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Post by gusso on Mar 20, 2022 15:53:33 GMT -6
to the outbreak at my house. In my 15+ years of brewing, I never had an infection. Until recently that is. I didn't notice at first, as I had a few kegs on hand and kept brewing away. I first noticed when I brewed my English AK recipe. Everything seemed fine, it finished at my expected FG so I kegged it up. When I eventually put it on tap, it was way overcarbed. Since I naturally carbed with corn sugar, I figured I over did it somehow. In the glass it was super cloudy, so I added gelatin. Didn't help. I started sampling it and it was just bland and a bit on the sour side. Last week I made a hefeweizen. Again, it seemed to go fine - expected FG. When I went to keg it, I saw tons of creamy foam still sitting on top. It smelled sour and a sample confirmed that it tasted similar to the AK - bland and slightly sour. I did have 2 successful brews in between the bad ones. Did I use a different fermenter? Maybe, maybe not. I don't really know.
Anyway, yesterday I did everything I could think of to rid this beast. I boiled my brew kettle ball valve and both Speidel spigots. I cleaned my fermenters then soaked in starsan followed by a iodophor soaking. I soaked my chiller in starsan then boiled it. I also did a hardy scrub on my Tilts followed by iodophor and starsan. I brewed today so I'll be keeping a close eye on this. If this turns out infected, I have no idea what my next move is. This BLOWS!!!!
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Post by tommymorris on Mar 20, 2022 19:27:45 GMT -6
to the outbreak at my house. In my 15+ years of brewing, I never had an infection. Until recently that is. I didn't notice at first, as I had a few kegs on hand and kept brewing away. I first noticed when I brewed my English AK recipe. Everything seemed fine, it finished at my expected FG so I kegged it up. When I eventually put it on tap, it was way overcarbed. Since I naturally carbed with corn sugar, I figured I over did it somehow. In the glass it was super cloudy, so I added gelatin. Didn't help. I started sampling it and it was just bland and a bit on the sour side. Last week I made a hefeweizen. Again, it seemed to go fine - expected FG. When I went to keg it, I saw tons of creamy foam still sitting on top. It smelled sour and a sample confirmed that it tasted similar to the AK - bland and slightly sour. I did have 2 successful brews in between the bad ones. Did I use a different fermenter? Maybe, maybe not. I don't really know. Anyway, yesterday I did everything I could think of to rid this beast. I boiled my brew kettle ball valve and both Speidel spigots. I cleaned my fermenters then soaked in starsan followed by a iodophor soaking. I soaked my chiller in starsan then boiled it. I also did a hardy scrub on my Tilts followed by iodophor and starsan. I brewed today so I'll be keeping a close eye on this. If this turns out infected, I have no idea what my next move is. This BLOWS!!!! This reminds me of a story from early in my career. I used to work for a semiconductor company in the factory. That is where I first learned the concept of a production pipeline. The factory took more than a month to produce a chip. A young engineer overseeing step 1 in the pipeline made a change to the process of cleaning wafers before any steps to make the chip. That change was flawed due to a mistake he made. It took more than a month of production to see the first evidence of his mistake (low yields). By the time the problem was identified millions of dollars of chips were ruined. The good news: the engineer wasn’t punished. Our boss said they just paid millions to train him so it would be stupid to fire him. PS. I have infected way too many batches. I hope everything clears up for you. |
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Post by Leftympfrmde on Mar 20, 2022 22:22:37 GMT -6
Sounds like a good step in troubleshooting. My thought is, have you considered that you may be picking up infection in the kegs?
The liquid dip tube and poppit valve can be a PITA to clean and santize. Just a thought. Early on in my kegging days, I lost a batch due to kegs I thought were clean enough.
Over the past couple years, I've adopted the practice of filling up a keg with sanitizer, and purging with C02 to another keg before packaging. (Unsure if you do the same). I'll check pH of the santizer before purging. As long it's under 3.5, good to go.
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Post by Ken on Mar 21, 2022 11:38:00 GMT -6
I feel like we have all been there. As others often say, replace anything that's cheap and boil anything that can take it. Anything that can be taken apart and soaked in hot water and Oxi (or your cleanser of choice) and then sanitizer, do that too. I started doing some things in the past year to hold this off.
1. Any silicone tubing that I used get boiled.
2. If I am going to harvest yeast and save it, the flask that I store it in gets boiling water added to it firs (the funnel as well) and then it goes into sanitizer.
3. If I make a gel solution, I take the pot where I will heat it and I boil water in it first and THEN make the solution.
4. Anything that can be taken apart and cleaned gets that treatment.
5. I took all 10 of my kegs and over the course of a couple months (whenever they were empty) I added Oxi and then added 5 gallons of boiling water to the keg and sealed it up and left it overnight. Not only did this kill anything that may have been in there but it also cleaned up any beerstone, etc. that may have been in the keg.
Tommy's story reminds me that many brewers will taste their beer throughout the process to try to pinpoint the issue. If it tastes bad right out of the fermenter, it's something at or earlier than that point. If it tastes good out of the fermenter then it's in the keg or maybe the lines or faucets. When was the last time you cleaned your beer lines? I've had beer taste contaminated coming out of the faucets... I clean and sanitize the lines and the beer pours good again. Good luck and please report back when you think you've found it. Your experience could be help for us all.
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Post by brewbama on Mar 21, 2022 13:05:22 GMT -6
I find crud under the nut and in the threads of the fermenter spigot. I had an infection that I blamed on that years ago.
Another point of crud (no infection yet 🤞) is the transfer line I use to close transfer from fermenter to keg. I am forever finding crap at the point where the quick disconnect barb meets the hose.
PBW never seemed to get the equipment as clean as B-Brite IMO. I can leave a piece of equipment soak over night in a hot B-Brite solution and it’s sparkly clean the next day.
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Post by Megary on Mar 21, 2022 13:09:56 GMT -6
Ken...
Wouldn't using boiling water for Oxi be overkill, not to mention inherently dangerous? I was always under the impression that for homebrewing purposes, warm/hot water was plenty good enough for Oxi. (Warm/Hot being defined as what might be possible out of a residential water heater.)
I really have no idea though.
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Post by denny on Mar 21, 2022 13:42:43 GMT -6
Ken... Wouldn't using boiling water for Oxi be overkill, not to mention inherently dangerous? I was always under the impression that for homebrewing purposes, warm/hot water was plenty good enough for Oxi. (Warm/Hot being defined as what might be possible out of a residential water heater.) I really have no idea though. Seems like it, huh?
And if anyone wants to step up their cleaning power, try Craftmeister Alkaline. I've found nothing else that works as well.
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Post by Ken on Mar 21, 2022 14:27:46 GMT -6
Ken... Wouldn't using boiling water for Oxi be overkill, not to mention inherently dangerous? I was always under the impression that for homebrewing purposes, warm/hot water was plenty good enough for Oxi. (Warm/Hot being defined as what might be possible out of a residential water heater.) I really have no idea though. No idea if it's overkill or dangerous but the insides of the kegs looked brand new when I was done. In some of the kegs I had a decent amount of beerstone... it was rough to the touch and nothing would get it off but boiling water and Oxi did take it off. What would be dangerous about it? I just looked it up and found something saying "12 things to NEVER do with Oxiclean" and using it with boiling water was not listed. It did say not to leave an Oxi solution in a metal container "for prolonged periods" but it didn't define that. These kegs had the solution in them for about 12 hours. If there was anything dangerous about it, I did not experience it. I did try the Craftmeister cleanser and it seemed good. I did not come away with "this is the best cleanser ever" but it worked fine. I currently have two containers of Oxi so that's what will be used here for the foreseeable future. |
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Post by Megary on Mar 21, 2022 16:49:22 GMT -6
Dangerous in the sense that you might spill boiling water on yourself. I know I would.  |
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Post by brewbama on Mar 21, 2022 16:57:13 GMT -6
… No idea if it's overkill or dangerous but the insides of the kegs looked brand new when I was done. … Maybe I need to use boiling water, too! |
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Post by Ken on Mar 21, 2022 22:13:59 GMT -6
Dangerous in the sense that you might spill boiling water on yourself. I know I would.  Ah. I thought you guys were talking about a chemical reaction or maybe harm to the stainless. I was able to clean all 10 of my kegs this way without hurting myself, thank Jeebus. It really did make a huge difference. The insides of the kegs were sparkling like they were brand new and the beer stone was gone. If there was a concern then a brewer could boil the water and then transfer the boiling water to the keg using silicone tubing. Clean the tubing and the kegs at the same time and very unlikely to spill any boiling water. |
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Post by Seven on Mar 22, 2022 7:14:25 GMT -6
Dangerous in the sense that you might spill boiling water on yourself. I know I would. I guess there's always a danger of a pressure build-up in the keg from the Oxi? I always have to vent my kegs with Oxi in them but I doubt it would ever get the point of being dangerous given the pressure ratings of kegs. |
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Post by Ken on Mar 22, 2022 8:17:19 GMT -6
Dangerous in the sense that you might spill boiling water on yourself. I know I would. I guess there's always a danger of a pressure build-up in the keg from the Oxi? I always have to vent my kegs with Oxi in them but I doubt it would ever get the point of being dangerous given the pressure ratings of kegs. Agreed. It wouldn't get to 130psi from that, right? Well, my kegs have never looked better and I figured that the boiling water was both for physical buildup that was on some of the insides of the kegs but also as a measure to kill anything that might be living in there. I know that's why we have sanitizer but it was a good measure for me to take at the time and it felt good from a brewer's perspective. |
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Post by Seven on Mar 22, 2022 9:06:20 GMT -6
Out of curiosity, how much Oxi did you use in each? I often run off my initial chilling water into an empty keg but don't always use Oxi. It's not quite boiling water but the 1st few gallons are quite hot.
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Post by Ken on Mar 22, 2022 9:17:34 GMT -6
Out of curiosity, how much Oxi did you use in each? I often run off my initial chilling water into an empty keg but don't always use Oxi. It's not quite boiling water but the 1st few gallons are quite hot. The dosing instructions for Oxi are different based on what you're going to do with it and of course, there is no "brewing equipment" dosing. For five gallons I typically use one scoop that comes with the Oxi which is probably a weak or moderately-weak solution. On the Craftmeister cleanser, there is a little scoop and I believe it's 2 scoops per gallon so I use 10 scoops of that. Also, I just noticed on the container of Oxi it does say to use "the hottest water possible" but also says "do not boil". So there's that. Technically I didn't "boil" the Oxi but I did add the Oxi to the keg and poured boiling water over it.  |
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