The introduction of unwanted organisms or chemicals into the beer. Typically, this refers to unwanted bacteria or wild yeast propagating to levels to cause spoilage of the beer. Often incorrectly called an "infection".
Questions tagged [contamination]
119 questions
18
votes
8 answers
Can Infected beer cause death or major illness?
Basic question. Can you get sick and die from drinking infected brew? I know that it must taste terrible, was just wondering. Can't seem to find any references where people have died from infected beer.
drj
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2 answers
I waited 48 hours to pitch and detected fermention prior to pitching
I brewed on Monday but pitched over 48 hours later on Wednesday, because my temperature control was finicky and I wanted to wait until the wort hit the proper temperature before pitching. Normally I would wait only 1 minute to 12 hours until…
Matthew Moisen
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3
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2 answers
Does the amount of air left in the fermenter increases the chance of contamination?
Usually when the mashing process is over and the liquid is transferred to the fermenter there's a head-space of air. Lately I've made smaller batches of approximately 5 liters (a huge inefficiency, i know) but my bucket has 20 liters of volume. So,…
matt_zarro
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3
votes
2 answers
Raspberry Stout contamination?
I brewed a 5-gallon batch of Frankenberry Chocolate Raspberry Stout July 20 (11 days ago) using a Scottish Ale Wyeast. The yeast was pitched at 78 degrees, everything was sanitary, I immediately placed the airlock on the plastic fermenter where it…
Kathy
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2
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2 answers
Does opening the tap of a fermenter bucket increase the chance of contamination?
Sometimes when I want to take a sample of my beer I open the tap of the fermenter (in my case a plastic bucket) and let drip a little bit of beer (primary fermentation). Does this increase the chances of contamination? Is it safer to open the lid of…
matt_zarro
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2
votes
5 answers
Did I just contaminate my beer?
I brewed my very first batch almost 4 weeks ago. I currently have my beer in a secondary fermenter (glass carboy) and plan on bottling in a couple days. I dry hopped it late last week. Today I got home from work and noticed that my hop bag had…
Chris Dargis
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vote
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Possible contamination / small areas of bubble clusters on top of brew
How would you know if your brew is or isn't contaminated? I'm the first timer that dealt with the broken spigot & had to transfer at 6 days. Just hearing about contaminated home brew so many times & the fact that I'm looking at my batch right now &…
Shawn
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2 answers
What lab equipment could be used to effectively ensure a quality home brew?
For example how could you identify toxins in the simplest manner? I've got a few ideas such as microscopes and spectrometers. A microscope could be used to look at the morphological structure of what is growing in the batch, and if it looks like…
user273872
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