[Question]May have ruined the batch?

[narddawg314]

I just recently started lagering and was taking a peek at the fermenter this morning when all of the sudden it looked like there was dripping water into the carboy. I thought maybe it was condensation, but then realized the beer was 42* F and so is the chamber..no way it could be a condensation drip unless something was wrong...I took a closer look and noticed that my blowoff tube had water siphoned up in it from the bottle the end was placed in!!!!!!!

My typical setup is to fill a 1 liter glass bottle with about 3" of sanitized water and place the blow off tube into that so no air is sucked into the fermenter. I have never had a problem with that until now. The sanitized water I used this time was a 1Tbl spoon of bleach for 1 gallon of water....I was out of Star San unfortunately. I smelled the water in the blowoff bottle didn't smell bleach, so maybe it's all evaporated.

1. Is this batch ruined? I planned on keeping it in the fridge until April 3rd and would hate to wait that long and find out it's ruined...
2. Just before going into the chamber for lagering, I swapped the bung for a thermowell and then I had this happen...could swapping the bung have somehow created a vacuum that siphoned the water in? The carboy is higher than the blowoff bottle too, so this is really confusing.

 

[SEndorf]

1. I hate to say it, but probably. What was the actual volume of bleach solution that went into your beer? 3" of a 1 liter bottle doesn't tell us.
I'd probably shorten the lager time to find out.
2. Anytime you cold crash or lager, there is a vacuum created from the two liquid sources and it will draw it up. There is no need for a blowoff tube in this process. Use an air lock.

I learned this lesson the hard way too and had about a half gallon of star-san sitting on top of my beer. Had to toss it. Forgot to remove the blowoff tube.

 

[m00ps]

I agree. I'm sorry to say it but I think this is the first "OMG did I ruin my beer?!?!" topic that I dont thiknk will be fine. That much bleach I think would be noticeable in the beer. Its definitely the vacuum from lagering that sucked everything in since you get a large temperature drop. Lagering isuaully done at the mid 30s while lager fermentation in the mid 50s. Thats a large temp swing which creates teh vacuum. You should never have a blowoff tube for somethign while it lagers. You start lagering once the fermentation is done. You could probably even just seal off teh fermentor completely if you wanted

 

[stratslinger]

A buddy of mine and I ran into exactly this situation the first time we lagered (bleach solution and everything), and wound up dumping the batch because it was pretty clearly wrecked. As SEndorf describes, once you lower the temperature of the brew for lagering, that reduced temperature in turn reduces pressure inside the closed system that is your fermenter. That reduced pressure causes the fermenter to suck back the solution out of the blow-off bucket. The easy solution is to swap off the blow-off for a bubbler-type airlock (the three-piece ones will just suck back the fluid in them, while the bubbler type just bubble in reverse).

 

[narddawg314]

I've had lots of hiccups with this batch along the way anyway.....ugh.

edit: With that news......I was thinking of doing another lager for my next batch, but I wanted to try some different yeasts and find a good recipe I like, since these take forever. I'm going to do a 3 gallon wort and pitch three different yeasts in three growlers. Any recommendations? Also, won't an airlock still have the ability to pull water back in?...granted it would only be an ounce of water if that.

 

[Shooter]

Does it taste like bleach? Is it still fermenting/lagering away? If the answers to those questions are a No followed by a Yes, I probably would hold off on just dumping it and let it proceed, always time to dump it in another week if it's tasting bad, far easier than rebrewing something that may or may not be a loss at this point.

 

[stratslinger]

I've had lots of hiccups with this batch along the way anyway.....ugh.

edit: With that news......I was thinking of doing another lager for my next batch, but I wanted to try some different yeasts and find a good recipe I like, since these take forever. I'm going to do a 3 gallon wort and pitch three different yeasts in three growlers. Any recommendations? Also, won't an airlock still have the ability to pull water back in?...granted it would only be an ounce of water if that.

As long as you use this type of airlock:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/bubbler-air-lock.html

and not this type of airlock:
http://www.amazon.com/Piece-Plastic-Airlock-Sold-sets/dp/B000E60G2W

Then any vacuum created should only cause air bubbles to pass through the airlock, and not actually suck back the fluid.

Another tip - switch to cheap vodka or star-san in the airlock, and not bleach solution. Bleach is fine, in the proper dilution, in a blow-off set up. But in an airlock, use something that, just in case you do somehow experience suck-back, won't hurt your beer.

 

[narddawg314]

Does it taste like bleach? Is it still fermenting/lagering away? If the answers to those questions are a No followed by a Yes, I probably would hold off on just dumping it and let it proceed, always time to dump it in another week if it's tasting bad, far easier than rebrewing something that may or may not be a loss at this point.

I don't have a way to taste it without removing it from the chamber and removing the bung as well. I'm still working out my brewing process :cross: I'm worried that by doing that I could introduce bacteria and ruin it for sure. I would say that at least a half cup of water was siphoned in.

 

[Shooter]

I don't have a way to taste it without removing it from the chamber and removing the bung as well. I'm still working out my brewing process :cross: I'm worried that by doing that I could introduce bacteria and ruin it for sure. I would say that at least a half cup of water was siphoned in.

I dry hopped my beer on Sunday by popping the top of the fermenter and pouring in the pellets and was not overly concerned about introducing bacteria. Personally, I wouldn't be that worried about sanitizing a spoon or even a straw and popping the bung and taking a small sample.

I would say this, before you do dump it, please taste it to make sure you are not dumping good beer. Seems like a fair amount of bleach in there. So, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not salvageable, but it certainly doesn't hurt to give it a taste before sending it down the drain.

 

[m00ps]

hey on the bright side, you didnt get crocodile bile in your beer...

 

[narddawg314]

I dry hopped my beer on Sunday by popping the top of the fermenter and pouring in the pellets and was not overly concerned about introducing bacteria. Personally, I wouldn't be that worried about sanitizing a spoon or even a straw and popping the bung and taking a small sample.

I would say this, before you do dump it, please taste it to make sure you are not dumping good beer. Seems like a fair amount of bleach in there. So, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not salvageable, but it certainly doesn't hurt to give it a taste before sending it down the drain.

I took your advice since at second glance the blowoff bottle still had the majority of the "bleach water" still in it. I removed the bung and the smell was fantastic. Took a sample and tasted just as good, so I'm going to hang in there and let it finish.

Should I transfer to a secondary and filter anything? I've never done a lager, and never transferred to a secondary for any beer in the past so just asking.

 

[Shooter]

I took your advice since at second glance the blowoff bottle still had the majority of the "bleach water" still in it. I removed the bung and the smell was fantastic. Took a sample and tasted just as good, so I'm going to hang in there and let it finish.

Should I transfer to a secondary and filter anything? I've never done a lager, and never transferred to a secondary for any beer in the past so just asking.

I have only done one lager, just not generally my thing. I don't normally secondary anything. The only time I have and would probably in the future is when lagering.

So, you are past the primary fermentation stage and moving on to actual lagering? If so, I wouldn't probably do that in the primary fermenter.

I took the middle approach and kegged the beer off the primary and then lagered that keg for about about six weeks. I then let the beer settle for a day after chilling and tapping the keg and poured off the yeast that had settled to the bottom. However, if you don't have kegs, that's not really an option.

 

[mcbar]

According to my back-of-the-napkin math, you introduced about 0.3 ml of bleach into your beer.

According to my second napkin (and a few healthy assumptions) I think you've got about 1 mg of sodium hypochlorite per litre of beer in your carboy. That's below the taste and odor thresholds of chrlorine in water, and within safety limits. If it smells good and tastes good I'd say you're ok.