Question on infected beer.

[Geriatricbrewer]

Hello. Hope those that can do so are enjoying their four day weekend.

I was wondering how do you know that your beer is infected. What signs, smells or taste should I look out for?.
Someone said by tasting it you will know. But everyone's taste is different. Take Marmite for instance. Some like it some don't.

GB.

[Chug]

I've only ever had a wine turn out undrinkable coz of soapy taste, hopefully those who have had infections can offer more help.

but I know what you mean about different taste buds, when I was a lad we found a barrel of beer out the back of the local con club so we removed it, it was really rank, but two out of about ten who tried it liked it! Another time a mate had a barrel of scrumpy that most who tried it spat it straight out and said its vinegar, but one bloke loved it and another said he didn't love it but it was quite drinkable.

[Manngold]

Does it taste like vinegar?

Do you retch when you smell it?

Has it gone mouldy on top?

Has the fv had a previous infection?

If yes to the above then it probably is. You will know if it is in my opi ion.

[Kev888]

Most people's beer is infected, as we don't make it in sterile conditions. But unless we cock up or get unlucky, the rates are low enough that we usually don't notice. The yeast we pitch, if done properly, gets by far the biggest bite of the worty goodness - leaving many undesirables with little food and challenging conditions in which to propagate themselves to the point where we'd taste them any time soon.

But occasionally some infections (in some circumstances) can make themselves known, from subtle ones that only experts may identify to some so violent you don't even need to taste the beer to know. Vinegar is a good example, which can be caused by tiny little flies amongst other things.

But there are a great many potentially undesirable flavours and not everything bad is due to infection. There is less scope with kits than with grain brewing, but you can still get some nasty flavours (for example) through fermenting too warm, oxidising the beer or letting the light get at it and so on. In some cases we may simply have used a poor recipe or poor ingredients. Its also hard (IMO) to translate what nose and mouth are detecting to words on a page or visa versa, although various authors have made the attempt to describe the more common ones.

[Peatbogbrewer]

Yeah infections all around in the non-sterile brew world and it depends on the beer yeast winning the battle for the wort in order to suppress others. I've just bottled a belgian blonde which started showing signs of lactic acid film and filaments on top, hopefully the worst this can do is impart some sourness, but i like bit or sourness so horses for courses.
The best way to see if your beer is infected by a beast is to trust your senses, if it looks like crap and tastes like crap then its time to chuck it, bleach the hell out of your fv or use an other and carry on regardless.....

[dasbootfish]

I made an extract ale a few months back and it tasted like TCP, a really sharp medicinal taste. Chucked the lot, I assumed it was an infection.

[lee1]

plus 1 to the tcp taste had that a few times down the sink hey ho

[Kev888]

TCP can be due to infection, but it can be due to the wort combining with chlorine in the water (or left behind after bleach cleaning).

Serious/detectable Infections should be quite rare with reasonable levels of cleaning and disinfecting. If anyone gets them repeatedly then maybe they haven't eradicated the first one successfully or else there is likely to be some deficiency in the cleaning or brewing process.

[Louie7oaks]

I'm using Youngs American craft beer kits at the moment and have just brewed myself an APA with the TCP problem. It kind of smells very much to me like a wheat beer, but when I read this post I tried it again and think that the TCP label would fit just as well. I'm really gutted because I made one of these APA kits last month and it was fantastic! I'm going to try a pint later and see what it does to my guts. It's drinkable, but not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just too bloody tight to throw it straight down the drain.
The only difference between this batch and the last one is that I used a brand new pressure barrel on the first lot and a second hand one on this latest one. I gave the second hand barrel a couple of days with a weak bleach solution in it and then sterilised using VWP solution. But..... I didn't disassemble the tap and scrub the washer, so I can only assume that it didn't get cleaned properly.
An expensive mistake that I won't let happen again!
Oh...by the way. These Youngs kits include dry hopping, but I can't smell anything that resembles hops either. The first one had a really fresh, heavy smell.
Perhaps I could use this lot as an aid to colonic irrigation?
Louie

[Digby]

I'm using Youngs American craft beer kits at the moment and have just brewed myself an APA with the TCP problem. It kind of smells very much to me like a wheat beer, but when I read this post I tried it again and think that the TCP label would fit just as well. I'm really gutted because I made one of these APA kits last month and it was fantastic! I'm going to try a pint later and see what it does to my guts. It's drinkable, but not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just too bloody tight to throw it straight down the drain.
The only difference between this batch and the last one is that I used a brand new pressure barrel on the first lot and a second hand one on this latest one. I gave the second hand barrel a couple of days with a weak bleach solution in it and then sterilised using VWP solution. But..... I didn't disassemble the tap and scrub the washer, so I can only assume that it didn't get cleaned properly.
An expensive mistake that I won't let happen again!
Oh...by the way. These Youngs kits include dry hopping, but I can't smell anything that resembles hops either. The first one had a really fresh, heavy smell.
Perhaps I could use this lot as an aid to colonic irrigation?
Louie

I am a bit of a newbie but I would guess the VWP is the most likely candidate for the TCP taint as mentioned in a previous post. It needs rinsing very thoroughly after use.

Cheers

Matt

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