Beer Forum

Hi,
Been collecting equipment and learning all i can for several years but only brewed 2 batches so far, one extract 2 years ago (drinkable) and one all-grain (non drinkable, although the all-grain mash went perfect) this past fall. I really enjoy the shows i've heard so far.

Thanks for the great beer radio,
Will

Hey Krauty, welcome to the group. What happened to the All-Grain batch that made it undrinkable?

Keep trying!

Rob

I am not exactly sure why it turned out the way it did. Here is the whole scoop.

The whole batch was really a on the fly project i cooked up after having a few to many. The whole point was to see if I could do an all grain batch with the minimal supplies I had on hand. For the setup I used a 5/8 id hose, a dish scrubby (new) over the end, a stainless mesh colander/strainer on top of that and rock (clean) on top to hold it down. All the previous items had been sterilized and rinsed with boiling water before placing it in a ~7 gal pail. For fermentables I used some crushed grain that had been sitting around for 2-4 months and for hops i used some cascade and hallertau that were ourchased along with the grain but where kept in the freezer. My main reason for the brew was just to see if i could obtain a somewhat successful batch sparge with the cobbled system.

Well to my suprise the mash and sparge went well and it was tasting really good up to the point it when into the fermentor. After cooling it I pitched a starter i had made with some nottingham dry yeast and left it to go on its way. There it sat for nearly two weeks with no/little fermentation (being selectively enthusiastic i didn't get around to dumping it as soon as i should have). When i finally got around to dumping it I was suprised to find it was fermenting like crazy so I let it sit for another week. By that time fermentation had stopped so I opened up the fermentor and sampled some of the brew. It tasted ok but was noticeably tart/sour. Not being sure exactly why this happened and the fact i had to go back to college before i could bottle it I dumped it.

If anyone has any ideas why it might have sat for two weeks and then took off like it did or were the tart/sour flavor came from i'ld be glad to hear them.

Thanks,
Will

Sounds like you picked up an infection. Nottingham ferments out pretty quick, so that fermentation you saw after a couple of weeks was some other organism. Your problem would have been sanitation. This could have been from some contamination in a scratch in a plastic item that didn't get fully removed in your cleaning process (very common), not sanitizing as thoroughly as you thought you were (even more common), or maybe some airbourne bug got in during the fermentation process.

It looks like you nailed the basic process pretty good. Next time I would recommend using some kind of no rinse sanitizer such as StarSan instead of the boiling water rinse. It is much more effective.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

The stuff i used to sparge was soaked in strong iodophor solution and then risned with boiling water. Everything after the boil (fermentor, lid, airlock, transfer hose) was sterilized with iodophor @ no rinse concentrations. Airlock was filled with everclear (190 proof grain alcohol).

I am moving on to using starsan though, iodophor is two "messy". I'm also trying to get away from plastic buckets as fermentors.