Infected beer

[Donny70]

Soooo what idiot decided to bacterially infect his cider and then reuse the barrels for his beer. I nearly cried...

50 litres of beer sourer than a lemons a-hole dumped down the drain...

I use idophor to sanatise but the barrels are still infected. Should I dump them just in case???

 

[earthwormgaz]

*******. I lost 5 gallons of beer at the **** end of last year. It sucks.

 

[calumscott]

A good soak in strong VWP kills everything.

Just rinse well... :thumb:

 

[Chop_Suey_Stuey]

Hey

My condolences! sorry for my ignorance but I'm pretty new to this, just wondering how you can tell if it's infected? is there anyway of rescuing it at all?

cheers

Stu
Chop_Suey_Stuey

 

[beermaker]

The flavour is usually a give away I also use a microscope and gram positive/negative stains to confirm. As for sterilising - a good wash with water as hot as you can bear followed by a good soak in Antiformin solution usually does the trick. After that, I usually rinse with plenty of water to get rid of the antiformin and then rinse with an iodine solution just to be sure. Steam is always good too - a simple steamer can be knocked up from some pipe and an old stock pot.

 

[beermaker]

b*****d. I lost 5 gallons of beer at the **** end of last year. It sucks.

My condolences - I lost 16 gallons in two consecutive brews and stopped brewing for a couple of years as it knocked my confidence

 

[Donny70]

Hey

My condolences! sorry for my ignorance but I'm pretty new to this, just wondering how you can tell if it's infected? is there anyway of rescuing it at all?

cheers

Stu
Chop_Suey_Stuey

For me a dirty great bacterial film. Kind of like a fluffy duvet. Or a cloud. Or wrinkly white skin. Awful dry and sour too. It was a Weiss & a Dunkel fermented with wlp300 too. 25 litres each...

 

[Donny70]

Another infected brew. This time an imperial stout. To say I'm ****** off is an understatement. I'm throwing out all my equipment, all the barrels, tubes, hydrometers, everything and starting again.

Is this **** airborne under my house now? Anyone know what my chances of getting infected again?

 

[evanvine]

Most shy away from this approach, but in 30 years brewing the worst I've ever had is a wild yeast.
I use thick bleach!
I leave my fermenters/barrels soaking in a strong solution for 48 hours then rinse with cold water.
When the chlorine smell has gone, you've finished rinsing.
I expect shouts of horror from you, but I'm here to tell the tale and have not had a failed ferment!

 

[Donny70]

I left the Barrels soaking for a week so I can't guarantee what's infected. Everything had to go. I had trouble sleeping last night probably due to the dying screams of my imperial chocolate stout.

 

[DamageCase]

I'd go with the bleach, as extreme as it is. I did it to a filthy old pressure barrel I was given that had been in a shed for probably longer than I've been around. Bleach, rinse, then a strong oxy solution to make sure I get rid of any bleach residue, rinse again, sanitise as normal and bung a cheap kit in there to make sure it's safe before sticking one of your beloved all grains in there.

Edit, sorry I missed the bit where you already threw your gear out.

 

[Donny70]

50 litres of Weiss and 25 litres of imperial and litres of my tears said I must...

 

[graysalchemy]

a simple steamer can be knocked up from some pipe and an old stock pot.

Or just put an electric kettle on the floor open the lid cover with fv and switch on and steam for 5 minutes or so. If you have a tap in the fv open it t o let staeam run through. I am about to do this but I also spray with videne solution as well to be safe. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[adomant]

When I got an anaerobic lacto camping in my expensive plastic conical, I washed with hot caustic soda followed by a strong peracetic acid solution followed by >100c steam for an hour

Slaughtered every last microbe

 

[calumscott]

I don't get it, I'm afraid...

I've had a wicked lactobacillus crust grow on a ginger beer and it's never come back...

I've had real proper filamentous fungus grow in my cider (fortunately it seemed to be alcohol inhibited) and it hasn't come back...

I put it down to VWP. A lot of people don't like it because it stinks and takes a bit of rinsing but I'm of the opinion that is very firmly a secondary consideration to as near to sterile an environment as possible for the yeast to live in.

VWP FTW!

 

[Donny70]

Problem with the bacteria is that it is a strong strain used for cider and if I don't get every little thing I'm risking further infections. Took one day for the stout to go sour with a full film on top. it's cheaper in the long run to replace everything. I've lost 3 brews to it now. The only one that escaped was my pale ale but probably because it has 60 grams of antibacterial high alpha galaxy hops in there.

 

[graysalchemy]

Problem with the bacteria is that it is a strong strain used for cider and if I don't get every little thing I'm risking further infections

The bacteria used for cider are lactobacillus which turn malic acid to lactic acid, so unless there is malic acid in your beer I struggle to see how this was caused by the lactobacillus. MLF can be quite hard to get going in cider even when purposefully infected with the lactobacillus and extra malic acid added. :wha: :wha:

 

[rpt]

A distinction needs to be made between cleaning and sanitising. If the equipment isn't clean, then a sanitiser will not kill all the bugs. Some products, such as VWP and bleach, are capable of doing both. But others, such as Starsan, have no cleaning power.

 

[Donny70]

Problem with the bacteria is that it is a strong strain used for cider and if I don't get every little thing I'm risking further infections

The bacteria used for cider are lactobacillus which turn malic acid to lactic acid, so unless there is malic acid in your beer I struggle to see how this was caused by the lactobacillus. MLF can be quite hard to get going in cider even when purposefully infected with the lactobacillus and extra malic acid added. :wha: :wha:

Hey it was a white labs strain but a bacterial strain on a giant petri dish of malt @ 20 degrees will eat all the sugars too not just Malic. Think gruiters which are a style of bacterially fermented sour beers. It's the only thing the barrels have been in contact with. A wild bacterial strain just wouldn't be strong enough to get a 5mm film in just over a day. Either way the equipment has been trashed.

I'll remember that cleaning and sanitizing are different though. As for that last barrel, it had been sanitized with oxi and I thought that was enough.

We live and learn...