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Author Topic: Help required, possible contmaination?  (Read 1631 times)

Offline baldrich

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Help required, possible contmaination?
« on: January 12, 2016, 01:00:06 am »
Dear all,
I’m a new homebrewer from Barcelona (Spain) and I’m facing some problem with my third batch of all grain beer. I’m trying to brew a Belgium clone I’ve found on the net (a trippel karmeliet).

The malts and sugar were for a 20 L batch
Pilsner malt 5000gr
Wheat malt 900 gr
Flaked oats 115gr
Flaked barley 115gr
500gr candy sugar

Mash 66ºC for 90 min, it cooled down to 64ºC at the end of mash

15 gr sweet orange peel 5 min
15 gr coriander 5 min
15 gr Styrian goldings 90 min
15 gr Styrian goldings 45 min
28 gr Saaz 15 min
28 gr Saaz 15 min

Fermentation 1 week with dry yeast (I do not remember now the type but it was for belgium ales)

Everything went fine with the fermentation and after a week I moved the beer to a 5 l plastics bottels in order to minimize oxigen content on the top of the beer. After 2 weeks I carried out a dry hopping with 1.5 oz of saaz for 7 days.  When I went to transfer my beer I found out some residue on the top of the beer like a snoty cloud. Then I decided not to bottle my beer, I just removed the saaz hop (it was in a bag) and I left the beer for an extra week (just to see what´s going wrong). I’ve tasted the beer and I can’t find any weird taste also it does not smell bad.

Could anybody help me to identify what´s worng with this beer? It´s contmaination?

My plan is to transfer the beer for bottling today but without removing the botom part of the plastic bottels (were all the residue rests) and see what happens then.


Thanks a lot


« Last Edit: January 12, 2016, 03:02:54 am by baldrich »

Offline charles1968

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2016, 06:12:05 am »
I had a similar problem with a beer made with orange peel, coriander and dry hops. There was a floaty pale material in the bottles that looked like contamination. They also tasted a little odd. I simply left the beers in cold storage for a few months to clear and they turned out fine in the end. If it tastes OK to you, I would go ahead with bottling, avoiding the sediment.

Offline kramerog

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2016, 08:37:52 am »
Can you post a photo?  To post a picture you need to have the photo hosted somewhere else.


Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2016, 09:10:42 am »
No luck on the pictures, unfortunately.

What you describe could be an infection as easily as it could be a lot of oils from the hops, coriander and fruit peel, as much as it could be just regular yeast activity because the yeast weren't done fermenting after a week or racking over added oxygen and the yeast decided they could ferment a little more for you.
Heck yeah I blog about homebrewing: Brain Sparging on Brewing

Offline dannyjed

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2016, 10:32:56 am »
FYI, you probably added more Oxygen to your beer by moving/racking it into those plastic bottles. You might want to leave it in the primary fermenter the next time until it's done. You'll know when it's done when you have the same gravity readings over 3-4 days.
Dan Chisholm

Offline baldrich

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2016, 03:01:25 am »
Thanks a lot for your feedback


I left the beer in the primary fermenter for a week, density readings were constant over 2 days. Then I moved the beer for second fermentation. The idea of using the 5 liters plastic bottles is to minimize the surface of liquid in contact with air ( in order to minimize oxidation). You can squeeze the plastic bottle to minimize air content on top of the beer surface. If you carry out second fermentation in the primary fermenter; when you open it  you are introducing air and the volume of air left in the vessel compared with the one left in the plastic bottles is higher. Wouldn´t you then increase the risk of oxidation?

Is the first time I was doing dry hopping and as far as I could read it is done during second fermentation, isn´t it?

Offline dannyjed

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2016, 05:50:46 am »
Thanks a lot for your feedback


I left the beer in the primary fermenter for a week, density readings were constant over 2 days. Then I moved the beer for second fermentation. The idea of using the 5 liters plastic bottles is to minimize the surface of liquid in contact with air ( in order to minimize oxidation). You can squeeze the plastic bottle to minimize air content on top of the beer surface. If you carry out second fermentation in the primary fermenter; when you open it  you are introducing air and the volume of air left in the vessel compared with the one left in the plastic bottles is higher. Wouldn´t you then increase the risk of oxidation?

Is the first time I was doing dry hopping and as far as I could read it is done during second fermentation, isn´t it?
I didn't know you were dry hopping and that is a good reason for a secondary. So are you dry hopping in each container?
Dan Chisholm

Offline baldrich

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Re: Help required, possible contmaination?
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2016, 06:30:43 am »
I prepare a hop bag for each 5L container. I don’t know if it’s the best option….
The other way I was thinking about was to use a fermenter  (the typical 25L plastic bucket) but as I mentioned on my previous post the amount of liquid in contact with oxygen is higher.
I don’t know how easy is to oxidize beer, for these reason I used the 5L bottles.