• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Mold Danger!?

h4brewing

Brewer
Joined
Oct 7, 2013
Messages
30
Reaction score
0
Hi,

two questions
    1)I am new to brewing and I am concerned that mold could possibly grow on my fermenting beer.  I know mold can easily grow on water.  Could this happen to my brew while it is in fermenting stages?
2) I am looking to learn more about brewing and want to get a book.  Should I go with a E book on Amazon or buy a print book in store on brewing.  My friend John reccomended a E book called " Broke Mans Guide to Brewing Beer" on Amazon.  He said it includes a 100 year old German beer recipes and ways to brew for free with just what you have in your kitchen.  Is it worth checking it out or should i just go with a print book?
 
h4brewing said:
Hi,

two questions
    1)I am new to brewing and I am concerned that mold could possibly grow on my fermenting beer.  I know mold can easily grow on water.  Could this happen to my brew while it is in fermenting stages?

Yes it can but its not really that common, at least in my experience.  Mold, like most growing things, needs oxygen.  As beer is fermenting CO2 is given off making it a fairly inhospitable place to live, even for mold.  However, sometimes a fermentation vessel isn't as airtight as it could be and thus, some mold may get lucky.  The old rules apply for combating mold apply.  Make sure everything is clean and sanitized and make sure the fermentation vessel is sealed up good and tight.  If mold presents itself, John Palmer suggests simply skimming it off the top of the beer and, provided the beer still tastes okay, keeping the beer.  Mold in other words, doesn't necessarily mean your beer is ruined. 

2) I am looking to learn more about brewing and want to get a book.  Should I go with a E book on Amazon or buy a print book in store on brewing.  My friend John reccomended a E book called " Broke Mans Guide to Brewing Beer" on Amazon.  He said it includes a 100 year old German beer recipes and ways to brew for free with just what you have in your kitchen.  Is it worth checking it out or should i just go with a print book? 

Hmmm, without seeing that book, its difficult to be fair but if you're new to brewing I think I would suggest a couple of standards to give you the idea.  Specifically, How to Brew by John Palmer and The Joy of Homebrewing should be in every homebrewers library in my opinion.  After you've gotten the idea and want to expand your brewing knowledge, techniques and recipes I would then add Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels and Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher.  The homebrewing literature is forever getting bigger however.  I like to keep up with what's recently published because these are where the new ideas and discoveries are.  A friend of mine pdf'ed an old how to  make beer at home chapter from some cookbook published in the 1950's.  I like it for the novelty of the thing, not because its particularly informative or lays out any plan for making good beer.  That book your friend recommends may be an interesting read and judging solely on the title, may have some interesting pruno type recipes but I'm just guessing its not going to provide the understanding of brewing good beer at home the way some of the others that I've mentioned certainly do. 

$0.02

Good luck! 
 
Wildrover said:
(Edited to take out the OP's statement.)

Hmmm, without seeing that book, its difficult to be fair but if you're new to brewing I think I would suggest a couple of standards to give you the idea.  Specifically, How to Brew by John Palmer and The Joy of Homebrewing should be in every homebrewers library in my opinion.  After you've gotten the idea and want to expand your brewing knowledge, techniques and recipes I would then add Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels and Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher.  The homebrewing literature is forever getting bigger however.  I like to keep up with what's recently published because these are where the new ideas and discoveries are.  A friend of mine pdf'ed an old how to  make beer at home chapter from some cookbook published in the 1950's.  I like it for the novelty of the thing, not because its particularly informative or lays out any plan for making good beer.  That book your friend recommends may be an interesting read and judging solely on the title, may have some interesting pruno type recipes but I'm just guessing its not going to provide the understanding of brewing good beer at home the way some of the others that I've mentioned certainly do. 

$0.02

Good luck! 

Just the other day my spouse showed me an old brewing book from the 1970's.  A friend gave it to me.  I told her to throw it away.  Her response was she would take it to the library and place it on the free shelf.  Well, I explained the book is cute and certainly has some value but it would be a disservice if a new brewer picked it up thinking to use it.

Procedures have been refined and new ingredients introduced to the hobby in the last forty years.

I agree with Wildover.

The OP is a new brewer.  Find recipes from good sources and learn to brew them.  Get your procedures dialed in and then begin to experiment.  This of course, IMHO.
 
Two great things about How To Brew by Palmer are that you can read just the first few chapters on extract brewing and keep doing that until you're ready for more.  And secondly, the website is handy when you're somewhere without the book but want to confirm something, or share the link with a friend. 

www.howtobrew.com

 
Damn, there always a couple of things on this forum that are big repeaters, " Wah, wah, wah, I didn't hit my efficiency!!! I want it higher!!!!" and "Buy How to Brew by John Palmer"

Please don't worry about the first and by all means BUY the book in both soft cover and the electronic media version for your tablet. It will help eliminate questions to forums.

Mold on beer! That's an ignorance of sanitation proceedures!
READ THE BOOK !!!!!!!!

Most 100 year old recipes are beers made as financially cheap as possible! Not worth the effort! Been there done that!
 
and then....there is the kind of brewer that we have in our homebrew club.  We call him the mad chemist.  He'll try to ferment just about anything, with just about anything!  He made this concoction once that tasted just like lemon juice.  It was quite awful.  He's not afraid of anything.  When he decides to make just plain old beer though, he has a knack for it.  He has two sets of equipment.  One set is for making beer with regular, everyday beer recipes.  The other set is for experimenting.  About one out of 5 of his experiments is fantastic and one out of 5 needs to be dumped.

On "Big Brew Day" back in May, we all brewed in front of our local homebrew shop.  He made the Blonde Ale recipe.  He used the natural yeast on a plum that his father in law had brought back from someplace in Africa.  He took the plum and mashed it up and put it in a yeast starter.  He pitched the yeast starter, plum and all into his fermentor.  The beer was absolutely fantastic!  He ended up with a belgian style saisony flavor with a lot of clove and a touch of banana!  No mold to be had in it.
 
Yes, Scott, There is a group of diverse extreme brewers that make beers out of crazy ingredients. We have to love them for coming up with quirky brews. On the most part they are small batch brewers. Fermenting nuts picked out of cow pies may float someone's boat but not mine!

Sanitation is the key not the ingredients!
 
Well, his sanitation habits are as good as anyone's.  He' meticulous.  He states that when you try some of the things that he tries, sanitation can't be something that you take for granted.  When he harvest's wild yeast, he almost always successful.

Our club is doing a barrell project, and we're using one of the wild yeast strains he's been working with for years.  When you're making 60 gallons of beer for a blended barrell project, and 30 gallons of the beer uses a wild yeast that he's been working with for years, you have to have faith that he knows what he's doing.

Everytime he uses this particular strain of wild yeast his beer is tremendous!!
 
h4brewing said:
    1)I am new to brewing and I am concerned that mold could possibly grow on my fermenting beer.  I know mold can easily grow on water.  Could this happen to my brew while it is in fermenting stages?

It is not too common but can happen.  As mentioned, sanitation practices are vital as is "pitching" yeast quickly into freshly brewed and chilled "wort".  Quickly as in immediately.  Letting wort sit hours or overnight increases the likelihood of spore colonies.  The can survive hostile CO2 and alcohol environments.  Also, pitching an adequate amount of yeast ensure good fermentation and overwhelming the competition.

h4brewing said:
2) I am looking to learn more about brewing and want to get a book.  Should I go with a E book on Amazon or buy a print book in store on brewing.  My friend John reccomended a E book called " Broke Mans Guide to Brewing Beer" on Amazon.  He said it includes a 100 year old German beer recipes and ways to brew for free with just what you have in your kitchen.  Is it worth checking it out or should i just go with a print book?

There are fine books out there and some funky ones that are best read after you established some good brewing practices and can make beer you like to drink.  How To Brew is the beginning book every brewer should read.  I prefer the soft cover of the book as I tend to go back to it from time to time.  I also like Brewing Classic Styles and Designing Great Beers. 

As a new brewer, you need to figure out why you want to brew beer.  If you want to make cheap beer, you cannot make it cheaper than the mass producers.  It also takes a few weeks to be ready so you don't want to jump in thinking you have good beer in a week. 

Cheers!
Joe

 
Scott, Sounds real interesting! I am excited for you and your club! May it be good till the last drop!
 
RiverBrewer said:
Scott, Sounds real interesting! I am excited for you and your club! May it be good till the last drop!

Thank you sir.  It is a great group of people.
 
From post #6 above, "...He used the natural yeast on a plum that his father in law had brought back from someplace in Africa..."

Well, I am glad he was able to produce a beer using yeast from Africa.  No doubt he can be proud of this accomplishment. 

I live between the Mississippi river and lake Michigan, just south of the Lake Superior watershed.  I must say I am becoming increasingly concerned with the non native species introduced into this area.  Just wondering if it really is all that important to import a foreign yeast into our environment for home brew purposes.

This time of year our home is inundated with Asian Beetles brought into this country to help in the cultivation of soy bean plants down in the south.  We now have a pest problem that was imported with good intentions.

We cannot always get what we want.
 
I'd say that homebrewers in general are introducing yeast strains from all over the world all of the time, just by going to the homebrew store and purchasing yeast.  I don't wash my yeast down the drain most of the time.  I dumped my yeast slurries out in the yard, so that the yeast strains that I use predominate my local environment.  This has the intention of keeping the wild yeast strains in my area at bay, in principle.  I don't know if it works, but it can't hurt.
 
Scott Ickes said:
I dumped my yeast slurries out in the yard

I am proud to say I dump my yeast down the Crapper. Living in the non-city, my septic system is an all American yeast fed biological waste digester, the best on the street, maybe the best in the county! Damn, if I were a musician, I would write a country song about it. Now I know city folk have sewage treatment that may benefit from your hobby,
 
Back
Top