Hi all,
Went to bottle my latest brew last night (Timothy Taylor Landlord). At the end of the night I was left with 1 very clean corny, 6 very clean bottles and a drain feasting on 22 litres of sour, cidery-tasting muck. I knew the game was up when, having handed the missus a beaker of it to confirm it was gone, she replied 'Mmmmm.. your cider's coming on well'.
Looking at this:-
http://morebeer.com/content/homebrew-off-flavors (http://morebeer.com/content/homebrew-off-flavors)
...it most closely matches the 'Sour/Acidic' section (3rd from bottom) and this was confirmed by the white film that had appeared on the top of the wort after over a week in the fv. A wild yeast or bacterial infection it is, then.
Just wondering has that happened much to any of you out there and have you ever found a definitive reason? This has happened me on 2 occasions before but I attributed both to the fact that those brews had been dry-hopped using a muslin bag that had probably not been adequately sanitised (it was boiled both times). This brew, however, was not dry hopped. The yeast (washed Mauribrew ale) had done its stuff in about 2 days and it was tasting fine after 4-5 days. I ferment in a large stainless steel pot with the lid clamped firmly down with bungee cord, all enclosed in a temp-controlled fridge.
My list of possible causes:
1) Washed Mauribrew yeast, maybe it was infected. The starter fired up prertty quickly and the thing was going pretty good the next morning after pitching the night before. She was down to 1012 and tasting fine in 2-3 days.
2) Wild yeast in the brew fridge. It's pretty spotless and the lid is clamped down shut on the fv. Surely the few seconds at a time that I lift the lid to look in wouldn't be enough for loads of airborne bacteria to fall in, especially when there's a decent krausen on the top of the wort?
3) Sample cup inadequately sterilised. Since I ferment in a large pot the only way to get a sample for taste/gravity, etc is to immerse a small plastic beaker in sterilising solution for 10 mins, rinse, and dip into the wort. It's not a uniform plastic; there are little edges that may harbour bacteria, but I use a cup like this all the time, so why has it not caused more infections?
4) The night after It'd pitched the yeast, I came home pished from the pub and opened the fv to let my bro see what fermenting beer looked like. How long the lid was off, how much we marvelled and slabbered over the top of the wort, is lost in the fog. In fact, that same night I poured us a pint, forgot to turn off the CO2 and the tank was empty by the next evening. Still, this same white film-y infection has happened before when no drunken idiots were peering in.
I think I can narrow it down to two possibilities:
The yeast - this has only ever happened when I've re-used yeast; it's never happened with a new packet. Maybe my yeast washing technique is dodgy, maybe my starter was dodgy; it was about 5 days old before I pitched it.
The sample cup - The first sample I took was fine. The next time I looked in (about a week later) it was covered in a white film and at that point probably gone. Did the cup I used for the first sample introduce an infection?
Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated. Last night was not a good night :(
Cheers,
-Barry
My deepest sympathy!!! I know what it's like to lose a brew to infection, happened me once before.
What are you rinsing your sanitised cup in? If ur using Starsan or other no rinse concoction I'd dip it straight in. If its anything other than cooled boiled water it could introduce infection. I'd never let my tap water in touch with the cold side of my brew setup unless it was boiled first.
barry- was it the same taste as the one ud given me before? next time, bottle one and keep it so we can taste it n help more
did u make a starter at all?
Lars: Thanks for the sympathy. I immerse the cup in a weak VWP solution then rinse under the cold tap. I'd be pretty confident in the cleanliness of the cold water; I use it to rinse everything from the fv before pitching to the bottles before bottling.
I'm toying with the idea of boiling a ladle of some description in water next time I'm taking a sample. The beakers are used in everyday life for things like milk, OJ, etc and I guess some times they're washed in the sink rather than the dishwasher, so maybe that's a possibility.
Shane: I ferment in a temperature-controlled brewfridge in the garage. The fv's a stainless steel pot with the lid clamped on tight with bungee cord.
Matthew: Yep, same taste as before and yes: I did make a starter.
Cheers,
-Barry
I'm sorry for your trouble.
I never ever ever dip anything into my wort during fermentation, did I say never ;)
For me it stops bubbling after 7-10 days and then I leave it another week, I know fermentation has finished and when I transfer to secondary, I use of the refractometers to work out FG
On brewdays I liberally use my starsan mister on everything, including myself.
Man i feel your pain, same thing happened to me not so long ago on my first adventure into AG using BIAB, what you are describing is exactly what i got as well but i never figured out where mine came from. I have moved from the kitchen into a spare bedroom for future brews so we will see if that makes any difference. :'(
Cheers, lads.
So it seems the general consensus is leave well alone when fermenting.
So do none of you take samples mid-ferment? My old fv was a wine fermenter with a tap through I would take samples periodically. There's no tap in my ss pan.
@Ciderhead - Out of interest, how do you go about dry-hopping or, like Shane do you leave that kind of tomfoolery to other folk?
-Barry
I dry hop in secondary 5-7 days with muslin coming out of a bowl of starsan and a big glass marble or a lesser quantity of hops in a corny on a thread.
I have a tea ball or if its a lot I just throw pellets in leave 5-7 days and then transfer into corny.
I am becoming a big fan of late addition hops and skip dryhopping alltogether.
The more you play with it obviously the greater the risk of exposure to wild yeasts and infection.
I know its nice to see how its progressing but all you really only need OG and FG.
4) The night after It'd pitched the yeast, I came home pished from the pub and opened the fv to let my bro see what fermenting beer looked like. How long the lid was off, how much we marvelled and slabbered over the top of the wort, is lost in the fog.
Is that the equivalent of beer dogging? ;D
The white film (though I don't know what exactly it is) comes from the top being exposed to air, in my experience.
For example, when you transfer your beer, there isn't the same cushion of CO2 over the beer as before. I moved a brewferm fermented lager into secondary with an airlock, but because the CO2 didn't evolve enough, the oxygen-loving feckers got in and spiderwebbed my beer.
On the plus side, rack from the bottom, and carb-up and drink ASAP, and it won't taste too bad.
That's my experience. I've my flak jacket on! (and yes, it was sanitised!)
not totally sure, but would needa check at home, but if ur starter wasnt stinking then the problem prob wasnt frm ur yeast- u would have picked up same problem in ur starter. also, if its the same taste as beofre then id def say it wasnt ur yeast (unless it was the same yeast as before...?)
Quote from: Tom on August 29, 2013, 02:29:30 PM
The white film (though I don't know what exactly it is) comes from the top being exposed to air, in my experience.
For example, when you transfer your beer, there isn't the same cushion of CO2 over the beer as before.
I didn't really have the lid off that much, and I thought the CO2 would sit as a protective layer on top of the wort even with the lid removed, or does that disappear as fermenting slows down till one day you lift the lid and there's no more protective CO2? Maybe a good stretch of cling film would do the trick, so I can still check progress without letting any air in.
Quote from: Tom on August 29, 2013, 02:29:30 PM
On the plus side, rack from the bottom, and carb-up and drink ASAP, and it won't taste too bad.
I was able to do that the first time I got that webbing, and it turned out okay. This time, though, I left it too long to rack and the beer tasted like cheap cider :(
Quote from: matthewdick23 on August 29, 2013, 02:45:08 PM
not totally sure, but would needa check at home, but if ur starter wasnt stinking then the problem prob wasnt frm ur yeast- u would have picked up same problem in ur starter. also, if its the same taste as beofre then id def say it wasnt ur yeast (unless it was the same yeast as before...?)
3 different yeasts on each different occasion. Only thing in common was that all the yeasts were recycled, but the yeasts and starters smelled fine each time.
-Barry
Quote from: Bazza on August 29, 2013, 03:23:23 PM
Quote from: Tom on August 29, 2013, 02:29:30 PM
The white film (though I don't know what exactly it is) comes from the top being exposed to air, in my experience.
For example, when you transfer your beer, there isn't the same cushion of CO2 over the beer as before.
I didn't really have the lid off that much, and I thought the CO2 would sit as a protective layer on top of the wort even with the lid removed, or does that disappear as fermenting slows down till one day you lift the lid and there's no more protective CO2? Maybe a good stretch of cling film would do the trick, so I can still check progress without letting any air in.
We-e-ell, maybe, but you've got pressure problems then. Lagers ferment slower, so they produce the same CO2 but over a longer time, and don't do the whole frothy head thing as much. So if you remove the lid, then the small change in pressure above the wort and the movement of the air is probably enough to displace the CO2 blanket. What I did do once (after this problem) was put a few teaspoons of sugar into the bottom of secondary, so that a little more CO2 would be produced once in secondary. I can't remember it
not working...
EDIT: also, if you put clingfilm on the fermenter you are going to trap in the sulphers and so on too, which will make your beer pong.
Brownian motion means you don't have a perfect layer. But something has gotten in, I suspect while sampling.
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Quote from: Eoin on August 29, 2013, 05:56:51 PM
Brownian motion means you don't have a perfect layer.
;D Haaaaaaaa! Woo! *snorts beer through nose* &c
Quote from: Il Tubo on August 29, 2013, 10:43:01 AM
Are you fermenting in the kitchen? Dirtiest place in the house, even dirtier than the jacks.Wonan on the radio yesterday saying a tea towel has more bacteria on it than a toilet seat! Euuww!
Was that Wodewicks fwiend?
Wodewicks fwiend was he not a friend of the Roman centurion "Biggus Dickus"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8_jgiNqUc
Well guess what? This has happened again :(
Last night I went to keg my brown hop-user-upper brew, which has been in the brewfridge for the last fortnight. As soon as I lifted the lid on the FV, the vinegar smell hit me, and I could see the familiar last traces of the white film sticking to the sides.
Only 4 brews since the last infection of a similar nature, and I'd been extra careful only to lift the lid once in the 2 weeks. That was after 7 days and there was no smell then. I can't think that lifting the lid for a couple of seconds did the damage, so it was probably already there, quietly working away.
The yeast was recyled Notty; the exact same one (one of 2 harvested bottles) that I used in for the Belfast brew demo beer and it's turned out okay (although that one was done in my spare FV - more below).
So, whilst cleaning my FV (a 33L SS stock pot), after tipping its contents down the drain, I noticed something inside the pot - about 2 inches up form the base, there was a 1cm ridge of what look like like scratches pretty much all the way around. Not especially deep, but noticeably rough to the touch (I got my wife to confirm). Now, I'd bought the pot specifically as an FV, so have always been extra careful not to use metal, abrasives, etc on the thing, so I can only assume it was like that when bought. Even after I'd washed the thing in boiling water the rough area looked grey-ish.
So my thinking is, in some brews the yeast has been strong enough, or got a head start enough, to overpower possible nasties lurking in the scratches and the brew has turned out fine. Other times, if there's any sort of lag on the yeast, the nasties take over.
...or am I barking completely up the wrong tree?
By way of consolation, I decided to 'work from home' today and brewed up a simple TTL clone, threw it in the spare FV (a 30L plastic wine fermenter, airlocked), threw in a sachet of S-04, and into the fridge it went. Fingers crossed my theory is correct...
Cheers,
-Barry
I'm starting to realise that, Shane; I've had 4 infections (all of the same type) in that SS pot since getting it just over a year ago. I do clamp the lid down with bungee cord but I guess that's no guarantee.
With the airlocked plastic FV I had 3 infections in the past, none of them were this vinegar lacto bollox, and on each occasion I pretty much knew as I was pitching that the yeast was dodgy, so was not surprised.
About 40+ brews prior to that I was doing smaller batches using my 1 gallon glass demijohns. These demijohns are almost 20 years old, as are the airlocks and bungs. I still use them for cider and wine. No infections to date.
Is is time for a glass carboy?
-Barry
If its stainless steel then you can polish out the scratch but sorry to hear about your woe's. :(
Quote from: DEMPSEY on November 28, 2013, 04:40:25 PM
If its stainless steel then you can polish out the scratch but sorry to hear about your woe's. :(
Thanks Dempsey. It feels as if someone has run a 1cm wire brush around the inside of the pot. Could this be enough to cause the dreaded acetobacter?
Cheers,
-Barry
Acetobacter causes Acetobacter, it's a living thing. The scratches can house the bacteria in between brews. Metal is normally pretty good but that might be your issue. SS is normally pretty good for not being a good substrate. I'd put some water in it and boil the shite out of it. Really though look at removing deep scratches.
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Boiling water may not be enough. Some bacteria spores can withstand boiling water. Instead, boil some sunflower oil until it smokes and you'll have brought the pot up to 225oC. Nothing will survive that, even spores. Follow this with a serious detergent heavy wash or you might have a few brews with lousy head retention for a while.
You'll still need to deal with the rough spot. Don't use steel wool (as used in Brillo pads for instance) or your pot will rust.
Anyone have any thoughts on what would be a good polishing method? Perhaps some very fine emery paper followed by a thorough wash.
/J
Emery followed by Autosol?
Autosol is not food safe, but a good cleaning after should pull any nasties down to 'trace' levels.
Interesting bit on polishing Perspex here...
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=8113
The power of bacteria:
A long time ago I left a saucepan half full of Homemade Tomato Soup on the back of the cooker - with the lid on!
After a week there were some blue furry colonies at the edges of the pot and the Fekers had eaten through about 2 mm of aluminium in several places! Others sites were like cratered on the moon
I know Aly is not SS but Eek!!
After all they now have bacteria that can eat industrial heavy metal sludge (Cd,Pb), be dried and then the metals extracted by conventional smelting.
They contain higher %s of the metals than the traditional native ores!