Oh No, Infection!

[chimera]

After two consecutive infections, filled my fermenter to the brim, double strength mix of sodium percarbonate and soaked for 24 hours. Rinsed a few times back to brewing, several batches since, no problems.

Recommend sod per over bleach

 

[DJR]

Caustic soda! Use the power of NaOH!

But seriously, try napisan first, caustic is just too damn nasty. That and get some iodophor or phosphoric acid based no-rinse sanitiser, Sodium Met is a crap way to sanitise. I had an infection problem early on that went away as soon as i stopped using sodium met to sterilise bottles.

 

[Screwtop]

Do some searches. Sodium Met is not a good sanitiser, Bleach is the only thing that will kill the micro organisms resident in your kit/fermenter. Napisan is not a sanitiser, but it is the best for cleaning. Phosphoric Acid or Iodophor are sanitisers. Phos Acid is no-rinse and easy to use, but I have still had infections using it.

 

[evanmit]

cracked the first of these open last night to try. I marked the bottles in order of bottling so I could figure out which would be affected the worst (those bottled last, as more acetobacter in them).

There was a slight scum on the bottle, but you could not taste it or tell it was there. For a beer in the bottle just over a week, it came out amazingly good. I guess the moral of the story is to bottle before the infection takes off.

 

[Screwtop]

cracked the first of these open last night to try. I marked the bottles in order of bottling so I could figure out which would be affected the worst (those bottled last, as more acetobacter in them).

There was a slight scum on the bottle, but you could not taste it or tell it was there. For a beer in the bottle just over a week, it came out amazingly good. I guess the moral of the story is to bottle before the infection takes off.

Taste seems to go with time in the keg/bottle if you catch it early and don't transfer it to keg or bottling bucket. The primary infection is a throw away job.

Good result mate, at least you can drink them it's a PITA throwing beer out. Another little tip, open a bottle of one of your good beers and blend/mix a little of the infected one with it in the glass, makes it even less detectable, blending different beers results in some great tastes anyway.