My infected American Amber Ale

That’s a good sign, but if you have souring bacteria in there, the hops in your dead ringer may inhibit their growth so it won’t show signs of infection. I’d still treat it as if it were infected. The hops will certainly knock them down a bit, but probably won’t kill all of them. Then the ones that survive will be more hop tolerant.

Wow, scary stuff. Does this mean that star San is not adequate to fight this ? Wondering if I should be doing more than PBW & then Star San to prevent infections.

In most cases Tom, what you are doing is just fine… Then, when some of your equipment has been around/used sooo many times, there could be some scratches in… tubing, plastic buckets and the such that will harbor… the bug… So how the soft goods are handled and cleaned should be watched with a close eye… Thats where Stainless is more of a durable product to use… It was even back in the “beginning” days of home brewing, you had to be careful and NOT get a carboy that held acid… Sneezles61

Thanks. Another good reason to get that SS Brewtech 7 gal stainless bucket fermentor :slight_smile: . Almost bought it the other day but could not find a way to use a gift card to offset my debit card charge ( wanted to combine them).
Maybe I should plan on replacing my tubing once in a while as well.

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go with the Conical with butterfly valves. You not be disappointed. Also they have excellent customer service so if you’re having any problems shoot them an email, they’ll be on top of it.

It’s also the risk of reusing yeast. A slight risk, but every time you open the fermenter or it sucks back a little outside air, that air is full of wild yeasts, bacteria, mold spores, etc. Most of those can’t live in fermented beer, but the ones responsible for spoilage do just fine. And every batch of beer has some spoilage microbes in it, just not enough to have an impact, or would take long enough to build up a population that the beer would go bad for other reasons, like losing carb or oxidizing.

However, when you reuse yeast, every subsequent batch gives those microbes a chance to build up their population, and eventually they will be enough of the culture to sour the beer or have some other impact. So it’s really critical to have good sanitation practices when you’re saving yeast, and to start over again after a certain number of batches, before the spoilage microbes can have an impact. Also, some of those microbes are acid lovers, so it’s not surprising that acid based sanitizers may be less effective in killing them. Not a bad idea to switch up your sanitizer with something like an iodine based one occasionally, even though they’re a bit of a PITA.

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Very informative thread, thank you for all the info. I never thought much about this happening but i guess you don’t till it happens to you…
I don’t reuse yeast, as I don’t know much about doing that yet and I am not sure I brew enough to make it worthwhile.
I think I will order the SS Brewtech brew bucket next week. Would love to get the Chronical, but it’s 2x the price and more importantly would not fit in my chest freezer. ( it’s much taller than the brew bucket).
I have never tried the iodine sanitizer but I think I will get some and give my stuff a soak in it to be safe.

Look at Anvil brewing… they have a nice fermenter there too… Didn’t UncDeo get one? Thats my direction soon… I just like Stainless for the cleaning aspect… Saving yeast isn’t as tough as it sounds… Porkchop laid it out very nicely up there… I’ve taken some yeast quite a ways… but in the back of my mind, the worrying really bothers me past 7 pitches… I’m using this Australian ale yeast that is been just a great one… I can’t seem to find it now. I will pitch it next week… Without looking at notes… number 5… Sneezles61

https://www.anvilbrewing.com/product-p/anv-fv-7.5gal.htm

Oh that’s a nice one too…:). And very compact.

I already told my kids when I go, my brewing equipment will be my legacy…I can’t wait to get the next house with a dedicated brewing area. Then I can really get things rolling.
It will be nice to get a day here where the temp at least gets to the 30’s. I have a kit of Festivus miracle to brew.

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And did you have a festivus day with those people that you spend alot of time with too? Sneezles61

I was getting ready to bottle the Dead Ringer yesterday morning. Color in the fermentor looked a little darker than when I dry hopped. Pulled the air lock and sniffed. Siphoned it into the bottling bucket and dumped it. Bottling bucket and the other bucket I use when pouring into the fermentor are now out in the shed. Use those two for garden harvesting. Mesh bags will probably be used for drying ears of corn for the squirrels and hazel nuts for me. Dumped all of the remaining harvested yeast. Dumped the two starters that were ready and bleached the flasks. Bleached all the fermentors, siphon, bottling wands, and other small plastic parts.

Spent most of the day bleaching and boiling. Heading to town this morning for new tubing, brushes, and bottling bucket. Will use US-05 for the next two brews.

I’ll harvest the yeast from the next two fermentations but leave one of the jars from each harvest at room temperature to watch for any indication of infection.

Surprisingly the Sierra Madre pale ale and Bavarian hefeweizen are showing no signs of infection in the bottle.

Sorry to hear Flars… But, its a necessary step… Sneezles61

Bummer @flars but sounds like you have a plan

Yikes! Sorry to hear it’s apparently somewhere you didn’t originally find. :weary: Hopefully these changes catch the bug! It will be interesting to hear when you eliminate the issue what may have caught it in the first place.

:beers:
Rad

I feel your pain Frank. I’ve been there.

Clean slate. Time to brew brother!

That’s news to me…In 1984 or so, I bought an acid carboy from Col. John Canady (there must be at least a few old-timers here who remember him (what a character HE was!!).
That carboy served me quite well for the next 26 years until I stupidly broke it. Anyway, I experienced no ill effects due to it’s prior use as an acid container. I was even using yeast generations of up to 25x and expeienced no off tastes or other undesireable 'twang".
Maybe it was just dumb luck (dumb being the operative word here). or maybe it was my obsessive attention to sanitation.

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I would suspect the sanitization as the key! Haven’t heard from you in a while… Welcome back… Sneezles61

My first carboy purchased in 1987 held acid. On the large size so now only used for 5 gallon batches fermented with WY 3068. Don’t need a blow off assembly.

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An infection is part of the process. I’m surprised, and relieved, there weren’t some when I started out brewing with my Dad.