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Oxidation & possible infection

Post #1 made 12 years ago
by DaveDoran
Bad day. Been a couple of bad days really. last 2 brews gone bad. To me they taste like oxidation has occurs. Lots of cardboard tastes.


This may have been down to my own laziness. After boil I simply put cube up the tap on the urn (biab in a urn) and opened tap to flow down into cube, drop of maybe 300mm where it would have splashed on the bottom of the cube. This is where I am guessing the oxidation is occurring. Have bought a valve and hose so now will hopefully remedy this.


Other source of infection may be after the 1st of the above brews I experimented with first wort hopping and threw the hops in free balling not thinking of the exposed element. In the boil some of there residue burnt on to the element which I haven't fully been able to remove.


My first brew a hoppy apa so its not as noticeable. This one was a weissen and completely unpalable. Finihed ferment and down the sink. Cardboardy and think there may have been some other infection also. Have bottled 330ml of it to bring to a brewclub.


As always any advice greatly appreciated.
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Last edited by DaveDoran on 04 Aug 2014, 11:03, edited 1 time in total.

Post #2 made 12 years ago
by bundy
Sorry to hear of your bad luck Dave.

I am interested to hear what others say re the way you fill you cube. I understood oxidation prior to fermentation is a good thing for the yeast. So would have thought a bit of splashing at this stage was healthy. Only when bulk priming do I try to ensure there is no oxidation occurring.

Same for your urn, obviously good to keep clean but I understood the boil itself sanitises things, hence no need for stars san etc at this stage, only once cooled and into the fermenter or cube it can be a problem.

To me I would think it is somewhere else the problem is being introduced.

Are you sure your fermenter and cube are well sanitised? Maybe something is left over here from a previous brew? Infection In either of these they could certainly cause problems.

What yeast did you use in your Weissen?
Was it harvested of from a fresh smack pack?

Also when you transfer from your cube to your fermenter do you use a hose then? Possible some nasties in the hose?

Lastly what temp do you ferment at ? High temps can also cause various funky and undesirable flavours.
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Post #3 made 12 years ago
by DaveDoran
Cheers Bundy,

Could possibly have been the cube. Was sanitised and flushed then sanitized again with no rinse sanitizer but who knows. Could have been nasties lurking in there.
Yeast was a wyeast Bavarian. Was a bit old 6months but was done as a starter in Erlenmeyer flasks stepped up. (2nd possible source though these were also sanitised)

Cube was from urn tap straight into cube. No hose but introducing this now.

Fermented at 18deg so I think it should have been good.

Post #4 made 12 years ago
by bundy
Sounds like you no chill in your cube? Then transfer to fermenter.is that right?

If so are also check you are getting a good airtight seal on your cube.
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Post #5 made 12 years ago
by DaveDoran
Yeah was confident it was airtight. Heard the air getting sucked in when I opened it to transfer to fermenter.
Think infection may have been from this or from the yeast starter.

Post #6 made 12 years ago
by bundy
I'd be looking at my fermenter and cube first. I don't no chill but have read of people having issues with the o rings if they are not removed and cleaned thoroughly.

A tricky little place for nasties to grow. I also understand for no chill you need your cube to be completely full. So no air at all in the cube. I see brewers press the sides till wort spills out, then cap and as the wort cools it's almost like a vacuum seal.


Hope you find it.
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Post #7 made 12 years ago
by bundy
Dave i just did a bit of homework on this. According to Palmer, if you oxegenate the wort whilst hot. (which you would have with no chill) you can get problems with the flavours you describe.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-9-3.html

So maybe you don't have an infection after all and being you transfer hot wort have the issue described above from too much splashing into your cube.
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Post #8 made 12 years ago
by BobBrews
Gentleman, :think:

You don't have to totally fill a cube. The Oxygen is (supposedly) bad for hot wort. Hot-side oxygenation would be caused by splashing the hot wort from one vessel to another. This would be something the a full scale brewery would do, not you! You, at this scale, should not worry about oxygenation problems.

I transfer my near boiling wort from my keggle to a no-chill container with a valve and tubing used for pumps sold at most brew supply stores. Very cheap and easy to clean. I do squeeze some air out of my container but now I question even doing that.

Don't read to much into the stuff written by the "experts". They (in the past) tried to downscale the procedures used by big breweries down to us. Most of that is useless and downright wrong. BIAB and no chilling is pretty much as simple and fool proof as you can get!

Just keep your no chill containers clean. I store about 1/4 of the volume with StarSan. I invert the cubes now and then while they wait for a brew. I shake the dickens out of the cube before each use. I dump the StarSan into a clean bucket with the cleaned transfer tube coiled in the bottom. I invert the N/C cube and let it drip into the bucket. The high temperature transfer tubing soaks in the sanitizer for 5 minuets or so and then I hook it to the kettle and drain. Works every time.

Look at this old webpage I did years ago. Watch the short video I did that is at the bottom of the page!

http://www.stempski.com/biab.php
Last edited by BobBrews on 28 Apr 2014, 20:36, edited 1 time in total.
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV
Pipeline: Mulled Cider 10% ABV

http://cheesestradamus.com/ Brewers challenge!
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Post #9 made 12 years ago
by PistolPatch
The transfer from fermentor to cube without a hose sounds like a definite possible cause of the problem. As bundy mentioned, this splashing could cause a problem for sure.

I'm not clued up on this but I always fill my cubes to the brim. Why? Firstly because it might be 18 months before I pitch them. Secondly, I remember reading an article once that oxygenation of your wort is like rust. In other words, you only need a bit to cause the 'blemish' but the more oxygen there is, the more the blemish can grow.

Whatever the article was (be great if someone could find it) it scared me enough to err on the safe side.

Also, here's a quote from a post I wrote four years ago...
A day or two before you are going to brew next, attach a clean hose to your kettle tap and put the other end up your nostril. Open and close the tap whilst breathing in. The nose is pretty good at picking up off-flavours.

If it smells "clean" brew on. If it smells strange, pull it apart and clean it before you brew. (I have done this with a few of my mate's ball-valves and they have all had a nasty surprise when we have opened them up.)
It's always surprising pulling a kettle tap apart. And, just like rust, a small thing can grow into something much larger.

My theory is it is not hard to brew good beer when you are starting out with brand new equipment. It's a lot harder to keep brewing it though!*

:smoke:
PP

* Avoid moving parts as much as possible!!!
Last edited by PistolPatch on 28 Apr 2014, 21:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #11 made 12 years ago
by PistolPatch
No, no , no! Something is getting lost in translation here. In your first post you wrote...
DaveDoran wrote:After boil I simply put cube up the tap on the urn (biab in a urn) and opened tap to flow down into cube, drop of maybe 300mm where it would have splashed on the bottom of the cube.
Now I see...
DaveDoran wrote:Thanks for the help all.
Have purchased a ball valve and hose. Hopefully this should resolve issue.
So, I am getting confused here. I fully understand purchasing the hose but you already have a tap, so why are you purchasing a ball-valve Dave?

Important to get things right here. I can see a few angles where this thread could be read in a certain way and lead to very bad consequences.

:shock:
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 29 Apr 2014, 18:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #12 made 12 years ago
by DaveDoran
Ok yes sorry.

Tap on urn was the tap supplied with the urn. Not able to attach hose to this.
I have now purchased a ball valve with bulkhead union and bsp thread. I can now add a his barb to the valve and hose from urn to cube.

Post #13 made 12 years ago
by BobBrews
DaveDoran,

Do what you want it's your rig. Just keep everything clean and try to hit your amounts and temperatures. I have "finally" since about? 2008"ish" cleaned my tap or ball valve for the first time on my kettle. I did this because PP had a friend who had a bad valve that cause him to dump a enormous amount of beer. I can tell you this. I haven't had a bad batch since 2007 when I switched to no-chill.

Anyway, The valve had some gunk in it but after seven years you might expect some crud. With that I still haven't had a bad batch and have won a few awards to boot! So don't worry about valves if you run some sanitizer thru them when you clean out your kettle. The tube I use to move the wort from my kettle soaks in StarSan before each use and of course it is cleaned after each use before storage!

Sorry about the rambling. Just brew to your own music, but listen to the station that plays BIAB songs!
tap 1 Raspberry wine
tap 2 Bourbon Barrel Porter
tap 3 Czech Pilsner
tap 4 Triple IPA 11% ABV
Pipeline: Mulled Cider 10% ABV

http://cheesestradamus.com/ Brewers challenge!
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