A film of a film

[beery]

Doomed (in a dads army style voice) is a word thats been going on my head for the past few months.

Not quite yet. I have had to throw only one batch 2 * 23litres, and that was back in november when it was at its worst. That one was vinegar mixed with doggy-do.

The hydro reading today was 10.15 and as long as i can bottle it by the weekend it will be fine and will not taste of vinegar. The scum/film will cling to the sides of FV as i bottle.

[SMASH3R]

With new fermenting vessels this has to be something that is introduced through the environment.
Are you still using the heaters? I have an aquarium heater, but I put it in a barrel of water next to the barrel I am fermenting (with airlock) and wrap a sleeping bag around the two. I set the temperature at about 21°C. The control might not be spot on, but there should be zero chance of infection.

As far as sterilising is concerned, I usually leave strong bleach filled up with water to the brim (plus lid on) over night at least.
Adding citric acid to a bleach-containing solution will result in the precipitation of salts, therefore reducing the effectiveness of both.

I repeat though, this must be environmental. Where do you get your water from?
If I am doing and 'hands-on' work, I will also sterilise my hands in the bleach solution in the FV. Are you dry hopping with a giant batch of contaminated hops? Do you put the immersion chiller (if you use one) in with 15 minutes left to the boil?
How are you adding yeast? If you have dried yeast, although not ideal, just try sprinkling on top when in the FV.

I wish you luck.

[Dr. Dextrin]

I must say I've been following this thread with amazement. In many years of brewing and winemaking I've never lost any beer to infection and only lost a couple of gallons of wine that I really gave some abuse to. I'm not at all careful with disinfection, either. In fact until the last 10 years or so I never even used sterilising products - I just relied on detergent and hot water. I often still do - the odd spoon or jug that I've forgotten to sterilise will just get blitzed under a hot tap for 30 seconds. I'm also still using plastic equipment that's years old and quite scratched.

My mental image has always been that alcoholic beverages are basically hostile places for any microorganisms except yeast, and that once you've got the yeasties settled in and loving it, nothing else is likely to get a look in. In comparison, your routine sounds like a hospital operating theatre defending itself against an invading army of alien mutant ninja MRSA bugs. So why have I been lucky and you not?

Just a few ideas, not necessarily correct or relevant, but basically centred around the idea that sterilisation isn't everything, and that good hygiene principles are perhaps even more important...

A clean environment. Everything that will fit goes though the dishwasher regularly and then gets stored in clean drawers/cupboards with a good flow of air. I think it's important that everything can dry quickly and thoroughly. Similarly for vessels. FVs go into big cardboard boxes that keep the dirt off but allow residual moisture to escape. Jars are plugged loosely with kitchen towel so the water can evaporate.

Control sources of infection. Using vinegar as a cleaning agent doesn't seem like a good idea to me because it's basically made by producing beer and then letting it spoil. I also keep wiping cloths especially for brewing and regularly sterilise them. God knows what the regular kitchen ones have on them! I wipe work surfaces over with steriliser before starting.

Apply good food hygiene principles. Most food already has loads of microbes in it. So you avoid storing it at temperatures and conditions where spoilage organisms can multiply. I do the same with wort/beer. After it's stopped boiling, it's sealed up until the yeast is actively fermenting. As soon as the CO2 stops coming off, an airlock goes on. Excluding oxygen completely stops a lot of organisms in their tracks. Add some alcohol to the mix and nothing much can survive. So even if you don't sterilise your equipment, it won't matter that much.

Don't repeat mistakes. If your brew is going off after 10 days in the FV, then stop storing it that long. Every brew that goes off means (a) you've produced an ideal environment for the infecting organism and (b) you've just increased the number of organisms ready to infect your next brew. So it's little surprise if your next brew goes the same way.

Forget about killing the bugs with steriliser - there are countless billions of them and you'll never get them all. Priority number one is to change things so the organism can't grow. With acetobacter that probably means excluding all oxygen. If it's still growing, then you haven't successfully done that. I might be inclined to keg/bottle early just to be sure. Once the conditions no longer favour the microbes, their numbers will decline with time, whether you sterilise or not. If the conditions continue to favour them, they'll hang around.

Clean up well. Make sure all vessels and surfaces are cleaned of anything a bug might find nutritious immediately after use, otherwise you're just providing a breeding ground. Dry everything quickly and thoroughly, which beings me back to where I started...

I hope one or two of these thoughts might prove useful.

[beery]

Hi all,

Thanks for your replys guys. Excellent commonsense post dr dextrin, thankyou.

I have another picture of the bug on the move. Its now in my clear 1 litre pet bottles and is slightly spoiling the beer. Never seen this before.



would you drink it?

Yesterday i blitzed the brewroom. I will put on another beer soon and see what happens.

[Trunky]

[SMASH3R]

I am failing to see how the infection gets in to the FV.

When I do a brew, I will leave the FV filled up to overflowing, with the lid on and full of water + some thin bleach or steriliser. The clear plastic tube that is used to transfer liquid from the boiler to the FV is also in there, and a large plastic jug.
At the end of the boil and with the crash cooler in operation, I will go and empty and rinse the FV and tubing, sterilise my hands in the weak bleach solution and carry the now-clean items to the boiler (tubing in jug, FV with lid on).
I then connect the tube to the tap on the boiler and poke the other end of the tube into the FV through the hole for the airlock bung (lid still on the FV). I take care not to let anything touch the end of the tubing.
When the wort is cool (10-15 mins), I remove the tube end from the FV hole and catch the first couple of litres of wort in the sterile jug to return to the boiler. The pipe is put back in to the FV and the rest runs through.
Once all wort is collected, I open the lid, sprinkle on 12g of dried yeast and put the lit back on with sterilised airlock now in place. That's it - done. I also hold my breath when opening the lid so that I don't blow any air in that direction.

If you use a similar method to this, there should be almost zero chance of anything getting in to the FV.
I am assuming that the only bit of sterilising I don't do (the tiny bit of copper pipe coming out of the boiler tap) is OK because that bit of metal will get very hot for 90 mins during the boil.

If you use live yeast, try a dried yeast for a few batches - it should surely be more sterile. Don't bother with hydrating either. I rarely do and have never had a fermenting problem. Whilst good brewing practice suggests that you normally should, in this period of trying to get a clean brew it might be best avoided. One less thing to rule out.

Anything extra that you do compared with the things above is a potential source to introduce infection. Live yeast, re-hydrating yeast, brewing spoon or paddle, cleaning cloth, extra sugar added. Do none of it for a batch or two and see if you can get a 'clean' fermentation.

Let us know how you get on.

[Dr. Dextrin]

I'm not quite sure what your latest photo shows, but I'm assuming the PET bottle is empty, the little white spots are the infection on the inside surface of the bottle and the larger white patches are water marks on the outside(??).

I think I'd stop using PET bottles if that's the case as the infection is clearly getting enough oxygen to grow in there. If you prime with sugar and bottle in glass there should be virtually no oxygen around as the yeast will eat up any that's dissolved in the beer and the glass will be impermeable to oxygen. If you still get the same effect in glass, I'd be inclined to think it's not acetobacter.

[beery]

I am sorry for the confusion with the pet bottle picture. I should have given a bit more info.

The small white dots on the inside of the bottle are the infection. The white patches on the outside are VWP. The bottles were filled with coopers irish stout (kit).
You cannot see the white dots when they are filled with stout. I have never seen these white dots in the bottles before.

All the way through this infection period, i have been kit brewing coopers stout and wherrys, and they have all been pet bottled. Why the infection is now showing up in the pet bottles, and not before, is a another mystery to me.

There is no whiteish scum line at the top surface of the filled bottles, which is what you might expect with an acetobacter.

I have opened another few bottles since taking that picture and they are riddled with small white dots on the inside, worse than the picture.

Using 0.5 litres of domestos in 8 litres of cold water, a bucket and sponge, i spent 4 hours totally saturating the brewroom, just in case this an airborne thing, i.e. its living on the ceiling/walls and is sporeing, and getting into the wort during aeration.??? Can wort/steam get all over the ceiling/walls and act like food for a bacteria to live on and then spore.?
But maybe its probably surface to surface contamination and i am probably not wiping out the whole colony during sterilization or i am overlooking something and just being a total prick.

I am using non-boiled tap water plus half a campden tablet. Its southern water from bewl resevoir in kent. But i would have thought water contamination to be highly unlikely.

[Trunky]

[beery]

HI Trunky,

I live in small house and brew at my mums gaff where there is lots of room. I could brew here but it could cause a problem with the wife and small kids. There is a detached garage at my mums place, but has no sink or running water. It does have electricity. I could put on the next brew in the garage or here where i live to try and rule out the brewroom. I could use bottled water to rule out tap water contamination.

[beery]

With hindsight, one may ask:

Why have you allowed this to carry on for so long?
Why did you not change your equipment sooner?
Why did you not earlier, change the way you brew, as in totally change the method of brewing?
Why did you not brew somewhere else?
Why did you not wash down the brewroom before when this started?
Why have you not given up?

Answer:

I did not know that it would last this long.
I did not know that an infection would be this hard to get rid of.

When the first infected brew happened, i suspected the aquarium heaters, so i sealed up the temp dial with some fish tank silicone.
When the next brew failed, i replaced the heaters.
When the next brew failed, i started upping the concentration of bleach.
When a few more brews failed, i posted the problem on here to seek advise from brewers that have experienced infection before.

Before i put on the next brew, i am going to think hard about surface to surface contamination, as this is most likely the problem. Maybe if i do one brew here where i live using one of the new unused FVs that i have purchased and no other equipment from the brewroom. Then see what happens. I am now losing the enthusiasm for it all and i am now seriously considering that this bug has me beat and the best thing to do is stop brewing which is a real pity cause i really did have a lot of enthusiasm for this. Everything has a beginning, a life and an end.

[Tony01]

Don't give up, you will beat it eventually.

Have you spoken to your mother about it, does she have any suggestions, has she stored anything nearby? Have you been brewing with doors/windows open? Have you had a look around the immediate area outside? I'm failry certain from what you have been describing and from the pics etc, that this is airborne. Doesn't sound like you could do an awful lot more than you have already done. Unless you find the source of this infection, the cleaning won't help.

I'd seriously consider NOT moving a trial brew to your own home at this point - whatever it could be might hitch a ride and you'll introduce it to your home.

Good luck, everyone reading this (me included) are thankful that it's not happening to them and all we can do is offer help from a distance. You will beat it!

EDIT: One thing you could try - wear surgical rubber gloves and keep spraying them with starsan.

[beery]

Thankyou Tony 01,

I was beginning to think that i am pissing people off with a problem with no answer.

Thankyou for your fine words of encouragement. I do not wish to sound like i am indulgeing in self pity. My energy is probably a bit low today.

Do you find all this interesting, as in a scientific experiment? I do.

In the name of brewing science, i will, at least, do one more brew. I have a lot of "tools" so to speak. 3 more unused FVs, bottled water, a detached garage and another place here to brew small amounts for a short time

Can anyone formulate a scientific experiment to see if we can isolate the cause of the contamination. Although saying that we are dealing with bacteria that cannot be seen, heard or smelt, so a conclusion or any certaintys are near enough impossible.

Edit: Sorry i should answer your questions.

I have talked to my ma about this, probably too much. She is a very clean/tidy type person, and the house/brewroom is very clean looking. The brewroom is a large utility room, joining on to a conservatory.

Back in oct/nov when this started, we had a late summer. I remember brewing in just shorts with all doors and windows open, with sweat dripping off my face, trying not to get it in the FV when stirring and aerating the wort. So maybe a wild yeast got into the room/wort and started all this off.

Yes, i now have a new weapon called star-san. I used it on the last brew but i did not realize at the time that it had gone cloudy with the RO water. Tesco ashbeck water sorted that. The theory of star-san with its 10-20 second bug killing time is most handy for the homebrewer

[wobbly_bob]

Wow -- this would really do me in if I lost so many brews -- -- It strange that you are getting a good primary fermentation then infection -- usually when a fermentation gets going your brew should be pretty safe --

Maybe somebody is sneaking in and peeing in your fv when your away -- I would get a gun and sit vigil next to your fv until its fermented -- only joking -- but it is a riddle -- you need columbo on the job i think.

[beery]

All the brews have been good fermentation with little lag time in kicking off. The bug seems to like wherry more, as in you will see the film earlier on a wherry as apposed to a coopers stout (remember i have been brewing 2 brews at a time---a wherry and a coopers irish stout all the way through this, apart from the last brew --- a wherry) This could be coopers yeast is a little more resistent to the bug or that it just does not show itself that easy on a stout.