Infected Beer

Northern Brewer General
1

I searched, but turned up nothing that really answered my question.

I have a cabroy full of Irish red that been in there for about a month… Time to bottle, but I took a look at it last night and there seems to be some white looking floaters on top of the brew.

I haven’t done a ‘full inspection’ so I can’t comment on smell/taste…but I’m wondering what the typical signs of infection are before I get home to look it over and decide if it’s a bad batch or not…

What should I be looking for?

2

Post a picture. Or get on Home Brew Talk and look for the thread on infections. That should help you out.

Your floaties could just be yeast.

3

I had a few batches with odd looking floaties. They all smelled ok, so i bottled & drank them up! All tasted great inspite of my paranoia!! I’m still here to talk about it! So, unless it smells bad, i’d do it up & enjoy! RDWHAHB!

4

Yeast. Relax.

5

[quote=“Nighthawk”]Yeast. Relax.[/quote]+1

6

This is the scary “infected beer” thread:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/pellic ... dex68.html

For reference, or a good horrorshow.

7

Or hop oil!

8

I have a NB Irish red ale extract that’s currently conditioning in the secondary. It had challenges fermenting, first pitch didn’t take, took a few days before i pitched it again, temps were up and down first few days, finally had great fermentation for about 4 days at low 60s, one big blow off but cleaned up and sanitized with blow off hose for a few days.

When i racked to secondary SG tested spot on at the target of 1.016 but the beer smelled kind of funky, rotten fruit-like, and tasted sour. I asked about that on here and asked a few local folks including the owner of the LHBS and opinioins varied on whether it was infected.

It’s been in secondary for about a week now. there are some small ‘chunks’ floating on top that look like yeast to me… Nothing else that would appear to indicate infection and the scent from the airlock is not as pungent as it was previously.

Do you always get stuff growing on the surface with infection? If it still tastes sour after a couple weeks in secondary should I bottle some just to give it a shot?

9

Silentknyght…that’s scary looking stuff.

Is that some kind of running joke about infected beers they have or are they looking for that for sour’s or something like that?

ugh.

10

The easiest way to figure it out is take a sample of it, the yeast is done fermenting it anyway.

11

wouldn’t worry too much about it. trust your senses