Infection Photo Thread

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barls said:
have you run it through kegs and taps? if not dont worry.
the above sound well above what i did but will work mine was clean with percab then caustic and then leave to cool then drain and rinse then sanitise as per normal for you. also make sure you wear the right ppe when you do it. the brewing grade caustic is a bitch on the skin.
Where do I get the good stuff? Caustic that is?
 
most commercial brewers use it. i got my last lot from the brewery i was working at.
get real nice and friendly they might help you with a small amount. you dont need much around 100ml to make up a 5% solution.
 
barls said:
most commercial brewers use it. i got my last lot from the brewery i was working at.
get real nice and friendly they might help you with a small amount. you dont need much around 100ml to make up a 5% solution.
Thanks Barls, i'll try my local but, failing that will the stuff from the shops be ok?
 
yeah you just need more to make up that percentage.
 
I bought the little tubs from woolies for a while, but got over paying for such small quantitied. Bunnings does 2kg packets. I've seen a seller on eBay doing up to 10kg but I haven't tried them.
 
Umm...so this is concerning:

bottle.jpg

  • 30l of 1.044 split into two with a vial of WLP300 in each on 06/09.
  • Slowly ramped up from 14l to 17.5l over a couple days (on advice from a hef brewer I respect).
  • Good, tall krausen once I hit about 16 degrees, all the right smells.
  • Racked one batch onto fruit on 11/06, having seen it was already at 1.010.
  • Bottle both batches on 15/06, the non fruit batch first. Both were at 1.009/1.010 depending on which hydrometer I trust.
  • The non fruit beer had dropped all its krausen...well and truly done for WLP300.
  • Gave some bottles three carbo drops to get a supremely high carbonation to compare (have succesfully done this to a berlinerweiss in both PET and champagne bottles before)
  • Put into the fridge at 25 as I want to get these carbed quickly.
  • 24 hours after bottling I come home to the picture above.
  • Both batches are showing this.
  • The only gear they had in common was a well sanitised bottling wand.
I've never seen anything like this. My immediate thought is an infection and a bit of a concern with those champagne bottles. The PETs are getting hard but nowhere near a high carb rock hard yet.

Any ideas?
 
24 hours at 24 degrees.

I am currently chilling one down to compare against the one sample I force carbed last night.
 
id say more likely just secondary fermentation taking place with increased fermentables.
 
barls said:
id say more likely just secondary fermentation taking place with increased fermentables.
What barls said... I had a very similar thing happen with a Witbier yeast. Since you've given it a fair amount of food with the priming sugars it's probably just getting all active again.

Methinks you worry too much Kev. Leave it be for a couple of weeks, nothing you can do about it now anyway!!


Mr. No-Tip said:
Umm...so this is concerning:

attachicon.gif
bottle.jpg

  • 30l of 1.044 split into two with a vial of WLP300 in each on 06/09.
  • Slowly ramped up from 14l to 17.5l over a couple days (on advice from a hef brewer I respect).
  • Good, tall krausen once I hit about 16 degrees, all the right smells.
  • Racked one batch onto fruit on 11/06, having seen it was already at 1.010.
  • Bottle both batches on 15/06, the non fruit batch first. Both were at 1.009/1.010 depending on which hydrometer I trust.
  • The non fruit beer had dropped all its krausen...well and truly done for WLP300.
  • Gave some bottles three carbo drops to get a supremely high carbonation to compare (have succesfully done this to a berlinerweiss in both PET and champagne bottles before)
  • Put into the fridge at 25 as I want to get these carbed quickly.
  • 24 hours after bottling I come home to the picture above.
  • Both batches are showing this.
  • The only gear they had in common was a well sanitised bottling wand.
I've never seen anything like this. My immediate thought is an infection and a bit of a concern with those champagne bottles. The PETs are getting hard but nowhere near a high carb rock hard yet.

Any ideas?
 
Worry? Me?

Possibly/probably. I've seen bottle krausen before, but that's pretty heavy, so thought I'd get some opinions.

I've chilled and tasted the hardest bottle tonight. Despite feeling quite hard with little give, it's come out close to an english style carb. Compared to my well carbed forced sample, the hef character is less pronounced, but I guess that's why this is a carb driven beer. It doesn't taste at all off for the style, so probably a paranoia on my part...
 
Hmmmmm.

7 days in the fermenter. First time I've used yeast nutrient and possibly used a little too much. Fermentation seems to have completed but the krausen or the creamy left overs anyway never died down. Don't worry about the green tinge - I think it's the hops that I chucked in last night. Anyway, everything smells ok and tastes okfrom hydrometer reading. i wanted to keg tomorrow.

Whaddya think?

image.jpg
 
Yeah no off smells or anything, just the cake on the top is well thick. Like mud in a dried out pond. I've never had it like that before - perhaps the yeast nutrient?
 
Yeast is happy, hops are green.


Skin growths in my experience are usually white and have different formations/patterns to yeast. Many remind me of what might happen if the surface of the moon had sex with the skim milk skin/granny skin I had on cups of milo at school camp.
 
Surely it isn't... Is it? Hoping that it isn't... Is it? It's only my 4th brew and the first one that I've used star san for all the gear and bottles!

I bottled these 4 days ago, everything was looking fine in the fermenter... No yuckies on top, still a few small bubbles left over from the yeasties.

But now, when I look at every bottle... The top has this waxy looking stuff around the outer edges of the liquid...
IMG_0252.JPG

When I give it a gentle shake, it goes a little cloudy and a tiny bit breaks away.
IMG_0253.JPG

It's got cocoa in it and I wasn't sure how if that would produce any odd stuff like this.
I had to pop one open to take a closer look, surely enough it's white...

Still tastes ok (actually, tastes great). If it keeps on tasting OK is it even safe to drink?
 
if it tastes fine and the bottles aren't becoming over carbonated, you're right.
 
What's the fat content of the cocoa powder? Could be you're seeing some of it rise up and collect as the secondary ferment/carbing takes place
 
Lodan said:
What's the fat content of the cocoa powder? Could be you're seeing some of it rise up and collect as the secondary ferment/carbing takes place
I'm totally going with this haha.

But it would make sense, most cocoa is about 20 percent fat and I used 190g so about 38g of fat, call it 1.5g per bottle.

When I gently shook it, the white solids remained a single solid flake, like a bit of shredded coconut. Even when pouring it stayed intact.

If it were a bacteria colony I'd expect it to break up a little?
 

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