Hello all!
I have a question about beer contaimintation:
How can you tell visually when your beer is contaminated. I’d like to know from primary, secondary, bottles, and kegs. If anyone has pictures of this, that would be a GREAT visual! Thx!
-Eldon
This one was done intentionally (see my mango beer recipe)
A big clue is that the beer is cloudy, but it’s not chill haze or yeast.
The reason I am asking this is because I have NEVER had this happen to me yet. Does mold look like mold (bread mold)? I just need some close ups pix or illustrations to give me an idea. I’d hate to work so hard at something and loose it all to contamination.
Thx
-Eldon
This is a good sign of an infection. It was a stored yeast sample that accidentally got left out of the fridge. The same thing hit my pear cider when, due to a set of unfortunate circumstances, I had to neglect for a month. It is probably acetobacter from fruit flies.
That’s what I’m talking about! Thx!
Eldon
But, just because your beer may look ok, doesn’t mean it isn’t contaminated.
You mention that you want to know how contamination might look so you wouldn’t loose a batch to it (contamination.) I would think that by the time you could see the problem it would too late to avoid it. And as others have posted beer can be spoiled without visual evidence.
You mention that you want to know how contamination might look so you wouldn’t loose a batch to it (contamination.) I would think that by the time you could see the problem it would too late to avoid it. And as others have posted beer can be spoiled without visual evidence.
The pellicle photo collection thread on HBT is full of pictures of how infected beer often appears.
Granted, most of these are intentionally pitched with bactera and/or brett to make mixed fermentation beers; however, beers unintentionally infected with bacteria and wild yeast often create these same biofilms.
You may see cloudiness before, during, or instead of a biofilm. That’s often a sign of infection, too. Wild yeast can do some weird things like make what looks like mushroom caps floating on the surface or spongy blobs that sort of look like flattened silly putty. If you see what looks like a disc or fried egg floating beneath the surface, that’s either acetobacter or a combination of acetobacter and other contaminates forming a combined mass, similar to a scoby used to ferment kombucha.
Mold like you think is fairly uncommon in beer. You can get mold growth if you add fruit or other ingredients in secondary that float. If wort fails to start fermenting in a few days, you can also see mold growth. In these cases, it may be fuzzy, powdery, or furry growth like you see on bread. It may also be fairly smooth blobs of unusual colors like red, blue, yellow, or green. Mold will either float on the surface or grow along the edge of the surface and up the side of the vessel. If unexpected growth on the surface is white or tan, it’s most likely yeast and/or bacteria. Any other color, likely mold.
Another HBT thread about infections (contaminations) - this one is mainly about accidental contaminations:
Check out the Milk the Funk wiki for lots of images of various non-Saccharomyces bugs.