I don't know. First time in 13 years though so that's pretty good!

I have a tropical wheat IPA and maibock to keg today. Then i'll all have 6 taps going! Off I go!

 

[austinb]

I generally go overboard with sanitation with my stuff. So how this slipped past me I don't know. First time in 13 years though so that's pretty good!

I have a tropical wheat IPA and maibock to keg today. Then i'll all have 6 taps going! Off I go!

Maybe it's time to give everything a good soak in a hot pbw or oxyclean solution as well as all fittings valves and tubing and except for the tubing (which maybe you should replace if its getting old) scrub everything with sponges, brushes and q-tips to make sure every nook and cranny that yeast can hide in is clean. I got an infection at bottling time once and it turned out the spigot on my bottling bucket which i had usually just given a good rinse or had run oxyclean through with the valve open had some nasty gunk inside. I took it apart and cleaned it thoroughly with oxyclean and a q-tip and had no issues after that.