The introduction of unwanted organisms or chemicals into the beer. Typically, this refers to unwanted bacteria or wild yeast propagating to levels to cause spoilage of the beer. Often incorrectly called an "infection".
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1answer
142 views
Is this lactobacillus?
My last batch had a thin whitish 'membrane' on top of it and some white spots, visible on the picture bellow.
I think I saw something similar on a blog a while ago, attributed to a lactobacilus ...
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3answers
122 views
Preparing water for brew day
I'd just like to get some opinions on the most efficient way to prepare the water for my brew day. I'm pretty new to brewing and still using extract with a few specialty grains.
I've read it's good ...
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2answers
65 views
Possible contamination / small areas of bubble clusters on top of brew
How would you know if your brew is or isn't contaminated? I'm the first timer that dealt with the broken spigot & had to transfer at 6 days. Just hearing about contaminated home brew so many times ...
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3answers
118 views
How worried should I be about a plastic-wrapped kettle that had to air chill for two days?
I was in the middle of a 7-gallon brew, when my landlord informed me that the grain that I had put down my garbage disposal had clogged the main drain for the house. My sink is too small for an ice ...
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2answers
216 views
Is my batch contaminated / infected?
Me again with another question. So there's not been much activity from my brew lately (no bubbling, only 3rd day in the fermenter). I opened up to take the gravity and temperature (1022, 21C), so it ...
5
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1answer
808 views
How to identify a brett contamination
I brewed a single hop American pale ale with palisade. It's not the greatest beer in the world, but seemed passable to me. Another brewer tasted it and thought he picked up brett in it. Palmer ...
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1answer
424 views
Is iodophor ideal for rinse-less sanitization before bottling?
I was talking to a friend today and complainIng about the clean/bleach/sanitize/rinse process I undergo when bottling. He dug a bottle of iodophor out of a back shelf and asked me to try it out. He ...
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2answers
197 views
New brewer, question about state of beer prior to bottling
Tomorrow is the Big Bottling Day. I snuck a peek about a week ago and took a hydro reading, and all is well I believe. I took another peek today (14 days in) just to make sure I'm not about to bottle ...
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1answer
261 views
contamination? what's this?
I brewed a hoppy red ale on Tuesday and pitched some washed wyeast 1084 into it that evening. I had an og of 1.070 and went ahead and put a blowoff tube on the fermenting bucket in case I had a huge ...
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2answers
177 views
Mold on wort pre-pitch
I've got a bit of mold on top of my wort. My situation is a bit different than what others seem to have encountered... I made the wort about 5 days ago and hadn't gotten around to pitching the ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
does starsan kill yeast
Is Starsan effective against yeast?
After resuming homebrewing again after a 2 year break, I started having pellicle appearing on my starters (after fermentation had completed), which has now spread ...
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4answers
784 views
What prevents contamination during primary fermentation?
I'm about to start my first beer and I've been doing lots of research.. but a question I haven't seen answered is why isn't there more contamination during primary fermentation.
For secondary the ...
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3answers
393 views
wild yeast taking over?
I brewed a belgian triple last week. I had a starter going using white labs trapist yeast but it didn't take off, must have been a bad vial. In the meantime the batch was sitting in the carboy ...
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votes
1answer
1k views
What is the white film on my beer in my bottles?
I brewed a double batch of IPA with a buddy about 8 weeks ago.
We split this into two 5 gallon pails and 2 weeks later into two carboys. His was fine, but mine developed a bit of white stuff on ...
12
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4answers
825 views
How to add adjuncts (hops, fruit, spices, etc) to the fermenter without contaminating the beer?
What is the best way to sterilize things like dry hops, spices or fruit before putting them in the fermenter?
Some stuff you can obviously boil. But boiling hops, say, would defeat the purpose of ...
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5answers
697 views
Help! My secondary fermenter exploded!
So, I was brewing a nice IPA the other day. I walked in to check on the carboy and the stopper had popped out and there were hops everywhere! I stopped it back up and bottled it a few days later ...
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5answers
3k views
What is on top of my wort? Mold? Lacto?
I just opened the top of my scotch ale bucket, and it looks like there's mold inside. The recipe is pretty standard, plus some oak chips soaked in whiskey, in a muslin bag. What is this?
Edit:
Some ...
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3answers
221 views
What about opened LME cans?
Most LME come in 3 pound cans, which is a quite large quantity if you want to add just a little to your wort, just one pound for example. It's a shame to throw away the rest. If I open a LME can and ...
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9answers
739 views
Spigots: What's the consensus
I like to use an ale pail with a spigot for my secondary. It makes it super easy to test the gravity before actually bottling/kegging/etc.
However, that sort of installation in plastic can open the ...
