I've been brewing a Muntons Smugglers kit for the last fortnight which has been going surprisingly well. I got the kit as a replacement from Muntons after complaining about a stuck Smugglers kit I had at 1020. It got past the dreaded sticky 1020 after a gentle stir on Wednesday last week to get the yeast back into suspension and I have been eagerly monitoring daily to make sure it doesn't stop again. All was going well until I had a look this morning and noticed that a thin oily layer has appeared on the top which wasn't there this time yesterday.
I had a read around on here and the advice seemed to be to keg/bottle it ASAP leaving the oily bit on the top behind and hope for the best so I got my kit ready and started to siphon it off into my keg. About halfway through I noticed two tiny dead flies stuck to the side of the FV. I'm assuming that they are fruit flies and after having a read up on here, this could explain the oily film which could be caused by acetobacter that the flies brought in and it looks like I am going to end up with 5 gallons of vinegar.
I was wondering though, do two dead fruit flies count as a "fruit fly infestation" and mean that the beer is unsuitable to drink? There were no signs of any other invaders and the yeast ming at the bottom seemed normal enough if not a bit more smelly than normal. Also, because the film appeared right at the end of the fermentation and has only been there for 24 hours at most, would the alcohol present in the beer afford it some protection from the bacteria?
The beer smells absolutely fine, very nice in fact and I gave it a try and it tasted fine although it does definitely taste different to the first Smugglers I did but that could be down to the first kit finishing at 1020 and this one finishing at about 1016.
I hope that it isn't a lost cause, I honestly don't think I can bring myself to pour 5 gallons of beer down the drain without breaking down into tears although then again I don't fancy drinking a pint of it only to spend the rest of the day violently ejecting my stomach contents :lol: :sick:
gsidford: Didn't even give the formatting a thought, looking back at it even I didn't want to read it and I wrote the bloody thing!
I had a read around on here and the advice seemed to be to keg/bottle it ASAP leaving the oily bit on the top behind and hope for the best so I got my kit ready and started to siphon it off into my keg. About halfway through I noticed two tiny dead flies stuck to the side of the FV. I'm assuming that they are fruit flies and after having a read up on here, this could explain the oily film which could be caused by acetobacter that the flies brought in and it looks like I am going to end up with 5 gallons of vinegar.
I was wondering though, do two dead fruit flies count as a "fruit fly infestation" and mean that the beer is unsuitable to drink? There were no signs of any other invaders and the yeast ming at the bottom seemed normal enough if not a bit more smelly than normal. Also, because the film appeared right at the end of the fermentation and has only been there for 24 hours at most, would the alcohol present in the beer afford it some protection from the bacteria?
The beer smells absolutely fine, very nice in fact and I gave it a try and it tasted fine although it does definitely taste different to the first Smugglers I did but that could be down to the first kit finishing at 1020 and this one finishing at about 1016.
I hope that it isn't a lost cause, I honestly don't think I can bring myself to pour 5 gallons of beer down the drain without breaking down into tears although then again I don't fancy drinking a pint of it only to spend the rest of the day violently ejecting my stomach contents :lol: :sick:
gsidford: Didn't even give the formatting a thought, looking back at it even I didn't want to read it and I wrote the bloody thing!
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