Bacterial Contamination

[MrMethane]

I have been wondering how common infection is when brewing. It seems to me that some people take a lot more steps during sanitation than I do and I'm wondering if I need to be more cautious or if others are just overly cautious. I guess your better safe than sorry, but it seems to me that sanitizing the scissors before cutting the yeast package may be a little overkill.

Granted I haven't brewed too many batches of beer, but I have made a good amount of wine which is subject to the same risks as beer. I have done some pretty dumb stuff during brewing/winemaking and I have never had a bad batch (ex. dropping a stopper in the primary and reaching in up to my elbow to retrieve it without first sanitizating and having just come from the gym and not showered yet). I might have been lucky on that one although I'm generally not a lucky person, so I'm thinking that some of the sanitization steps people take aren't neccisary and just consume more time on brewing day.

If you have had a brew infection I'd be interested in hearing about it and what you think caused it. Please chime in and tell me a story.

[Magnew]

I recently dumped a batch of pilsner on the compost from infection. It had been in primary for 4 weeks and secondary for 3 weeks. After one week in secondary I took a sample for a hydrometer reading. I had my turkey baster soaking in bleach water prior to pulling the sample. I keep a bucket of bleach water to soak bottles in as I empty the. Normally I change out my bleach water every couple of weeks because the bleach evaporates out. I hadn't been so dilligent this time. It was old. I think this is where I got the infection. Anyway. It started fermenting again. It kept on fermenting, at one point developing a new thin head of kreusen. It tasted okay, which some will tell me was a sign that it wasn't infected, I'm sure. But my SG had dropped to below .010 from the target FG of .012. And the foam on top just kept on coming. I didn't want to risk exploding bottles, so I dumped it and started over. The new batch is just about to finish primary.

[Tweek]

Magnew, in the future you should just let it finish. It may be that it was supposed to ferment out to dryness. If it still tastes good the I wouldnt worry about it. The signs of infecton are easy to taste. Also you can just leave it in the carboy until it is done ferementing (again) and see what it tastes like, then go ahead and bottle if it still tastes good.

MrMethane, I too make wine and just as a warning it is no where near as infection prone as beer. For starters the alcohol is usually at least double many times more than that of beer. I have stuck unsanitized thiefs in wine and gotten away with it and I would never be able to do that with beer.

I have had a few infections in my time. It happens, its like riding a motorcylce, sooner or later everyone crashes. The more you brew the closer you will get to that first infection.
I had a couple that I couldnt really pinpoint where it got it. Probabally somewhere in bottling or kegging as it tasted fine going in.
I had a string of them last year though. It was really frustrating. I wont take you through all my troubleshooting as it was rather a lengthy process. Waht happened was one time I was force carbonating a beer, and I forget the circumstances but beer blew back through my gas line and into my regulator. I was pissed but me being the lazy sorta guy that I am never cleaned it(thoroughly). So an infection grew inside my regulator.
The way i bottle is I make my priming solution and dump it into a keg. Then I rack on top of theat. I then put the lid on and hook up the gas. The out line has my bottling wand on it. No loss of siphon and I can take as many breaks as I want, which is nice when you are bottling large batches. Anyway, so during bottling I was essentially blowing infection into each batch. Beer would taste great coming ot of secondary, a few weeks later gushing and in the extreme exploding(though I onlly had 2 of those) bottles.
Took me a while to get back to the regualtor, I mean whoda thunk? but finally I did. All is well in the land of beer and, well, beer.

[mmmBeer...]

I gotta say I have been pretty lucky. I have only lost one batch to infection in all the batches I have done (gotta be over 100 by now). I still can’t figure out how I got it. It was a raspberry honey ale. Fermented beautifully and had settled down, I racked it to secondary along with another batch in the same night. About a week later I noticed mold starting to grow on the top of the beer. The other beer was fine and my sanitizing procedures were identical. In fact, I even siphoned the star san from one carboy to the other, so both batches of beer were in contact with the same environment. One got infected the other didn’t.

[MrMethane]

Originally posted by Tweek
MrMethane, I too make wine and just as a warning it is no where near as infection prone as beer. For starters the alcohol is usually at least double many times more than that of beer. I have stuck unsanitized thiefs in wine and gotten away with it and I would never be able to do that with beer.

Well when I stuck my arm in my wine it was actually prior to fermentation, so I imagine it would have just as suceptable(spelling?) to contamination.

Thanks for sharing your story. However I'm curious now, are the other factors in beer brewing that make it more prone to infection over wine? It seems to me that in general it would be easier to infect wine as it usually racked multiple times and also often has many stages of additives, ie. oak chips, fining, maloactic culture. Where as beer is usually only racked into a secondary(sometimes not at all) and again for bottling. Also initially its boiled so you are starting with a sterilized wort. Then again you do add sulfites to wine to aid in preventing infection so I guess that is one reason, any others?

[Tweek]

Originally posted by MrMethane
Well when I stuck my arm in my wine it was actually prior to fermentation, so I imagine it would have just as suceptable(spelling?) to contamination.

Thanks for sharing your story. However I'm curious now, are the other factors in beer brewing that make it more prone to infection over wine? It seems to me that in general it would be easier to infect wine as it usually racked multiple times and also often has many stages of additives, ie. oak chips, fining, maloactic culture. Where as beer is usually only racked into a secondary(sometimes not at all) and again for bottling. Also initially its boiled so you are starting with a sterilized wort. Then again you do add sulfites to wine to aid in preventing infection so I guess that is one reason, any others?

It is just the sulphites and the alcohol content. primarily the sulphites especially in the beginning. Even in wineries that use the natural yeast on the skins of the grapes they still do sulphite additions to keep away the others.

[Magnew]

Magnew, in the future you should just let it finish. It may be that it was supposed to ferment out to dryness. If it still tastes good the I wouldnt worry about it. The signs of infecton are easy to taste. Also you can just leave it in the carboy until it is done ferementing (again) and see what it tastes like, then go ahead and bottle if it still tastes good.

I almost went ahead and bottled this. What made me dump it was the timing and amount of activity. It had sat doing nothing in secondary for two weeks and then started again. And it really was active. At one point there was maybe an eighth inch layer of foam covering the whole surface. I have a schwartzbier in secondary now that has tiny little lacy spots of bubbles. That's what I expect.

Methane. You wouldn't be Mr. Methane the famous performing flatulist would you? www.mrmethane.com (http://www.mrmethane.com)

[MrMethane]

Originally posted by Magnew
Methane. You wouldn't be Mr. Methane the famous performing flatulist would you? www.mrmethane.com (http://www.mrmethane.com)
LOL, no I just like the name so I use it. I only wish I had the talent of that great man. Maybe if I stir the yeast at the bottom of my bottles I can achieve some of the real Mr. Methane's abilities.

[Stodbrew]

I, however, in my spare time, am Zamfir, master of the Pan Flute. But beer is my first love. :D