Continual Infections

[Oliver]

What brand of beer kit (can) are you using?

What type of beer are you making?

What ingredients are you using?

Is there any chance you could take some of these "infected" brews into a homebrew store for them to taste and offer suggestions?

Where do you live? Perhaps someone can suggest a helpful homebrew store nearby.

Oliver

[Dogger Dan]

Where are you getting your water and are you boiling it?

Dogger

[flosso]

Perhaps it's because you're getting your water from bath taps - did your first (succesful) batch come from bath tap water?

It might just be an old wives tale, but I seem to remember hearing something that if certain taps aren't used for drinking then over time the drinking water quality from these taps gradually gets worse and worse. I see no logic for this agrument other than if you notice the quality in your drinking taps deteriorating then you would get it fixed, so conversely if you don't drink from a certain tap you don't notice the quality deteriorating and don't bother fixing it.

Would it be at all possible to try using water from a kitchen tap? Or considering the effort you're going to, what about trying bottled water for one batch to see how it goes. You can get 24 litres (2 x 12 litre bottles) of bottled water from either Big W or Safeway/Woolies for around $10 - could be worth it to try and elimate the water source as a cause of the infection.

[Tony]

Dunno about the logic in that last bit (what does it matter if the tap is being used for drinking or washing hands). All that aside, there is a very different taste between the water in our bathroom handbasin tap and the kitchen sink tap.

Tony

[peterd]

I'mANewbie,
I find it interesting that you use the expression "bath taps" (plural). Please tell me you are not using water from the hot tap?
And I'm with Dogger: I don't use water that I haven't boiled first.

[Dogger Dan]

Its a fact folks,

I am with Flosso

At zero dark thirty in the morning, my kids can tell the difference from bathroom water and kitchen water.

Dogger

[Hrundi V Bakshi]

At zero dark thirty in the morning, my kids can tell the difference from bathroom water and kitchen water.

Perhaps it is their ears telling the difference, not their tongues?

[gregb]

Try it for yourself would be the next logical step if you're sceptical of a difference.

Greg

[the Baron]

If you still cannot get a good brew after all these replies become a Rastafarian and smoke cones instead, much less hastle

[tyrone]

Maybe it is a golden stafoccolie infection.They are almost impossiable to kill!

[grabman]

stupid idea but here goes anyway......

Are you sanitising your lids??? a few bugs in them and then you flip bottle to mix priming sugar and bingo!

[the Baron]

Newbie, I'm with Flosso to, I don't know how old your house is or what the water lines to your bath are like (or what you do in the bath with the nozzle) but try filling the fermenter from drinking taps such as your kitchen tap (I am not a plumber but they may use different grade pipes to bath and kitchen taps, am not sure but), use your pot that you use for boiling, it will take longer but may be worth it. Or try boiling the water before use and letting it cool.
I think you should go to a mates house and do a brew in one of his fermenters at his house using his stuff, there is double benifits from this: 1. you can rule in/out if you are the cause of the infection. 2. You have made a brew with your mates gear for free

[BPJ]

Different taste between bath and drinking tap is simply the amount of use. Kitchen taps are used all day everyday. Bath taps only used when having a bath. If you only shower then the bath line has water sitting in it. Copper oxidises leaving a film of green "fur" When used this fur dislodgdes and in extreme cases the water appears blue and tastes vial.

The kitchen tap does teh same, however teh amount of copper fur is virtually zero.

As for sanitising. I place my fermentors on the beer fridge in my shed. As some invariably spills during bottling I have a interesting culture of mould taht i only bother to clean up every 6 months or so. rarely have any infections.

[scooper]

Thanks everyone for replying.

Firstly, after seeing how active this forum is, I've decided to join. I'll now post everything with my registered account, scooper, instead of the I'mANewbie guest account.

Now, down to business. I haven't been boiling my water - it comes straight from the bath tap (cold water only ). As for the quality of the pipes, the thought never really entered my mind. The bath is used nearly every day, so I wouldn't have thought that there any build-up in the pipes. I've had a couple of successful brews from the same tap, so again, the thought had never really occured to me. Maybe I've just gotten lucky on those occasions? I had opted not to use the pre-bottled water from the supermarket, as I figure that much of this is either tap water or has come from natural springs (and is probably swimming with bacteria). Having said all this, I'll definately give these suggestions a go.

To answer Oliver's question, there doesn't seem to be any consistency with brands. I've tried a few: Cascade, Muntons, Black Rock, and Morgans. In an attempt to reduce contact with potentially contaminted pots, packages, etc., I've tried to minimise the ingredients to the bare essentials. I take the bare minimum ingredients and empty them directly into the fermenter once it's been sterilised.

I have been back to my HBS a couple of times (AHB in Oakleigh), and they've given me a few suggestions. One was to fill the fermenter to the top with water and bleach, and leave it overnight. I tried this with the last brew, but it also went the usual way. I haven't taken a dud brew back to them yet, but I will. It'll have to wait until the next one, as I've tipped them all.

One thing I have noticed is that there is a small piece of black stuff melted into the side of the fermenter on the inside, at about the 25 litre mark. To date, I've not concerned myself with it, but after some research about infections, I'm beginning to wonder if there's not something hiding there.

Thanks heaps,
scooper

[scooper]

I'd promised a timeline of a typical brewing day for me, here goes.

- I generally try to begin the brewing process about mid-morning. By this time, we've all had our morning showers, and the steam will have left the room. I also try to close the doors and windows well in advance to try to let any dust/particles settle.
- Firstly, I begin by washing the floors, walls, bench and ceiling. I use a warm bleach solution and a mop for the floors, and a seperate warm bleach solution with a Chux cloth for the walls, bench and ceiling.
- After I wipe the walls etc., I wipe the bath and the taps to make sure that they're clean too.
- I put on the first set of gloves, and sterlise them with a bleach solution.
- I put a strong warm bleach solution in the fermenter, about 5 or so litres, and throw in the airlock, etc. This includes the tap (so the bleach slops out of the tap's hole). I usually open/close the tap a few time to work the bleach solution into any gaps. I also remove the rubber rings from the lid, and place those into the fermenter.
- I shake the fermenter to get the bleach everywhere. I also use another Chux cloth (not the one I used to clean the walls) to wipe the inside of the fermenter and the parts. I'll quite often leave the bleach solution in the fermenter about 10-15 minutes.
- I rinse the bleach out of the fermenter and parts, and then use brewer's detergent to make sure that I've gotten all the bleach out. I basically repeat the same process as for the bleach.
- I then rinse out the detergent and change gloves. I put in around 5-8 litres of cold water and pour in a lot of Sodium Metabisulphate (more than the recommended 1 Tablespoon per litre), and then throw in all of the parts.
- I always leave the Sodium in the fermenter for an hour (as per the recommendation from HBS). I shake it a regular intervals to make sure everything gets well washed, then rinse it out with cold water from the bath tap.
- Just before rinsing out the Sodium, I begin sterilising the ingredients, cans, can opener, etc. with a bleach solution. I don't use the Sodium for the can opener, etc., as it seems to cause stainless steel to rust.
- Once I've rinsed the Sodium out, I try to work reasonably quickly, so as to minimise air/contact time.
- I empty the ingredients into the fermenter, and tip in boiling water from the kettle. I lift the fermenter down into the bath, and top up the level to 23 litres.
- I screw on the lid, place in the airlock, and pour recently boiled water from the kettle into it.
- Lastly, I take a hydrometer reading.

[Shaun]

Something else to try is boiling 2L of water in a sauce pan then adding your fermentables to this water and boil for 5 - 10 minutes to kill any nasties that may be living in the fermentables. Then add this to your wort in the fermenter.

Can you elaborate on this black stuff on the side of the fermenter? Is it plastic? Is it smooth or rough? Has it always been there? On the brews that have worked did the brew level or krausen come in contact with this black stuff?

Your cleaning process is extreme, your wife may not be as supportive of your brewing once the problem is found and rectified and you are not cleaning the kitchen and bathroom before every brew

[Oliver]

Scooper,

Where in Melbourne are you?

Oliver

[can-o-worms]

well... this seems like a no brainer to me, if you are not boiling your water then i would imagine you are just asking for problems.

I mean what is the point of using Sodium Met to sanitize your gear if you just gonna throw tap water all over everything in the end anyway.
You might just as well have washed your gear with tap water in the first place.
Maybe I am wrong, i am no master brewer... but despite my wife's best efforts, I haven't had an infection yet.
Patrick

[Dogger Dan]

Scooper,

Cut back on the sanitizing (I can't believe I said that), try 23 L of bottled water and see how that goes.

I also recomend a new fermentor with out any black stuff

Dogger

[Jeff]

Do you take the hydrometer reading from the tap or do you did into the brew from the lid?
Do you tip the sample back into the fermenter?