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Lager with infection - smells like vineagr

timtoos

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Hi all,

I brewed a 50 Litre lager a few weeks ago and it started off fermenting brilliant. Tasted good too.

It was low OG 1.040 and it fermented all the way down to 1.008 so was very happy with this.

The boil time was 60 minutes.

It was all grain with no other sugars added and 4 x 11g of pilsener lager yeast sachets were pitched @ 17C. The fermentation was held steady @ 13C and I incorporated a diacetyl rest (however this was premature as I started it when the gravity reached 1.017) as I did not think it wold ferment out so much.

1 week later I decided to transfer to secondary to clean up before kegging and this is where the problem started. Now the lager smells. It doesn't taste that bad (not tasted it for a week now) but it definitely smells like vinegar.

Have you any advice if it can be saved or what most likely went wrong. I transferred into a sanitised secondary using sanitised pipework connected to the primary.

I'm worried about a repeat issue on a festival beer I am doing in a few weeks.

I use stainless steel for my vessels and thought I was meticulously clean. Will my equipment be ok after a deep clean. I was thinking of sterilising the vessels then steaming them.

Thanks in advance

 
Sorry for your loss. I can't be much help, but am curious about your 50L stainless secondary. Do you mean it's a cornelius keg? One thing I always do is rinse the vessel with sanitizer and invert to drain just before filling. I've heard that crushing grain around open vessels can be bad.
 
timtoos said:
It doesn't taste that bad (not tasted it for a week now) but it definitely smells like vinegar.

Can you take a pH reading of the beer?

Normal pH for fermented beer will be 4.1 to 4.5. If you're lower than 4.0, then the beer is acidifying and you likely have a problem. Visually, this can be accompanied by some cloudiness.

Aromatically, young lagers can have sulfur aromatics. The sulfurs range from egg salad to tortilla and fade over time. This is what lagering is all about. The amount and type of sulfurs depends on the yeast, but they all fade in time.

If you're noticing a green or unripe apple aroma, this could be good or bad depending on when you noticed it, and how strong it is.
 
Hi gents,

Many thanks for your replies.

I have 2 x 100 litre very large cook pots which I ferment in.  They incorporate stainless cooling coils so that I can maintain cold setpoints.  I have one for primary and one for secondary (the primary also has a heater element too should I require heating.  When I first do a brew I brew short lengths, hence this 50l brew.

I haven't checked the pH of the beer yet - good idea.  The pH meter I have is only a cheap digital and to be honest I bet its fairly inaccurate - but I will give it a go.  The vinegar smell materialised about 8-10 days in, and occurred after transfer to secondary.  When is was in primary it tasted and smelt great but now it doesn't smell like it needs to age, but that theres a micro issue with it.  It strong smelling and from wat I remember was getting stronger as days passed by.
 
+1 with Brewfun I always get plenty of sulfur smell with larger yeast.
 
The smell isn't sulphur but acidic smelling like vinegar.  I wish it was sulphur then Id worry less.

My gut feeling is that its got a bacteria infection and may need tipping.  Oh well, looks like the drains will get a drink lol
 
Just calibrated the pH meter with buffers of 4 and 7 and it calibrated fine - rock steady.

The lager pH reading was 4.1

What do you guys think?  Is this ok and does it prove that there is no bacterial infection?
 
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