Pellicle and Campden Tablets

[minesapint]

A week ago I threw away five gallons of porter.
It had been in the secondary fermenter with a dash of C02 for about ten days. I don't usually leave a brew that long before bottling or King Kegging.
There was a white, scummy, skin on top that I have since found out is called a pellicle.
The porter below the skin was bright, had a good winey smell but tasted a bit on the sour side.
Just looking at that skin was enough to put me off though.
Everything has now been bleached and I hope that that is the end of it for a while.

I was thinking back to my wine making days in the late seventies / early eighties, NO not my age but the nineteen seventies etc. A lot of winemaking books told you to drop in a campden tablet when racking.
I cannot recall seeing this in any of my beer brewing books.

Does anybody use campden tablets when racking beer and would it prevent another pellicle infection ?

Cheers all.

[Capped]

Does anybody use campden tablets when racking beer and would it prevent another pellicle infection ?

Dunno, but after sterlising everything with a weak bleach solution followed by a good rinse, everything gets a good splash of sod met solution which does not get rinsed off. Can't for the life of me remember the last time I encountered a possible infection.

[charliemartin]

I could be wrong, but I think the campden tablet when racking wine is to help stop fermentation and possibly prevent wild yeast infection, but with beer you need live yeast for carbonation so anything that might stop that would not be a good idea.

Cheers,
Charliemartin

[Capped]

I could be wrong, but I think the campden tablet when racking wine is to help stop fermentation and possibly prevent wild yeast infection, but with beer you need live yeast for carbonation so anything that might stop that would not be a good idea.

Cheers,
Charliemartin

True, but the amount of sod met which remains after rinsing stuff is miniscule. It takes a full tablet in a gallon of wine to stop fermentation and even that won't be successful unless it's right at the end and the yeast is on it's last legs. Good idea to add potassium sorbate too - it won't kill the yeast (that's the Campden's job) but it stops any remaining live cells from reproducing somewhere down the line,if the Campden hasn't nobbled them all. The Campden rinse also eliminates any chlorine after sterilising with bleach. I've never had a problem in donkey's years - whether that's by luck or judgement I'm not sure!

[charliemartin]

I appreciate what you are saying, but the original question asked if anyone added a Campden tablet to the beer when racking. Slightly different to rinsing out the fv with a sod met solution. Although you don't rinse I presume you do drain the solution out, so the amount remaining would be fairly negligible. Whilst one Campden tab may not be enough to kill the yeast completely I personally wouldn't want to risk it.

Cheers,
Charliemartin

[timothy]

It should help. Wild yeast and bacteria are very sensitive to sulfites, while brewing yeast is fairly tolerant. Your brewing yeast should be unaffected, but there are hundreds of strains so they might not all have great sulfite tolerance. Sulfites also reduce oxidation and enhance the bitterness of hoppy beers.

[Capn Ahab]

Get a new fermenter for starters as whatever contaminated the porter may have left a cell or spore or two lurking in a scratch.

I've never heard of Campden being used post fermentation in beer, and while I don't know the reason, I'm sure it's a good one as none of the well known brewing manuals mention it. Possibly it is down to the bottle or cask conditioning being compromised by killing some or all of the yeast, but personally I have no desire to add that our any other chemical to fermented beer.

With regards to getting an infection in your porter, this is something that happens to everyone at some point or another, and the best thing is to review your sanitation procedure and chalk this one to experience.

I've yet to have an infection since I started using starsan over three years ago. Just sayin.

eta: and I'm pretty lax compared to a fair few people I know when it comes to sanitisation.

[Capn Ahab]

It should help. Wild yeast and bacteria are very sensitive to sulfites, while brewing yeast is fairly tolerant. Your brewing yeast should be unaffected, but there are hundreds of strains so they might not all have great sulfite tolerance. Sulfites also reduce oxidation and enhance the bitterness of hoppy beers.

You sure about all that? I use gypsum in hoppy beers - calcium sulphate, not sulphite. Aren't sulphites used to stabilise things? My general knowledge of chemistry is pretty poor but I would guess that the change of vowel signifies a change in molecular structure and therefore in the properties of the compound. Also it occurs to me that too much sodium can make your beer taste sour (in a bad way) and IIRC act as a laxative. As for potassium, who knows?!

[Capped]

I've never heard of Campden being used post fermentation in beer....

Nowt to do with the matter at hand, but I'm 100% sure that I've read somewhere on this very forum many years ago that someone added sulphite purely in an attempt to get 'that' eggy (sulphurous) aroma in beer. Thinking about it, it may well work but sulphite in such obviously high concentrations that you're able to smell it can't do the yeast any good at all. Either way, I can't detect the slightest hint of sulphite in my beer after rinsing out stuff with it and draining before use.