First go with new boiler

[GHW]

Update on this. I'm 99% certain it's infected. It's still blowing co2 off frequently (6 days in) and has a large frothy krausen still. Not conclusive, but I tasted a sample; foul. Smells and tastes sour.

What do you think folks, bin it?

The annoying thing is I will need to replace anything plastic that came in touch with the rancid ginger beer (which I'm assuming is also infected but haven't tasted yet)...2 fv's, siphon, funnel, bottling wand...and I'm 40 pints down. That's £20 odd quids worth of kit (and a trip to the dump).

Boo. Feeling rather glum.

 

[Covrich]

Well that utterly sucks, you certainly do not think its worth keeping for a few days longer

Could you not boil and use a powerful steraliser agent on your equipment ?

 

[ManseMasher]

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/sterilising.htm

Why will you have to replace everything? Could you not bleach/hydrogen peroxide the living daylights out of the kit?

 

[GHW]

From everything I've read standard chlorine based steriliser won't kill it off, and I used wvp as usual on the fv before kicking this batch off. Heat works apparently, but that's not really an option for most things.

I've read of people having 3-4 batches ruined, so rather than chancing the cost and misery of that, I'd rather replace all the plastic kit now and crack on. Like say it's about £20 quids worth so rubbish, but not mega rubbish

 

[Tony1951]

From everything I've read standard chlorine based steriliser won't kill it off, and I used wvp as usual on the fv before kicking this batch off. Heat works apparently, but that's not really an option for most things.

I've read of people having 3-4 batches ruined, so rather than chancing the cost and misery of that, I'd rather replace all the plastic kit now and crack on. Like say it's about £20 quids worth so rubbish, but not mega rubbish

Unscented, cheap chlorine bleach at suitable dilution, left for a few hours and then thoroughly rinsed?

I doubt there is a need to scrap equipment. Bleach the whole place where you do your brewing.

Are you certain that it is infected? If you got a good quick start to the fermentation, which seems to be true, I can't think how it got infected. You describe a very vigorous ferment. That would usually out compete the bad bugs floating around the air. Puzzling stuff.

I try not to open a FV once it gets going and thoroughly wash and sterilise anything that comes into contact with sweet wort. Once the ferment gets going a couple of days it becomes quite anti bacterial on its own because it becomes more acid and has alcohol in it. A ferment like what you described would be about three percent ABV within a day or two.

 

[clibit]

I always used thin household bleach til recently. It works very effectively, 4ml per litre, 2 litres for about 29p. You have to rinse it off, but it's as effective as anything I reckon. Works fine with plastic too.

 

[GHW]

The main reason I'm convinced it's infected (other than the smell and taste) is that there is a clear candidate for how wild yeast introduced, my attempt at ginger beer. Unpeeled ginger is traditionally used to start a gnger beer ferment. It's called a 'ginger bug' in Jamaica. Though that doesn't explain why my ginger beer is rank. But anyway, clearly my usual (and until now, adequate) sterilising regime hasnt worked so I think new kit is the best option. Have read too much abut people not able to fix the issue without doing this first. It's a bit like when ripley decides to nuke the site from orbit in Aliens: it's the only way to be sure

 

[Slid]

I am also going to suggest that you may be a bit hasty.

Is this the first time you have done this sort of beer?

Is the smell and taste sulphurous? H2S - smells of rotten eggs - is a frequent by product of the brewing process.

What you may have read is that using sodium metabisulphite is not now highly regarded in beer brewing circles. (It's in the top right hand corner on P47 of Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes)?

That is not the same as bleach, the principal drawback of which is that it makes everything stink like my Mother-in-Law's kitchen.

I suggest you progress as normal and reserve judgement until judgement day in a few weeks time.

In the meantime, I would heartily recomend that you get some Star San and a spray gun.

 

[GHW]

I am also going to suggest that you may be a bit hasty.

Is this the first time you have done this sort of beer?

Is the smell and taste sulphurous? H2S - smells of rotten eggs - is a frequent by product of the brewing process.

What you may have read is that using sodium metabisulphite is not now highly regarded in beer brewing circles. (It's in the top right hand corner on P47 of Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes)?

That is not the same as bleach, the principal drawback of which is that it makes everything stink like my Mother-in-Law's kitchen.

I suggest you progress as normal and reserve judgement until judgement day in a few weeks time.

In the meantime, I would heartily recomend that you get some Star San and a spray gun.

Got star San and sprayer! I use wvp for fv's as its easy jsut to plop it in and fill the fv with water, chuck in everything I want to sterilise and then let it sit while I boil. Star San for bottling.

It's not an eggy smell (the yeast pack did note it might be sulfurous). It's acid sharpness. Put it this way, I'd be very surprised if anything fit for consumption smelt like this!

Anyway. I'm off on hols next week so I'll leave it til after that and hold off ordering the new kit too. We'll see!

 

[Slid]

Got star San and sprayer! I use wvp for fv's as its easy jsut to plop it in and fill the fv with water, chuck in everything I want to sterilise and then let it sit while I boil. Star San for bottling.

It's not an eggy smell (the yeast pack did note it might be sulfurous). It's acid sharpness. Put it this way, I'd be very surprised if anything fit for consumption smelt like this!

Anyway. I'm off on hols next week so I'll leave it til after that and hold off ordering the new kit too. We'll see!

Certainly sounds like a vinegary type problem rather than a suphury one.

Not sure I follow the logic of using Star San at bottling time, when the beer is pretty much safe, but not at the start, when it's vulnerable. If you poured the Star San solution into the FV, put all the kit in it, then poured the most of the SS solution back into the container, it can be re-used a number of times.

Anyway, hope you have a good holiday and come home to good news.

 

[Spapro]

I re-use my starsan a good number of times as Slid suggests.

Store my starsan solution in a couple of 5l Morrisons bottled water bottles, funneling back in after each use. I use the same solution for a while (occasionally testing PH is still 3 or under with some litmus paper) and then dump it and mix some fresh.

As long as the stuff you are sterilising with it is clean (which it should be) then its no problem to re-use the starsan solution for a while.

 

[MyQul]

Have a look at this article from BYO blog. I haven't read it all but it might suggest a way you can 'nuke everything from space' and keep your kit

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/1346-sanitation-tips-from-the-pros

 

[MyQul]

Heat works apparently, but that's not really an option for most things.

I regularly put boiling wort in all my FV's couldn't you just fill your FV with boiling water and then just insulated it (like when you do a mash) so it stays at 100C for as long as possible and leave it for an hour or so?

 

[GHW]

Thanks all.

Maybe I'll get the stuff I need for an easy 10L brew and see how it goes. I'll only be spending a tenner on grain/ yeast / delivery as I've got hops. If that goes west after some serious sanitising then I'll get new kit. And I won't be risking the 40pt kit I won.

What's driving this is just the fear of going through the misery and cost of a serious of lost brews; the cost/ease of replacing a bit of kit seems small by comparison!

 

[GHW]

Done a bit more reading up (myqul's) link plus some others, iodophor seems to be more effective against yeast than chlorine based stuff like wvp so I might get some of that. Thing is by the time I've bought that and the grain for another brew I could probably have replaced most of the kit...can't win really!

 

[GHW]

Got home from hols today to find this still fermenting merrily, which is odd - I've not had something ferment for two full weeks before. However, it's only down to 1010 as expected so no crazy levels of attenuation which might have indicated a wild yeast infection.

It still doesn't smell great, and the sample jar didn't taste great, but nowhere near as bad as it had smelled before I went away, and the aftertaste is what I would expect from a wheat beer. I'm going to leave it ferment out completely but am a bit more hopeful that it's not a write off. Maybe this yeast just throws off funky smells when it's fermenting.

Anyone used it before and had similar experiences? It's wyeast Weihenstephan Weiss

 

[clibit]

I haven't, but wouldnt be surprised if it does. Hang in there dude!

 

[BeerCat]

I have to say the wheat beer i brewed recently had an odd smell. Hard to put my finger on it but peculiar. It did fade in a month of bottling. I bought a few varieties of Polish wheat beer to compare and i preferred the taste of mine and it was clearer. Good luck

 

[GHW]

Ha cheers guys.
Smells better again today (or maybe I'm used to it). Did some extensive reading on this yeast. I've found a few people refer to sulfur and sour smells so I'm feeling more reassured. They all seem to say it goes with bottle conditioning.

Also it's very temperature sensitive, and I haven't really paid much attention to temp if I'm honest. It's generally about 20c where I keep my fv so I've stopped monitoring now the weather is warmer (I can't cool it, only warm it and it's warm enough). So that could have played a part.

Still producing a bit of co2 though so will l leave til next weekend then bottle up. Fingers crossed.

Got some grain to do a 5L test brew using the same equipment, if that comes out ok I'll keep it all.