Would a brett infection make brew sweet?

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Question:

now thats nasty looking! lot’s of bleAch in cleaning that bucket(I’d personally trash it and get a new one or use a carboy-buckets are cheap). don’t forget to seriously clean all tubing ,airlocks,ect.yuck!

Response:

Just a guess, but this looks like it was a Pediococcus damnosus infection, which is one cause of ropiness. Did the beer get thick and slimy? Another cuase of ropiness is acetobacter. Was it exposed to oxygen? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I check out my stout (only a few days in the bottle) and it has the same white skin forming on the surface that I noticed in secondary. The sample I tasted at bottling time was very sweet, and when I noticed the skin, I cracked one open and it was still quite sweet. Is this the result of the infection? Is this truly a brett infection? It’s a white skin that sits on top of the beer, it can be broken up, but it’s a fairly solid, if thin, film. Chris Chris, Here’s an infection in one of my porters that I reported on here a few months ago. I finally got off my ass and charged my battery so I could take pics. A quick run down– I made a seven grain partial mash porter, and it was only the second time I had tried any sort of mashing (it was very simple with merely a pot and a blanket to retain heat). At the end of my 10 day primary, I was blown away by the quality of my beer. Yeah, it was young and needed time to mellow and take off the roasted edge, but it was *fantastic*. I racked it into secondary knowing i would be bottling an awesome batch in the near future. Fast forward about 2 weeks. I open up the bucket and to my horror discover this white billowy stuff on top my beer. No problem, RDWHAHB, taste it and it’ll be fine. BS. Even though it didn’t tas *bad*, it certainly wasn’t the porter i tasted not even 2 weeks ago. It now tasted sour, not quite puckering. Again, not a porter, but not bad either. I never had the heart to throw the stuff out… I’m going to leave it in the garage for a few months and see what happens. I decided on a whim tonight to taste it again (about 6 weeks after the infection was first discovered), and I have to say that the sour is smoother. Still, I’m getting almost no grain, malt or hops through the sourness. Here are links to the pics if any of you like rubbernecking :) http://www.macbaldur.net/images/1.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/2.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/3.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/4.jpg At first, it looks like waxy lilly pads on top of the beer. Once you get closer though you notice tendrils.. almost looks like a jellyfish. Creepy. — Jay Swartzfeger Scottsdale, AZ

Response:

Wouldn’t that have shown up in primary, though? This film did not show up until I secondary. . . The film might be starch goop from the flaked barley (flaked adjuncts really ought to be mashed).

– Chris Benham

Response:

Yep, good point. I guess I agree with the people who think it is an infection. — – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Wouldn’t that have shown up in primary, though? This film did not show up until I secondary. . . The film might be starch goop from the flaked barley (flaked adjuncts really ought to be mashed). — Chris Benham

Response:

It started at about 1.053 and ended about 1.012. . . (in a bout 3 days) That, and it had a week in primary and a week in secondary to finish up. . . Chris – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I check out my stout (only a few days in the bottle) and it has the same white skin forming on the surface that I noticed in secondary. The sample I tasted at bottling time was very sweet, and when I noticed the skin, I cracked one open and it was still quite sweet. Is this the result of the infection? Is this truly a brett infection? It’s a white skin that sits on top of the beer, it can be broken up, but it’s a fairly solid, if thin, film. Chris I don’t the the brett would cause the beer to taste sweet, but a sweet beer from an incomplete fermentation will be much more prone to infections of any type. What is the specific gravity and what was the original gravity?

– Chris Benham

Response:

Its weird… It definitely attentuated, getting down to 1.013….But why would it be sweet… What brand was the Amber malt extract? That could be a source. Typically Amber LME is used for Amber ales, Scottish Wee Heavies, sweeter styles where you would want residual caramel. Probably not the best choice for a dry stout, but fine for a sweet stout…. The Victory Malt (Briess, right?) would not have diastatic power (as opposed to Munich malt) so it would just contribute starch. This could be the source of the film… Do you taste anything Funky? No? Then its probably just starch, perhaps with yeast cells stuck to it. Let the bottles carbonate and see how it tastes in a couple weeks. Good Luck, John — John Palmer How To Brew – the online book http://www.howtobrew.com (free, all rights reserved) Homepage: http://www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Chocolate malt is all, no real choc. It was: 7 lbs Amber LME .75 lb Victory .75 lb Chocolate Malt .75 lb roasted barley .5 lb flaked barley Steeped around 150* for ~30 min, boiled for an hour (partial volume). Primary for a week (fermentation pretty much finished after 3 days. . . ) Secondary in plastic for 1 week. when I opened the bucket I noticed this film and some bubbles. Racked to bottling bucket, primed with 3/4 cup priming sugar (boiled in 1 cup water) and bottled. When I tasted my hydrometer sample before racking to secondary, it was roasty, with very little sweetness, although it did have a strong alchohol smell and a lot of yeast floating solution. That’s why I decided to rack to secondary even though I don’t have a carboy. I wanted the trub to settle out a bit more. When I tasted a bit after bottling, there was almost no roasted flavor and it was VERY sweet. After about three days in the bottle the nastly looking white film was back, so I cracked one open and poured it out. Obviously there was no carbonation, and there were little bits of what I assumed was the skin I’d seen floating on the surface. Most of it appeard to be stuck to the neck inside the bottle. There was more roasty flavor than before, but it was still quite sweet. Is this something that will age out, or is this batch for naught. Maybe I’ll just call it a Belgian Stout. . . Chris Did you add chocolate to this recipe? The white layer sounds like cocoa butter. But if it is an infection, I doubt its brett, though brett leathery flavors do take a while to develop… How Sweet is it? What was your recipe, temperatures, etc? — John Palmer — Chris Benham

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – At the end of my 10 day primary, I was blown away by the quality of my beer. Yeah, it was young and needed time to mellow and take off the roasted edge, but it was *fantastic*. I racked it into secondary knowing i would be bottling an awesome batch in the near future. Fast forward about 2 weeks. I open up the bucket and to my horror discover this white billowy stuff on top my beer. OK, never mind what grew on this batch, time to change your procedures. After 10 days, you racked into another bucket. With the fermentation essentially all over, you left your beer with a huge surface exposed to air. Here it sat for 2 weeks without any sort of protection. If this is SOP, I’m surprised all your beers don’t show surface films. Aerobic bacteria thrive in the environment you presented for them.

Nearly all my beers are racked into a secondary plastic bucket, and I’ve never had problems except with this particular bucket. All other batches have been clean. Out of the dozen or so batches I’ve made (all in a secondary plastic buckets, btw), this is the second infected batch. The first infected batch was from a peach ale that not coincidentally was secondaried in the same bucket. I’ve made at least 4 batches since the infected porter, all of them secondaried in a plastic bucket, and all of them have been infection free. With seven batches of mead going right now, I have no available glass carboys for my beer. — Jay Swartzfeger Scottsdale, AZ

Response:

Hi All, Jay: Thank you for a very interesting post! You are made of stern stuff to not dump that batch! My first thought was a lacto type infection, due to the tartness and jelly, but I have not seen many infections, and so I wanted to get another opinion. I copied and forwarded your post to Louis Bonham, who is a wizard with brewing microflora and lab techniques. And this is what he said: Best guess off the top of my head is Lactobacillus pastorianus or possibly one of the acetos. Is the sourness like vinegar (aceto) or just sharpness (lacto)? Have your guy do a catalase test to check: put a gob of the crud on a clean glass slide and add a drop of drugstore strength hydrogen peroxide (I know you’ve got that ). If it foams like mad, it’s catalase positive; if it doesn’t do much of anything, catalase negative. Acetos are catalase positive; lactos are catalase negative. (Pedios are generally catalase negative, but I’ve encountered some that are weakly catalase positive.) Of course, if it’s a salad of contaminants, results here will not tell you much of anything. If he’s got access to a good lab scope, gram stain a sample and check it out. Lactos are gram positive; acetos are gram negative. I’ve heard that you can do a Q&D non-microscope test for this by putting a glob of the crud on a slide and adding a few drops of a KOH solution (if it turns viscous, gram positive), but I’ve not tried it. (The procedure is detailed in Fix.) I doubt it is pedio, in that pedios generally don’t like to form a skin, and besides if you had a pedio infection so bad you can literally see it, it would almost certainly reek of diacetyl. It could be any number of other things (mold, bacillus, etc.), but the sourness + skin suggests to me that its probably Lactobacillus pastorianus. You’d need to culture it out on a media like LMDA to be sure. All the best — LKB — John Palmer How To Brew – the online book http://www.howtobrew.com (free, all rights reserved) Homepage: http://www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I check out my stout (only a few days in the bottle) and it has the same white skin forming on the surface that I noticed in secondary. The sample I tasted at bottling time was very sweet, and when I noticed the skin, I cracked one open and it was still quite sweet. Is this the result of the infection? Is this truly a brett infection? It’s a white skin that sits on top of the beer, it can be broken up, but it’s a fairly solid, if thin, film. Chris Chris, Here’s an infection in one of my porters that I reported on here a few months ago. I finally got off my ass and charged my battery so I could take pics. A quick run down– I made a seven grain partial mash porter, and it was only the second time I had tried any sort of mashing (it was very simple with merely a pot and a blanket to retain heat). At the end of my 10 day primary, I was blown away by the quality of my beer. Yeah, it was young and needed time to mellow and take off the roasted edge, but it was *fantastic*. I racked it into secondary knowing i would be bottling an awesome batch in the near future. Fast forward about 2 weeks. I open up the bucket and to my horror discover this white billowy stuff on top my beer. No problem, RDWHAHB, taste it and it’ll be fine. BS. Even though it didn’t tas *bad*, it certainly wasn’t the porter i tasted not even 2 weeks ago. It now tasted sour, not quite puckering. Again, not a porter, but not bad either. I never had the heart to throw the stuff out… I’m going to leave it in the garage for a few months and see what happens. I decided on a whim tonight to taste it again (about 6 weeks after the infection was first discovered), and I have to say that the sour is smoother. Still, I’m getting almost no grain, malt or hops through the sourness. Here are links to the pics if any of you like rubbernecking :) http://www.macbaldur.net/images/1.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/2.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/3.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/4.jpg At first, it looks like waxy lilly pads on top of the beer. Once you get closer though you notice tendrils.. almost looks like a jellyfish. Creepy. — Jay Swartzfeger Scottsdale, AZ

Response:

All I can say is NEVER let a beer spend more than 10 days in a plastic bucket. They allow in oxygen and can have itisy-bitsy scratches in them. I have been to nearly 100 brew pubs and not once have I ever seen a plastic fermenter. That ought to tell you something. I am not saying pitch your bucket; but in the future you may want to rack off to a carboy. If your next batch goes bad (either in the primary or secondary), you may want to consider throwing out your bucket for good. Good luck. Jim

Response:

At the end of my 10 day primary, I was blown away by the quality of my beer. Yeah, it was young and needed time to mellow and take off the roasted edge, but it was *fantastic*. I racked it into secondary knowing i would be bottling an awesome batch in the near future. Fast forward about 2 weeks. I open up the bucket and to my horror discover this white billowy stuff on top my beer.

OK, never mind what grew on this batch, time to change your procedures. After 10 days, you racked into another bucket. With the fermentation essentially all over, you left your beer with a huge surface exposed to air. Here it sat for 2 weeks without any sort of protection. If this is SOP, I’m surprised all your beers don’t show surface films. Aerobic bacteria thrive in the environment you presented for them. Use a carboy, even if its plastic, for secondary. Minimize headspace and surface area exposed. Rack while there is still a little activity going on to purge what little air is at the top. In fact, if you don’t mind a little yeast layer, skip the secondary and just bottle. That time to mellow you refer to can take place just as easily in the safer confines of the bottle. Brian

Response:

Oh yeah, no problem there. I didn’t list them because I’m pretty certain they would not have caused the beer to sweeten. . . Chris – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – You did add bittering hops, right?

Response:

I check out my stout (only a few days in the bottle) and it has the same white skin forming on the surface that I noticed in secondary. The sample I tasted at bottling time was very sweet, and when I noticed the skin, I cracked one open and it was still quite sweet. Is this the result of the infection? Is this truly a brett infection? It’s a white skin that sits on top of the beer, it can be broken up, but it’s a fairly solid, if thin, film. Chris

Chris, Here’s an infection in one of my porters that I reported on here a few months ago. I finally got off my ass and charged my battery so I could take pics. A quick run down– I made a seven grain partial mash porter, and it was only the second time I had tried any sort of mashing (it was very simple with merely a pot and a blanket to retain heat). At the end of my 10 day primary, I was blown away by the quality of my beer. Yeah, it was young and needed time to mellow and take off the roasted edge, but it was *fantastic*. I racked it into secondary knowing i would be bottling an awesome batch in the near future. Fast forward about 2 weeks. I open up the bucket and to my horror discover this white billowy stuff on top my beer. No problem, RDWHAHB, taste it and it’ll be fine. BS. Even though it didn’t tas *bad*, it certainly wasn’t the porter i tasted not even 2 weeks ago. It now tasted sour, not quite puckering. Again, not a porter, but not bad either. I never had the heart to throw the stuff out… I’m going to leave it in the garage for a few months and see what happens. I decided on a whim tonight to taste it again (about 6 weeks after the infection was first discovered), and I have to say that the sour is smoother. Still, I’m getting almost no grain, malt or hops through the sourness. Here are links to the pics if any of you like rubbernecking :) http://www.macbaldur.net/images/1.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/2.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/3.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/4.jpg At first, it looks like waxy lilly pads on top of the beer. Once you get closer though you notice tendrils.. almost looks like a jellyfish. Creepy. — Jay Swartzfeger Scottsdale, AZ

Response:

WOW, You have my greatest sympathy. I’m still pretty new to this so I’ll leave the suggestions to the more informed. That is some nasty looking stuff. I have had something atop my porter and stout beers lately and was going to inquire about the brett infection so I was watching this thread closely. If that’s brett, that aint what I got:) Looking at mine closely it looks like its just small white CO2 bubbles closely packed. There was an earlier reference to cotton balls that mine somewhat resemble, but I think I’m OK. Again, you have my sympathy, Ken

Response:

Well, I’m not even sure if it’s Brett; I’m hoping someone can ID by the pics I posted. Dan L. has mentioned that Brett affects flavor very little, if at all. The flavor in this batch is defnitely affected. Looking at mine closely it looks like its just small white CO2 bubbles closely packed. There was an earlier reference to cotton balls that mine somewhat resemble, but I think I’m OK.

Actually, the first time I discovered the infection the top also had a few largish bubbles (the size of jawbreakers). I’m guessing they may have popped when I moved the bucket to take the pics. Again, you have my sympathy,

Heh, pardon the pun but I was in a ’sour’ mood for the rest of the day after finding it in my bucket. My wife asked what was wrong and I told her to the homebrew store and get ingredients for your next batch.’ Shopping for my next batch took a little bit of the sting away. — Jay Swartzfeger Scottsdale, AZ

Response:

http://www.macbaldur.net/images/1.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/2.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/3.jpg http://www.macbaldur.net/images/4.jpg

That is some nasty looking stuff. The only infection I ever suffered through was a three batch bottle infection. I had it in all my bottles, so I had to reclean the entire bunch. Where I used to work we had open tanks of a strong brine solution, and we would get very similar looking stuff on top of the tanks when rainwater collected and sat a few days without being the solution being mixed. There, it was a mold of sorts. Maybe someone else has a name for the stuff…I can tell you from aromas and flavors what the problem might be, but unfortunately I have no idea from a visual inspection. Cheers, Mike

Response:

Oh! That is probably not a Brett infection. With a Brett infection the pelecle goes all teh way across the surface with a dusty white appeariance that sometimes supports bubbles. I would probably not attempt to salvage that batch. — Dan Listermann Check out our E-tail site at http://www.listermann.com Take a look at the anti-telemarketer forum. It is my new hobby!

Response:

It was Alexander’s (I believe. My LHBS sells it from 50 gal. drums. . . ). It doesn’t seem to have any off flavors, so I’ll probably drink it regardless. Of course, if the sweetness doesn’t die down this could be around for a while. . . Chris Its weird… It definitely attentuated, getting down to 1.013….But why would it be sweet… What brand was the Amber malt extract? That could be a source. Typically Amber LME is used for Amber ales, Scottish Wee Heavies, sweeter styles where you would want residual caramel. Probably not the best choice for a dry stout, but fine for a sweet stout…. The Victory Malt (Briess, right?) would not have diastatic power (as opposed to Munich malt) so it would just contribute starch. This could be the source of the film… Do you taste anything Funky? No? Then its probably just starch, perhaps with yeast cells stuck to it. Let the bottles carbonate and see how it tastes in a couple weeks. Good Luck, John

– Chris Benham

Response:

What kind of hops did you use, and how much? Maybe it isn’t so much that the beer is too sweet, as there aren’t enough hops to balance the (normal) residual sweetness of the malt. Also… the fact that it seemed less sweet at racking leads me to wonder if what you’re tasting right now may simply be priming sugar that hasn’t fermented out yet. The film might be starch goop from the flaked barley (flaked adjuncts really ought to be mashed). —

Response:

You did add bittering hops, right?

Response:

You have a classic Brett infection. I doubt that it would make your beer taste sweet as it has little effect on flavor except, perhaps, in extreme cases. Don’t worry about it. It will take a lot to get it out of your system. Replace easily replaced plastic things and give everything else a long bleach soak. — Dan Listermann Check out our E-tail site at http://www.listermann.com Take a look at the anti-telemarketer forum. It is my new hobby!

Response:

AFAIK, a Brett infection would not, in itself, make a beer sweet; in fact, IIRC Brett can ferment some of the complex sugars that are not normally fermentable by brewers yeast, so the effect would probably be the opposite. However… if you had a weak fermentation due to sickly yeast, I imagine that could have provided an opportunity for Brett (or something else) to gain a foothold in your beer. If there’s something going on in the bottles, I would monitor this batch for overcarbonation (open one periodically) if I was you… — – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I check out my stout (only a few days in the bottle) and it has the same white skin forming on the surface that I noticed in secondary. The sample I tasted at bottling time was very sweet, and when I noticed the skin, I cracked one open and it was still quite sweet. Is this the result of the infection? Is this truly a brett infection? It’s a white skin that sits on top of the beer, it can be broken up, but it’s a fairly solid, if thin, film. Chris — Chris Benham

Response:

Did you add chocolate to this recipe? The white layer sounds like cocoa butter. But if it is an infection, I doubt its brett, though brett leathery flavors do take a while to develop… How Sweet is it? What was your recipe, temperatures, etc? — John Palmer How To Brew – the online book http://www.howtobrew.com (free, all rights reserved) Homepage: http://www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer

Response:

Chocolate malt is all, no real choc. It was: 7 lbs Amber LME .75 lb Victory .75 lb Chocolate Malt .75 lb roasted barley .5 lb flaked barley Steeped around 150* for ~30 min, boiled for an hour (partial volume). Primary for a week (fermentation pretty much finished after 3 days. . . ) Secondary in plastic for 1 week. when I opened the bucket I noticed this film and some bubbles. Racked to bottling bucket, primed with 3/4 cup priming sugar (boiled in 1 cup water) and bottled. When I tasted my hydrometer sample before racking to secondary, it was roasty, with very little sweetness, although it did have a strong alchohol smell and a lot of yeast floating solution. That’s why I decided to rack to secondary even though I don’t have a carboy. I wanted the trub to settle out a bit more. When I tasted a bit after bottling, there was almost no roasted flavor and it was VERY sweet. After about three days in the bottle the nastly looking white film was back, so I cracked one open and poured it out. Obviously there was no carbonation, and there were little bits of what I assumed was the skin I’d seen floating on the surface. Most of it appeard to be stuck to the neck inside the bottle. There was more roasty flavor than before, but it was still quite sweet. Is this something that will age out, or is this batch for naught. Maybe I’ll just call it a Belgian Stout. . . Chris Did you add chocolate to this recipe? The white layer sounds like cocoa butter. But if it is an infection, I doubt its brett, though brett leathery flavors do take a while to develop… How Sweet is it? What was your recipe, temperatures, etc? — John Palmer

– Chris Benham

Response:

I don’t the the brett would cause the beer to taste sweet, but a sweet beer from an incomplete fermentation will be much more prone to infections of any type. What is the specific gravity and what was the original gravity?

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