Nightmare on Brew Street

[stakka82]

If you are going to replace all your fermenters I'd recommend the Bunnings square 30L models and grab a few $2 taps while you are there. That way you'll have a "virgin" system when you get to fire up the Braumeister.

How much are they a pop? I will get one replacement fermenter today, and am going to ferment a test batch in the house rather than the fermenting fridge/garage using brand new transfer hose to the keg, which I am going to town on right now. If after doing this and using new lines in keezer and cleaning that I'm still in trouble, then I may take that option as it is most likely cheaper for a full replace.

 

[Nick JD]

Nah, not regularly and I know I should. The last time I did was probably 6 months ago. I will certainly be doing that today though.

Make sure you smell the thing just after you pop the sleeve out. It'll be a wakeup call. Will smell like a dead rat.

There's a thread on how to pop taps apart here somewhere. After pulling a tap apart and smelling it a while back, I strongly believe that the tap is the source of most homebrewing infections.

 

[manticle]

So easy to pull apart. Takes about 5 seconds.

piece of dowel that fits in the thread end, grip main tap shaft and dowel, with thumb holding the exit point of the main tap shaft, bang free end of dowel sharply on concrete or other hard surface, tap separates into two pieces.

 

[WarmBeer]

So easy to pull apart. Takes about 5 seconds.

piece of dowel that fits in the thread end, grip main tap shaft and dowel, with thumb holding the exit point of the main tap shaft, bang free end of dowel sharply on concrete or other hard surface, tap separates into two pieces.

Even easier if you soak the tap in hot water for about 5 mins beforehand, as it softens the plastic slightly.

 

[stakka82]

Update:

I pulled apart everything I had after starting this thread and soaked everything in boiling water and sodium perc, then rinsed with boiling water then starsanned. Pulled all fermenter taps apart and did the same. Soaked everything in starsan twice just for good measure.

I then had a run of about 5 infection free beers. Not a single off flavour, in fact a couple of those were among the best I've ever brewed. But...

I pitched a cube of citra pale ale the other day and let it ferment out, at which time I tasted it while hydro testing and it had the same smell and flavour of the previous infections but in a very slight way. I thought I might be dreaming it so I dry hopped and cold crashed it anyway. A few days later when I went to keg I tasted it and it was foul, tasted and smelt the same but worse than the last bad run.

I tipped the whole batch without even kegging it and then went to town cleaning everything again. Pulled taps apart and everything (I do this before every pitch after the first infections those months ago). Hot sodium perc and starsan again. Sprayed down the ferment fridge about 3 times with starsan. Poured hot sodium perc all over the garage floor. Stanned the garage floor. Yep. Starsanned the garage FLOOR.

Pitched another cube. This one was a bitter, 10 days in im about to cold crash. Same taste, same off smell. Cant tell the difference between this beer and the citra pale, cant taste malt or hops. I fermented the other cube of this bitter from the same batch a couple of weeks ago and I was fine, so I know this is cold side...

Third cube, other half of the citra pale ale, tasted tonight 4 days into fermentation, same taste and smell.

The smell is slightly medicinal and the taste is almost sickly sweet, like slighly rotten fruit or something. Another thing I have noticed is that the beers don't clear properly, they are much more turbid than expected at any given sample point. Doing a bit of research it seems like wild yeast is likely the culprit?


I am in such a foul mood about this it's hard to explain. I feel like throwing the towel in, honestly. Don't know what else to do.

 

[GalBrew]

You could ferment a commercial FWK to confirm that it's a cold side issue.

 

[labels]

Might be time to ditch the suspect equipment. Some bugs are almost impossible to rid of. One last ditch effort would be to use a strong bleach solution. If you lower the pH as well with star san or phos it is twice as effective.

No need to go into the need to reduce the bleach to zero afterwards because you know all that and the problems it can cause, but it sure is a powerfull bug killer.

 

[dent]

Personally I'm not so confident of the sanitising powers of your average liquid sanitation agent. Various microoranisms can avoid contact with the santiser in a variety of ways (scratches, gaps, biofilms, etc) - I'm surprised actually by how often starsan and the like actually work. So I use a combination of heat and santisers in my sanitation regime - the standard is to put the fermenter (with the tap open), along with the lid, upside down into an appropriately sized stainless pot, along with a few litres of water. I put this on the gas burner and boil the crap out of it for 15 minutes or so. The steam fills the whole fermenter and it quickly gets above 90 degrees or so - the steam actually starts blasting out of the end of the fermenter tap after a while. This way even any protected greblies will be destroyed with heat.

Even better when I am fermenting in stainless, then I can just boil the water inside the fermenter itself.

If I were you I'd try fermenting in the cube to start, even if you have to tip out a few litres to make room, it is better than tipping out the whole cube later on. Also I'd bottle condition a few bottles to see if the infection arrives at the kegging stage or not. Consider skipping the dry hopping for now too, in case your hop vendor breaks up his bags where he grinds his malt, or something.

 

[Helles]

Try nuking fermenters in Bleach / sod perc / sod met filling to the brim for a week or two
Worked for me when i had 2 brews in a row go bad a while back
I do this every couple of brews now to be sure
Just rinse well after and Star San before brewing

 

[Helles]

You will so find that with the sodium metibisulphate it is the fumes the do the sterilizing/sanitising
So try sod met and a kettle of boiling water in fermenters if needed

 

[stakka82]

If I were you I'd try fermenting in the cube to start, even if you have to tip out a few litres to make room, it is better than tipping out the whole cube later on. Also I'd bottle condition a few bottles to see if the infection arrives at the kegging stage or not. Consider skipping the dry hopping for now too, in case your hop vendor breaks up his bags where he grinds his malt, or something.

Yeah I have deduced that it's not the kegs or dispensing equipment, all this is appearing before they reach the keg.

The problem is appearing before dry hopping too.

I am leaning towards the boiling followed by chlorine.

My usual routine is to rinse fermenters straight after use then fill to the rim with sodium perc until I have to sanitise before use.

Another thing that worries me is that I have had 3 different fermenters display this in a row. All 3 had non infected beers in the previously. Then BAM! all three are done. All filled by different cubes. There is NO common ground between the 3. All had fresh packets of dry yeast pitched, no cakes, no slurry. I even pitched the last 2 inside incase it was the environment in the garage.

 

[stakka82]

I have homebrew bleach here, it's sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide. What dilution do those who have used bleach before recommend? Un-diluted it is 13 g/L sodium hydroxide and 53 g/l hypochlorite.

 

[dent]

It sounds a bit to me like you're inadvertently selective breeding the organisms that survive your particular sanitation process. If it is the same bug (likely since the effect is the same) I suspect you never killed them altogether last time and it just took a few brews for them to get their numbers high enough to be perceptible in the beer.

So changing things up with chlorine or whatever is a plus. But it sounds like those same three stanky fermenters are gonna bite you again after a while unless you do something drastically different.

 

[Helles]

Been a while since i have used bleach only but it was a guess at half cup in a 30 lt fermenter
As i say been a while never really measured it just splashed it in and filled up

 

[stakka82]

It sounds a bit to me like you're inadvertently selective breeding the organisms that survive your particular sanitation process. If it is the same bug (likely since the effect is the same) I suspect you never killed them altogether last time and it just took a few brews for them to get their numbers high enough to be perceptible in the beer.

So changing things up with chlorine or whatever is a plus. But it sounds like those same three stanky fermenters are gonna bite you again after a while unless you do something drastically different.

That is my thinking also. I have an unused brand new fermenter here but am hesitant to take the easy way out only to have this return in another couple months time in the new fermenter and then I'm back to where I am now without having beat this.

And yeah, it is definitely the same bug. I know what it is before the hydro tube is 20 cms from my face.

 

[Florian]

the standard is to put the fermenter (with the tap open), along with the lid, upside down into an appropriately sized stainless pot, along with a few litres of water. I put this on the gas burner and boil the crap out of it for 15 minutes or so. The steam fills the whole fermenter and it quickly gets above 90 degrees or so - the steam actually starts blasting out of the end of the fermenter tap after a while. This way even any protected greblies will be destroyed with heat.

For those who have or had small kids, an easy way to do this is to use your steam steriliser. Some Bunnings fermenters and others fit directly into the steriliser upside down, just let it run a few cycles with the fermenter tap open.
Put you lines and other small bits like valves etc into the steriliser as well.

 

[dicko]

Have you checked the cleanliness of the KETTLE TAP??

Cheers

 

[jc64]

Seeming as though you have had a problem again I'll update as well. I took apart my boil kettle ball valve, bugger all on it. I've been pulling them apart when I'm bored though, it's easy, and can't hurt to check. I still just recirculate PBW after brewing and scrub.

After reading everything you have done after getting this infection problem again the only thing I would do is get a fresh fermentor and give it a try. I chill my wort, but is it possible something is going amiss when you are sealing your cube to no-chill? I don't have taps on my fermentors, I use a thief to get hydro samples, then rack using a siphon. This eliminates the tap as a problem for me.

 

[bum]

Mightn't a siphon have more places for nasties to hide and be harder to clean than a tap?

Lecterfan recently made a thread about a series of infections he's been having that he seems to be getting on top of. No clear answers there but some posts might be food for thought for you guys (if you haven't seen it already).

[EDIT: I a whole word.]

 

[stakka82]

So the more I think about what I'm seeing and the more I read the more I'm sure it's wild yeast:

"Wild yeast can produce a number of problems in your beer.


Haze or turbidity: Wild yeast often flocculate and sediment poorly. They may also be less sensitive to fining because they lack a strong negative charge.

Surface film or pellicle formation: In the presence of air, some wild yeast can grow rapidly and form a film on the surface of the beer. They can also cause haze.

Superattenuation: Wild yeast may be able to ferment sugars that normal cultured yeast cannot (like maltotetraose and dextrins), which can lead to significantly lower terminal gravities, higher alcohol content, and in some cases off flavors.

Off flavors: Each yeast produces a different flavor profile because of differences in ester, fusel alcohol, and diketone production and because of other metabolic processes. Thus, any yeast not intended to be in your beer can produce unintended flavors. Non-Saccharomyces yeast may produce radically different flavors in beer, and even very low concentrations of some yeast may have dramatic effects on beer flavor." - More beer

"Kloeckera (Teleomorph Hanseniaspora), usually the most common "wild yeast" found in the vineyard. Some species are known "killer yeast" that produce inhibitory levels of ethyl acetate and acetic acid that can kill off sensitive strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae[5]" - Wikipedia

"The occurrence of killer wine yeasts in Comahue Region (Patagonia, Argentina) was studied. Wild wine yeasts were isolated from spontaneously fermenting Merlot and Malbec type musts. Out of 135 isolates analyzed 37% were sensitive to some well characterized killer toxins as K1-K10 and did not show killer activity (sensitive phenotype, S), 21% showed neutral phenotype (N) and 42% demonstrated killer activity (killer phenotype, K). All but two killer strains, identified as Candida pulcherrima and Kluyveromyces marxianus, were Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Additionally, all killer strains were sensitive to some killer reference strains, showing a killer-sensitive phenotype (KS); neither Saccharomyces or non-Saccharomyces wild yeasts were phenotype killer-resistant (KR). The incidence of the killer character varied with respect to fermentation stage and grape variety, increasing throughout fermentation (13-55% to 36-90%)."
- Killer behaviour in wild wine yeasts associated with Merlot and Malbec type musts spontaneously fermented from northwestern Patagonia (Argentina). J Basic Microbiol. 2001;41(2):105-113

Reasons why I think it's wild yeast, as above:

* Incredibly hard to shake
* Strong off flavour/smell
* Huge haze in beer, heaps of suspended matter
* No yeast cake forming
* Ferments are appearing/behaving differently

The last point is something I only noticed last night, neither the 2 currently infected beers nor the last one had a yeast cake sedimented at the bottom of the fermenter. I have never had a beer not have a yeast cake form at the bottom of a fermenter before.

The more I read the more I get this crazy theory (and it is a theory, cause I can't plate or scope to actually find out what's going on):

It's a wild yeast infection, and the wild yeast strain expresses a 'killer' toxin. Yeasts I have used are susceptible to this toxin. This would explain why the ferments are acting differently. No activity until about 24 hours using US-05 - usually I get activity after around 6 hours, 12 absolute maximum. The formation of the krausen looks different to what it usually does - brownish fuzzy patches and more bubbling when it finally does appear. I mean bubbling and not foaming.

The infection is present from the very early stages of ferment. Latest brew tastes fowl 4 days in. If the wild yeast is killing off the pitched yeast, this would explain the above and also why I am not seeing a cake form and no flocculation. I am guessing the wild yeast kills the pitched yeast before it can get a toehold (happening in the first 24 hours, then the wild yeast takes over and the 'ferment' I am seeing is actually the wild yeast doing the bulk of the work.

I did a science degree majoring in immunology and worked as a micro for 3 years (admittedly I have never worked with yeasts) but the above seems plausible and would explain a lot of stuff. I really hope I'm wrong though cause I have 2 fermenters that would be absolute factories right about now and god knows how many spores they are spewing all over my brewing area.

I am going to let one of these fermenters go for another week to check for superattenuation. Damage is done I may as well have another piece of info.

After that it's heat and chlorine and 10 litre biab with 4 buck packs of bry97 until I smash this ******* thing.