Could This Kill You? Infected Beer

The fermentation process can look alien at times, which may make you ask yourself "is this infected?" Once you've asked yourself that question, you begin to go down the rabbit hole and start to contemplate dumping your homebrew down the drain.

Brettanomyces (or Brett for short) is a wild yeast often incorporated into sour beers like Lambic's and Flemish Red Ales. It adds a distinctive flavor known affectionately as “horse blanket.” The acetic acid produced by Brettanomyces is associated with funkiness, tart fruit, and peppery spicing in sour beer styles.

#beer #infection #homebrewing

[GRNZ]

One thing I’ve learned is you have to almost blatantly disregard basic sanitation and cleaning practices to get an infection. I used to overthink cleaning and sanitizing, but I’ve just thrown things into PBW, rinsed, and then sprayed with StarSan anything I use on the cold side for years now, and have yet to have an infection. Yes, be sanitary and clean, but don’t let it keep you up at night either!

[Fancylvania]

Dennis really cleaned up his act! Paddy's Pub must be booming now

[bigverybadtom]

Louis Pasteur invented his anticontamination process for beer before it was found it could also be used for milk. When that was done, contaminated milk poisonings went down dramatically.

[TheMcChickenMaster]

When I have infected beer, I usually just drink it! My immune system is second to none. I am a beer god, and brewers are my martyrs.

[Tense]

The one thing to come away from this great video is that basically you in general cannot make yourself ill or get sick from "bad" beer. Generally it will at worst taste like crap, and at best its a new experience!

[OverHeat]

I really enjoyed this video and learned much. Thanks. Good presentation. It was like brewing with neighborhood friends. Keep the videos coming! Bought your Distilling Still Kit years ago. If you like brewing beer, you will love Distilling!

[timothywilliams]

Never had to dump a beer yet. Dumped 5 gallons of mead once. Wasn't infection though. I was out of town for work for a bit and a bunch of fruit flies got in through a dry airlock.

[Tricky_Adventures]

I've only had a couple contaminated beers, as I try to be very conscious of keeping things clean/sanitized.
One of them I tested and after bottling it went down significantly in gravity, which is a good test I think. If something ate residual sugars left in the beer after the yeast had given up that is a sign you got contamination.

[ismaelverdugo]

Im writing about this for microbiology class, THANKS!!!

[nemamvpici]

Only time my beer went bad was when I used wild hops for dry hopping. Sanitation is extremely important for everything that beer touches after boil. Before boil its not that important good beer can be made from river water. Giving yeast head start by putting billions of yeast cell into worth prevents bad bugs to gaining upper hand. There is always some bacteria, some mold spores in the beer but they don't have favorable conditions in environment that is controlled/formed by yeast. Making Iambics is completely different story you need to have a good deal of luck to make good lambic.

[liamfbules]

While not beer we recently made a cider (freshly pressed) that sat for a few days before we pitched the yeast (it came late in the mail) and it developed a rubbery mat on top of the cider. This mat was so solid that we were able to pick it up without it falling apart. The cider tasted fine if a little thin and bland. Perfectly safe despite the incredible odd wild growth.

[BeautilufMusic]

Only had one infection in my short time as a brewer so far. Most likely happened because the airlock for some reason popped off after dryhopping, without me noticing. It looked a lot like what you guys had. Ended up dumping it, but not before tasting and.. it was fine. Too bitter, though (due to me messing up the hop additions).

[RyChannelBrewing]

The thing that got me, was the first time I used whirlfloc with a beer in a glass fermenter and saw all the weird protein strands floating around. Totally thought my beer was infected.

[Scootenfruity]

Had one infection when I tried a blueberry beer. I thought frozen fruit is ok, but it obviously wasn't. Well, I tried tasting it but it smelled like nail polish so I just dumped it. Had a very nice colour though.

[jon]

Every fall for years i would wild ferment fruit from my local apple peach plum and pear trees into wine all i would do is rince and chop the fruit into large mason or pickle jars top with fruit juice or sugar water whichever was more convenient stir every day for about a week or two or untill the fermentation slowed down strain the fruit rack into a fermentation vessel and ferment untill complete i never pitched yeast and i cant remember one batch that turned out badly or failed to ferment.

[dudestewbrews]

Great informative video for newcomers to brewing. We've all been there and wondered the same things.

[FearTurtles]

One of the best beers that I have brewed was by mistake. Then again I have made mistakes that honestly didn’t kill a batch but because the batch was not what I was shooting for. Turned me off. The tast just reminded me of the mistake and I couldn’t get over it.

[kanhavanand]

video idea: Do the exact same beer, but one batch following all hygiene/sanitization protocol, and the other batch not following sanitization protocols. It would be great to learn how the process is different, and maybe even some signs that your beer is contaminated before you wait 3-4 weeks. Also, if there's no mold or completely off flavors, maybe even try both and compare taste profiles! I know I would love this video.

[BillMcGirr]

Being a distiller… I’ve seen every single one of those gross bacterial and yeast growth.

In fact I’ve learned to enjoy seeing it happen.

Just run it and drink it.🤣👍🥃

[zt]

How did all these monasteries in the 14th century make and package beer without infections? Even back to the 19th century with Pilsner Urquell, what methods of cleaning & sanitising did they use?