My Brew Is Infected!

[morgansdad]

Hello All,

Well I took a hygrometer sample of my 5th brew yesterday. 1005 and still falling (wow I thought), although the brew had gotten darker since the previous days sample. As useal, gave it the taste test.

Pooh! Gone was the nice flavours, in it its place was litterally the taste of poo. I am pretty sure this is infected now, and i am going to tip it on the garden.

So whats done is done, and now i just wish to work out why. I have my ideas though.

The brew is coopers pale ale kit (international series), combined with about 500g of dex. I'm brewing in 11.5 litres (MSB fermenter), and added the dex only to get the OG up to 1045 (which I though was about right for this style).

Yeast was some reclaimed coopers yeast, which had been seperated with cooled boiled water and stored in the fridge. This process had been added to over numerous drinkings of coopers probably over 3 to 6 months.

Piched at 24 degress, brewed at 18 degrees. Within 24 hours, my yeast had gone hyperactive, with foam pouring out the airlock, down the fermenter and onto the bench. Cleaned up the mess, only to have to go back 2hrs later (or less) and repeat. Drained some brew from the fermenter to increase the airspace in the fementer (repeated twice about .5L per time), the airlock would be overflowing within 2 hrs.

All went well (excepting mess) for 6 days, with samples tasting great (just like a coopers). Untill yesterdays sample.

As said, this is my 5th brew, the previous being a MSB tow- row lager (drinking now, tastes great), a partial mash lager, a partial mash IPA, and a Ginger beer (coopers can combined with some other ingrediants). The GB is in my other fermenter, and tastes fine.

All equipment was cleaned with sodium percarbonate brior to brewing.

I'm thinking the problem lies with either the yeast itself, or the fact the airlock was spewing foam out nearly contantly.

Can anyone offer their thoughts or advice?

 

[KGB]

I'd say the yeast was dodgy.
How did you drain some of the wort? Just ou tthe tap I assume? If so that should be fine. Usually foam out the airlock is OK as long as you clean it once it starts to slow down and replace with clean water.

 

[blackbock]

Hi morgansdad, sorry to hear about your infection.

Well I took a hygrometer sample of my 5th brew yesterday. 1005 and still falling (wow I thought), although the brew had gotten darker since the previous days sample. As useal, gave it the taste test.

Pooh! Gone was the nice flavours, in it its place was litterally the taste of poo.

This sounds like a classic bacterial gusher infection.

added to over numerous drinkings of coopers probably over 3 to 6 months.

That sounds like part of the problem - next time try to get a few dregs together within a day or so.
Did you drink directly from the Coopers bottles beforehand? This could be a source of bacterial infection, so always pour into glasses if you plan to harvest yeast dregs.

All equipment was cleaned with sodium percarbonate brior to brewing.

Assume you sanitised afterwards as well?
Sodium percarbonate is a great cleaner, but it is not a very good sanitiser.

Of course if you did everything right there is always the chance that you were just unlucky. Whatever you do now give your equipment a thorough clean before the next brew, preferably using bleach or caustic or something deadly on germs!

 

[Keifer]

I had some forbidden fruit yeast from a bottle and stepped it up (smelt great while it was growing) then seperated and stored in the fridge. I thought it was all good till 3-4 months later i had a look and all 4 bottles had big furry funky sh!t growing in em.
So when i get back into brewing full steam again, im not gonna be cheap and use mostly packaged yeasts and maybe skim from the krausen here n there. No more bottle stuff for me.
Just something to think about...

 

[morgansdad]

Thanks ppl for your help, although to be honest a couple of things have come to mind which now have me in 2nd thoughts.

First I read this thread http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=17816 and thought "gee this sounds familiar".

Only differance was this was kit yeast and I used bottle yeast. Now to confess my lazyness, haven't emptied the fermenter yet, so thought "maybe this is a coopers yeast trait and not an infection".

So i took a sample and tentivley sniffed. No bad smell!. took a taste, Tastes fine! WTF!?

6 days or so on the yeast cake and all of a sudden its ok? Is this a case of dissapating sulfur dioxide (or similar)?

I think I might as well bottle now and just hope for the best! Wont be expecting much though!

That sounds like part of the problem - next time try to get a few dregs together within a day or so.
Did you drink directly from the Coopers bottles beforehand? This could be a source of bacterial infection, so always pour into glasses if you plan to harvest yeast dregs.

Sounds like very sound advice. The samples were taken from the bottle after the drinking contents had been poured into a glass. I'm not too keen on using bottle yeast after this eppisode though.

Assume you sanitised afterwards as well?
Sodium percarbonate is a great cleaner, but it is not a very good sanitiser.
.

Yes, I did also rinse in bleach, then plenty of hot water. That was mainly becuase i didnt think the C2H6Na4O12 really did anything. So by being overcautious I may have done ok.

With good news though, the Ginger Beer is an absolute ripper! FG of 1010 (OG of 1035), tasted a little "Sharp", so I added a few pelletes of Amarillo to dry hop and see what that would do. Worked a treat and will only get better after time (After fully carbed up)