Not sure if I'm doing something wrong.

Daddyjax

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So I am new to brewing and I started with a few extract batches that turned out ok and decided to start BIAB. I just went to bottle my first batch and noticed it didnt smell like beer but more like vinegar, tangy tart smell. Bottled it anyway and figured it was acetobacter or something. Some of the things I know I did wrong on this batch was that I left it in the primary which isnt wrong but I dumped the whole thing in the primary from the boil, hops and all. Yes, I did the chill first. I also used a ton of hops. 4 oz of Bramling cross for a 2 1/2 gallon brew. I had a 1.061 OG and 1.011 FG.

Anyways, I just moved latest batch to the secondary. Racked it from the boil to the primary after cooling so no tons of hops at the bottom, fermented it at 63 degrees and I can kinda smell the tart tangy smell again but this time with a yeasty smell along with it. I did notice some yeast still on the surface. I didnt get this from the extracts and I am wondering if it is normal or what. Neither one of these batches had any visual appearance of infection.

Any help would be much appreciated.

One more thing, I am using dry yeast. I follow the instructions but I am using filtered tap water.
 
Every brew I dump her all in the fermentor hops hot break cold break everything after chilling that is. So cross that one out as your infection problem. I'm guessing you either gotta hone in on your cleaning and sanitation or get a new fermentor transfer house air lock ect ect. See what others say nothing worse than an infected batch think through your whole process focus on the cold side and how you can isolate the problem.

Good luck
 
So I ran things through to my fellow local brewers and I think it was a noobie brain fart on my part. I was using a wooden spoon to stir my wort while it was sitting an ice bath and I never sanitized it. Luckily my other 2 batches are not infected. I didnt use the same spoon for those. I had to toss the bucket though. It was stained and wreaked even after 24 hours of PBW.
Learning process.
 
At least you learned something , i use a wooden spoon myself but leave it in for last 10 mins of the boil so i can whirlpool with it , it then gets soaked along with all my other gear in PBW and dried in the sun ...so far it's worked but that may be dumb luck so far
 
Yeah, I was stirring and then setting it down on the counter in the kitchen and then stirring 15 minutes later and repeated until temp was down.
 
Least you found your problem , nothing worse than a string of infected batches before you finally found what caused the problem .
A friend of mine had a string on infected catches so replaced fermenters , hoses and same problem until i took his kettle ball valve apart and found a load of old gunk rotting away .
i would have thought the boil temps would have taken care of it but apparently not
 
You really can't sanitize a wooden spoon. Go metal or plastic.
Norse beermakers had a special stick for stirring the beer, claiming it wouldn't come out right without using the stick on it. They were colonizing their beer and storing their yeast from batch to batch using the stick. So unless you really have a beneficial colony of microbes in that wooden spoon, don't use it.
 
Yeah, I switched to a long metal spoon. I will be bottling the next batch this weekend so we will see how it turned out.
 
Yeah, I switched to a long metal spoon. I will be bottling the next batch this weekend so we will see how it turned out.
Good move I reckon. Sterilising wood must be nigh on impossible. On brew day I have a spray bottle of what is probably, Oxyclean on hand. Its not ideal, but can't get a hold of anything else. I basically spray the living daylights out of everything before it touches the wort or yeast. Sometimes it feels like I have temporary OCD! It seems to work ok though, eight brews in and no infections yet...famous last words...
 
Norse beermakers had a special stick for stirring the beer, claiming it wouldn't come out right without using the stick on it. They were colonizing their beer and storing their yeast from batch to batch using the stick. So unless you really have a beneficial colony of microbes in that wooden spoon, don't use it.
Unless it's available on Amazon, that's an old wives tale! :p
 
Unless it's available on Amazon, that's an old wives tale! :p
It was the wives who wielded the sticks. They would pass their beer sticks down from generation to generation. And I think I've seen a beneficial colony of microbes or two on Amazon.... Free two-day shipping if you're a Prime member!
 
Good move I reckon. Sterilising wood must be nigh on impossible. On brew day I have a spray bottle of what is probably, Oxyclean on hand. Its not ideal, but can't get a hold of anything else. I basically spray the living daylights out of everything before it touches the wort or yeast. Sometimes it feels like I have temporary OCD! It seems to work ok though, eight brews in and no infections yet...famous last words...

Nothing else available ? Starsan can be mail ordered as well or at a pinch you can use hydrogen peroxide from the chemist or think you call them a drug store ?
 
It was the wives who wielded the sticks. They would pass their beer sticks down from generation to generation. And I think I've seen a beneficial colony of microbes or two on Amazon.... Free two-day shipping if you're a Prime member!
But with regular shipping, it'd be a bigger colony, right?!? :D
 
In the Land of the Rising Sun (where I live and brew, or is it the other way round?) you need a prescription to buy paracetomol. To import Starsan is equivalent to importing Anthrax...such is the level of neuroses. I wish I really could buy it on Amazon. There are only two online shops for homebrewers. Homebrewing is not exactly underground, but not far off...Many mistakenly think it is illegal though.
 
Amazon are taking over the world!
The fortunate thing about exponential growth is it's generally constrained by available resources. I don't know if Amazon is following that law....
 

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