Yep.....an infection thread

[satyrbassist]

It's a basic pale ale. All grain. Sg 1.050. Fg 1.012. Everything went off without a hitch. Racked to secondary. Beer looked, smelled, and tasted great. Came back a week later and this is what I had.

Decided to go ahead and bottle. As I siphoned it out the film stayed almost sheet like and basically pulled itself off the beer as the level went down.
It tasted great. No bad smells. I shall forge ahead. But my curiosity made me post. Has anyone else had this?

 

[Yooper]

Yes, it happens most often in "secondary". The reason is that while in primary, little oxygen remains in the headspace that when a beer is finished, and racked, a vessel with lots of headspace will allow oxygen loving bacteria (like lactobacillus) to get a foot hold in. It's not that uncommon.

It generally only happens in beers with lots of headspace, and only once fermentation is finished.

 

[BigPerm]

Drink it fast!

 

[WI_Wino]

Everything yooper said and one more thing. If you are going to use a a secondary then make sure you have little to no headspace. Ie a 5 gallon carboy for 5 gallon batch.

 

[satyrbassist]

It actually is a 5 gallon. Was my first all grain and I ended up with just 5 gallons going into primary. I think I boiled too hard. I forgot about the headspace. Thanks. Hopefully it will be drinkable!

 

[j1n]

This is why most people say its pointless to do a secondary. You risk oxidation and infection. There really was no reason for you to do a secondary in this situation. Could have just left it in the primary then kegged or bottled.

 

[satyrbassist]

Also might have helped

 

[nthammer]

This happened to me the first time i tried a secondary and was also the only time my beer got infected. I dont secondary anymore and if i did id probably just use a keg so i can purge out the o2

 

[F_R_O_G]

reducing head space is ofcorce a very good idea, but the major issue is not head space but proper sanitation. drink up