House infection?

[emnpaul]

I came across the term "house infection" recently and it seems an apt description of my current situation. I think it started with a beer de garde I brewed a while back. It was mild at first, in the "is that a hint of sourness I detect" category but after a couple of months become more prominent.

It starts out as unnoticeable at first, then after a couple of months becomes slightly sour while seeming to consume, or at least mask hop flavour and aroma as it progresses. Gets worse with age, to the point where I'm "forcing" myself to have a longneck or two just to make sure they're all gone before I end up with gushers or bottle bombs. Does this sound like a wild yeast infection?

I am sure all my beers are finished before bottling. I use the narziss fermentation technique (start at the cool end of the range for the yeast I'm using) and gradually increase temperature after reaching about half expected F.G. I generally ferment for between two and three weeks for ales, longer for lagers. I check gravity religiously before bottling and try to prime to the lower end of the style if bulk priming or roughly half teaspoon per longneck if bottle priming, so I'm sure overpriming isn't the problem.

I clean and sanitise my fermenter overnight with bleach before use. I clean my bottles with nappysan and sanitise with starsan now, but before that used bleach.

I have already thrown away my old fermenter and all my yeast bank ('bout six strains of whitelabs) and just chucked four starters of Wyeast 1469.

Besides drinking the entire batch before symptoms show up, which is not always desireable, I don't know what to do. I'm at my wits end with this shit! Can anybody help?

[barls]

does sound exactly like a wild yeast infection.
ive had the same thing. i had to go to extremes to get rid of it.
i hot caustic all fermentors and ditched all hoses and plastic pieces and then replaced them with fresh units.
i also ditched all yeasts i had.
i moved to starsan on everything and sodium percarbonate as my cleaner. im still going through the kegs at home and slowly wiping it out.
try dry yeast for a batch to eliminate its in your propagation side, once you have done that try a kit just to eliminate another source.

[Tipsy]

I just went through this myself.
Drank a batch, but threw out the next two.

I threw away all vials of yeast, all plastic including fermenters and cleaned everything else with bleach.

Cleaned behind fridges, cleaned floors and walls cleaned til I burnt off my finger prints.

I have only been using dry yeast and I think I've got it under control.

[aydanrogers]

What is the need to throw away all the fermenters and all you yeast banks? Can't you just give everything a good clean?

[emnpaul]

Thanks for the replies.

I thought it was infection but needed to hear it from somebody else to break the cycle of denial.

What is the need to throw away all the fermenters and all you yeast banks? Can't you just give everything a good clean?

Honestly don't know. I thought I was pretty thorough with my cleaning and sanitising but obviously not thorough enough. I'm prepared to sacrifice a few fermenters, some cooper's plastics and some yeast to get rid of it. My problem is, as Barls has alluded to, I don't know where it's hiding. I have a collection of gyprock buckets I use to wash bottles and store bleach and napisan, it could be in there. Or it could be in the brew fridge, could be in the fermentor, cubes, hoses, lids, the list goes on. I would be pretty disappointed if I chucked all of my brew gear only to find the infection could be killed with a bit of bleach and starsan or was hiding in the brew fridge and hadn't been gotten rid of by starting over with my brew gear. I'll just have to go through all my gear and eliminate the possibilities one at a time.

Edit: I found this stuff on the net. I need to do some more research and price it, but as part of a two pronged attack with caustic soda, it looks like it could be "the $#!*"
http://www.cyndan.com.au/products/cip-c ... tiser.aspx

[barls]

mate ive used that shit commercially and have the burns to prove it.
i strongly would recommend against using it in the homebrew situation. its like using a nuke to swap a fly. its way more aggressive than it reads as.
personally id go with a 10% caustic solution above 85 degrees and soak on everything. a wipe down with the fermentation fridge with the caustic solution then a spray and wipe with starsan. make sure you were the appropriate ppe ie gloves and googles.
dont forget to do the room you ferment in as well.
no need to ditch everything just give it a really good clean as above. but i would ditch the tubing, taps and yeasts.

[emnpaul]

Mmm. Sounds nasty.

It kind of figures though, when the website says "Peracetic acid, the active compound in Proxitane, is amongst the most powerful biocides known to man. It is effective against a wide spectrum of microbiological contaminations including aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and their spores; yeasts, moulds, fungi and their spores, and viruses. It is extremely rapid in its action at ambient temperatures". Anything that deadly just has to be, umm, deadly. Well, hot to handle at any rate.I think I'll just glove up and see how I go with the caustic soda.

I appreciate the advice mate. Thankyou.

[Tipsy]

What is the need to throw away all the fermenters and all you yeast banks? Can't you just give everything a good clean?

In my case, probably, but my fermenters were old and I was so pissed at throwing away beer that I was willing to go all the way.