That is an infection, although a planned one. It was posted in a homebrew forum thread on lambics. Which is a beer fermented with bacteria and wild yeast. If you get something that looks like this without wanting it you might not want to try it. It isn't going to kill you, but it may taste a little funky. The only reason that you will ever get this is if you didn't sanitize your equipment properly. Everything that will touch the beer after the point when it was boiled needs to be cleaned and sanitized to ensure nothing is introduced into the beer. This includes fermentors, bottles, and any tubing or transferring device that will be used. Lets go over some of the types of sanitizers:
Product Description:PBW by Five Star: PBW stands for Powdered Brewery Wash. This product is widely used in commercial breweries across the country. Use 1 – 2 ounces per gallon for cleaning boil kettles, ¾ of an ounce per gallon for fermenters, kegs and other brewing equipment. Soaking overnight will easily remove stubborn, caked on organic deposits without scrubbing. PBW is environmentally friendly, biodegradeable, and will not harm septic systems.
Product Description: Star San: This is an acid based no rinse sanitizer. Use only one ounce per 5 gallons of water. Star San is odorless, flavorless, and requires only one to two minutes of contact time. This product does tend to foam, which has advantages and disadvantages. Foaming action helps to sanitize cracks and crevices, but you need to allow extra time for draining. You can minimize the foaming effect by adding Star San to the vessel after the water has been added, and by siphoning as opposed to pouring the solution between vessels. Since Star San is acid based, contact with soft metals, plastic and rubber should be kept to a minimum. Kept in a sealed container, a Star San solution will stay effective for as long as three to four weeks.
These are the two most common choices among hombrewers; although I don't use either of them. Many brewers have found that oxiclean works just as well. I use oxiclean versatile and I have yet to run into a problem. I just add a scoop per 5 gallons of water and let my equipment soak for a while and then rinse well. It also works well for taking the labels of commercial crack off bottles that are being saved.
4 comments:
That beer looks nasty in that bucket... Does it always look like that during that process?
Do those chemicals cost a lot?, they don't look like something you can just go get at Wal-Mart.
So is there a way to fix it after it is infected or do you just have to throw it out?
No billy it doesn't always look like that. That pic is from a beer that was suppose to be fermented by bacteria so that is how it should look. Usually during fermentation it just looks like you wildly poured a beer and got too much head. The chemicals might seem like they cost alot but they last a long time since the concentration of chemicals is very small. If you decide to use oxyclean you can get that at wal-mart and that is what I use. Usually if you think a batch is infected I would wait it out and then once you are ready to bottle try it and decide then. If it tastes fine go ahead and bottle it, but if it does taste wierd throw it out. The infected beer isn't going to harm you.
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