Infection Id From Attached Pic

[Benniee]

As for botulism and everything, I am not super concerned, perhaps blissfully ignorant. Lambics are beautiful beers. I am willing to see how the keg goes if it tastes OK. I will not serve it to anyone other than myself and will put a biohazard symbol on the tap. If I am hospitalised with immovable limbs, you can all point and say "I told you so."

It's my understanding the pH of the beer once it has a fermentation underway is well below that where the botulism spores are able to reproduce.

I know it gets tossed up here from time to time, but what are the statistics of botulism in home brewed beer?

Benniee

 

[brettprevans]

Looks like the wild yeast infection I had. It kept growing even at lager temps. 5 months later I took it out to see if maybe the beer survived... Only to find that it seemed to haven ahold and made gunk out of the top 1-2inches of beer. It was silky and milky and textured and fkn ferral. I dumped it, boiling water everywhere, bleech and vinager for a week, PBW and finally starsan. Awful shit.

 

[O'Henry]

In home preserving, the pH of things like tomatoes is considered to be too low for botulism. Tomatoes, on the whole, have a pH below 4.6, so if home-preserved tomato sauce is considered safe without a water bath, then beer, at a much lower pH, should be safe from it. Just saying...

 

[zoidbergmerc]

yeah botulism usually grows in honey, beef and pork. Not beer.

 

[Bizier]

Well, I kegged it. It felt weird going through my normal sanitation schedule for kegging...

I am interested to know if it is a wild yeast or an acetobacter.

From what I can tell, it looks like a yeast, but I have little knowledge of what acetobacter looks like. I think it is bizarre that it formed a distinct regular pattern, perhaps because the cell buds from a regular angle or something. It is absolutely unlike any brewers yeast I have ever seen.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

That would be - as Tony said - a wild yeast infection, or at least mainly. What you have going there is a stock standard type pellicle. It forms on the surface of the beer because the yeast are eating the wort from underneath, but need the oxygen from above - OR - because they are trying to exclude the oxygen so they shove out a sort of polysacharide layer that forms a "cap" on the beer and protects it from exposure to oxygen. From Tony description... I'm guessing the former.

Brettanomyces (or some strains) form a pellicle, so do some other wild yeasts. Its not - or at least I don't think it is - an acetobacter infection. If it were, it would smell distinctly vinegar like and tend to produce a slimy, maybe ropey haze in the beer rather than a pellicle.

Either way - its not going to kill you or make you sick, so if you want to drink it go right ahead. It may make you toss your cookies from the flavour... but thats about as bad as it can get.

TB

edit: PS - shove the term Beer Pellicle into the Google image search... you will see a few familiar looking images.

 

[Screwtop]

That would be - as Tony said - a wild yeast infection

Looks like yeast to me too

Its not - or at least I don't think it is - an acetobacter infection.

Nor do I, Acetobacter is visibly different, Acetobacter tends to have a striated or obligate appearance. Have posted about the difference many times, but to help out, an Acetobacter Pellicle looks a bit like this:



Sorry, the black and white pic is from an old training manual.

If it were, it would smell distinctly vinegar like and tend to produce a slimy, maybe ropey haze in the beer rather than a pellicle.

Yes Acetobacter does have a vinegar like aroma. However it does form a Pellicle which is clingy or slightly slimey and never produces haze in the fermenting medium. This bug has visited my brewery on a few occasions.

A haze would suggest Ropey Bacillus, believe me you will be able to quickly identify this bug. Snot Like would be a good description, it is a foul bug and readily identifyable. Have had the pleasure of meeting this bug a few times, only once in the brewery thankfully.

Either way - its not going to kill you or make you sick, so if you want to drink it go right ahead. It may make you toss your cookies from the flavour... but thats about as bad as it can get.

I agree, drink as much of it as you can, within limits of course. Your palate and memory will pidgeon hole the appearance/aroma/flavour and you will be in no doubt in the future.

 

[TidalPete]

This is what Acetobactor looks like & was kindly identified by Screwy.
No harm in filing this away for future reference.



TP

 

[felten]

completely off topic, but I've had that nail polish remover smell in my sourdough starter before, it seemed to disappear after I moved my starter to an airtight container.

I'm also pretty sure i have an aceto in there (vinegar smell) and maybe some kind of a brett (feet smell), and at times a wonderful banana smell... maybe i should make a lambic with it?

 

[benno1973]

C'Mon fella's - if its got a definite infection - don't drink it. You can always make another batch and put it down to experience. Best case is it tastes a little funny and doesn't do anything bad to you... worst case is well... what do you guys know about Botulism.

It's just being fermented by an organism different to the yeast added. Drink it. If it tastes good, then its a winner. If it tastes average, then you file the taste away for future reference to be able to identify the infection again. If it tastes so bad you can't drink it, then tip it.

But don't tip an infected beer. The 'infected' part is simply something else has stamped it's mark on the beer, and it isn't always going to be bad. We drink lambics and farmhouse ales where we deliberately add Brett, but when Brett accidentally colonises something we balk and tip it out? Why? Some Belgian breweries have open fermenters and large louvered windows to let wild yeasts colonise their beer.

 

[bit]

Bizier,
This is not wild yeast. If you want to find out what it is call Symbion and enquire for the cost of microbiological sample you want to send them. Maybe you discovered new form of life.
www.symbion.com.au -- (no affiliation)....

:icon_cheers: - bit

Well, I kegged it. It felt weird going through my normal sanitation schedule for kegging...

I am interested to know if it is a wild yeast or an acetobacter.

From what I can tell, it looks like a yeast, but I have little knowledge of what acetobacter looks like. I think it is bizarre that it formed a distinct regular pattern, perhaps because the cell buds from a regular angle or something. It is absolutely unlike any brewers yeast I have ever seen.

 

[Screwtop]

Bizier,
This is not wild yeast. If you want to find out what it is call Symbion and enquire for the cost of microbiological sample you want to send them. Maybe you discovered new form of life.
www.symbion.com.au -- (no affiliation)....

:icon_cheers: - bit

Since you know it is not wild yeast, and since there is no www.symbion.com.au maybe you would like to inform bizier what it is!! I would be interested to know also.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[bit]

Whatever it is it does not look good. h34r:

http://www.truelocal.com.au/business/symbi...alth/north-ryde
Symbion or any other pathology lab could do it.

Cheers,
~ bit

Since you know it is not wild yeast, and since there is no www.symbion.com.au maybe you would like to inform bizier what it is!! I would be interested to know also.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Yes Acetobacter does have a vinegar like aroma. However it does form a Pellicle which is clingy or slightly slimey and never produces haze in the fermenting medium. This bug has visited my brewery on a few occasions.

A haze would suggest Ropey Bacillus, believe me you will be able to quickly identify this bug. Snot Like would be a good description, it is a foul bug and readily identifyable. Have had the pleasure of meeting this bug a few times, only once in the brewery thankfully.

I've had acetobacter once - in a beer I just didn't get around to kegging. Think a vinegar fly must have gotten in. I did get a quite distinct haze in the liquid part, and my brewing texts suggest its an acetobacter trait; and I didn't get a pellicle but certainly cede to your knowledge on that... I just hadn't seen it mentioned and didn't get it in my beer.

I like Brett pellicles the best... they just look like a layer of solid snot on top of your beer. Evil looking crap... tasty little buggers though.

 

[Bizier]

Surprise surprise... I am going to tip both kegs.

They have a strange viscous texture, and just taste 'wrong' but not overly offensive.

I think that to be fair, the wort was exposed to a plethora of organisms, and while something has manifested visibly in one fermenter only, both taste equally off and have the same strange mouthfeel.

I am not bothered to send to a pathology lab, there is probably a veritable zoo in there, ranging acetobacter to staphylococcus. But the main thing is that it tastes bad, not terrible, just not good.

I am still tempted to pitch them with brett and just leave the kegs for a few months, but I think I'd rather do that with a beer designed for the purpose.