Ginger Ale brew ruined???

[daz1200]

Hi all,

I'm new here and also new to homebrewing. I made my first batch of homebrew ever, a Bavarian Wheat beer from a kit which I have just bottled 2 weeks ago.

I thought I would be a little more adventurous and after researching alcoholic ginger beer on the internet, I came up with my own recipe. However I think I may have messed the batch up completely. I had some Richards steriliser mixed up in a gallon jar, having added my ingredients to the wort I was adding cold water to the wort to bring down the temperature to pitch the yeast and I have accidentally added 1 litre of the sterilizer to the wort (12 litres in total in the fermentation vessel). I carried on with it anyway just to see if it would ferment. It had a SG of 1032 and fermented for a week FG was 1008. I have bottled it and had a small taste....tastes ok.

My question is will this be safe to drink without poisoning myself or should I throw it down the sink and start again? I am assuming that if the yeast have survived to ferment it then it cant be too badly contaminated.

I would appreciate some views from all you experienced brewers out there.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

what is the brand of sterilizer, was it star-sans?

 

[nzbrew]

Hi, what type of steralizer was it - and what does it say on the bottle? I think that will answer your question.

It's a bummer when these sort of things happen - especially when you're new at it. How did your wheat beer turn out? My first all grain was not the best (I drank it, didn't let anyone else taste it, and all record of it was expunged from my brewing book!) but the second was great which kept me in the game!

It's an awesome hobby, unfortunately there can be the odd downer that you need to endure. Well worth it for the good beers though.

 

[daz1200]

The sterilizer I used was "Ritchies" I added about 1 litre into the fermenter which had 11 litres of wort in it. Just not sure what to do?

On a brighter note my wheatbeer has turned out well, just sampled it this evening and I an well pleased with it.

 

[daz1200]

I think I am going to pour the ginger ale down the sink, it was only a small experimental batch so no great hardship and I will get another brew on.

Probably best not to take the chance of making myself or someone else ill because of my mistake.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

says its a Chlorine based product so chances are it wont kill you since most tap water has high levels in it , did you poor it strait in or mix it with water and if so how much

 

[daz1200]

I had mixed 1 teaspoon of Ritchies sterilizer with 3 litres of water which I had used to sterilize equipment.

Whilst I was preparing my wort 1 accidentally mixed 1 litre of the sterilizer solution to my 11 liter wort. Like I mentioned above, it fermented down to a gravity of 1008, but I am just not sure wether to risk drinking it or just pour it down the sink and start over.

Daz

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

its basically bleach so I would smell it or taste the wort and if it taste like bleach or heavy chlorine dump it otherwise if it doesn't don't worry, if it didn't kill the yeast it won't hurt you

 

[Hogarthe]

I think it would be diluted enough not to hurt you, but I'm no expert. Probably the smart thing would be to dump it. chlorine can cause beer to have a bad taste as well, so I'm not sure you would want to drink the whole batch anyway. http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html according to this, chlorine in the brew water can lead to medicinal or band aid flavors.

 

[OAE Iceman]

On my first all grain recipe I got distracted while in the process of sanitizing my keg. I finally finished with whatever I was doing and went back to the keg and started filling it from my fermenter. My keg got full quicker than my fermenter emptied. I had around 1.5 gallons of star san in my keg with the beer. Boy was I ######! any way I did chill it and drank some but I bit the bullet and dumped it. Live and learn. Could not taste it but It just wasn't right. Good luck.