Help me Rohnda....help help me Rhonda! *Infection*

[Brauer]

So I just took a sample of my batch of Denny Conns Vanilla porter pulled from the spigot on the bottom of my bucket....it tastes great. Perfect amount of oak too. So I pull the top off the fermenter to take out the oak and let age for a few more weeks till I have an empty keg and this is what I find. Nasty infection! Crap. I'm assuming this batch is Toast! Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks

 

[Psylocide]

I can't see a pic... but if it tasted ok, it might not be lost.

 

[Brauer]

It's been on oak for 8 day. I didnt boil the oak before hand I know it's my own ******* fault!

 

[ColoHox]

Yep, infected.

It may not taste bad, yet or ever, or it could get a lot worse. Be careful if you bottle.

 

[Brauer]

I was going to keg but more importantly is it going to make me sick/anything I can do? Would you dump it?

 

[Yooper]

I was going to keg but more importantly is it going to make me sick/anything I can do? Would you dump it?

No, it's not a dumper (yet). Keg it and drink before it turns sour.

It's probably not the oak that caused it- it's the huge wide headspace and oxygen after fermentation ends. Aging in a bucket after adding things is a real risk, unfortunately. If you want to oak something and age it, I'd suggest either a keg (perfect vessel) or a carboy with minimal headspace, and purged with C02.

 

[unionrdr]

Definitely looks like the start of a lacto infection with that broken ice pack stuff on top. A 5 gallon BB even would be better.

 

[solbes]

Oaked Sour porter sounds good to me. I like sour beers. Question is can you afford to wait the 1.5-2 years until it turns the corner? Racking it over to a 5 G carboy and forgettign about it until its very dusty would be my vote.

If not, then keg it and drink it fast. I would not dump beer, a little bit of me dies everytime I read about dumped beer.

 

[Brauer]

Oaked Sour porter sounds good to me. I like sour beers. Question is can you afford to wait the 1.5-2 years until it turns the corner? Racking it over to a 5 G carboy and forgettign about it until its very dusty would be my vote.

If not, then keg it and drink it fast. I would not dump beer, a little bit of me dies everytime I read about dumped beer.

I was hoping it was something long the lines of the bacteria used to make sour beers. I just Google's lacto infection and that's exactly how mine looked. I also can't stand to waste beer. This is only my 4th allgrain batch. So guess I learned the hard way. I am one who likes experiments so here is what I did.....pictures to follow⬇

 

[Brauer]

I actually had 6.5 gallons so I decided to split it up and see how this goes. I only had 2 one gallon glass carboys but had a few plastic Apple juice jugs from a recent Apfelwein.This is supposed to be burbon oaked vanilla porter. So off to the liquor cabinet I went. No regular burbon so here is what I did. I have a wonderful bottle of homemade german schnapps made from hazelnuts(80 proof) Jim beam redstag (black cherry) and some Dr. Mcgillicuddys cherry
Bottle# 1- 1.5 oz hazelnut schnaps
Bottle# 2- 1 oz hazelnut schnaps
Bottle# 3- 1.5oz JB Redstag
Bottle# 4- 1oz JB Redstag
Bottle#5- 2oz Migillicuddys
I'll go grab 3 more 1 Gallon fanboys transfer the stuff in the juice bottles and watch it.
If in a week no more infection shows I'll bottle some of it. If it shows infection I'll wait a year and give it a try!

 

[Brauer]

Oh so when I started this little experiment I promptly filled a spray bottle with Star San and gave the top a nice heavy misting! The 5 gallons were pulled from the spigot and was very careful not to move the bucket....the remaining 1.5 gallons went down the crappier.

 

[solbes]

Kudos to see where this goes. Few things.

Since you have them in carboys with minimal (zero?) headspace, I'd let them sit and get dusty. If you have any brett in there (and I would guess you might), it can take a long time (6 months +). You want the carboys to burp themselves over that time, so bottles would likely become overcarbed or even explode. I don't think racking underneath this has any chance of removing the infection, so you are in it for the long haul.

If you can swing it, I agree with transferring out of the AJ containers into a 1 gallon carboy for this long term fermentation/conditioning period. A little O2 is okay, but the AJ containers would probably give too much over 6+ months. Too bad you aren't close I have 3 extra 1 gallon carboys from my fall cider that are sitting around.

And lastly, to ensure you don't get future infections, I'd fill your bucket with cool water and add 1 Tablespoon of bleach per gallon and soak all of the equipment (including spigot) that touched this beer for 25-30 minutes. Then a few hot rinses and spray down with starsan. Should kill everything.