To make an entirely long story short, I had a mishap while dumping some spent yeast from my fermenter this weekend and inadvertently spilled about an ounce or two of my sterilization solution (bleach & water, 1TSP per gallon/H20) into my beer (five gallons of beer). I have a few questions:
Should I trash this brew? Have I ruined the beer and would I potentially poison those that drink it based on the amount of bleach solution in my brew?
If I haven’t ruined the beer by some miracle would this amount of solution inhibit the yeast during bottle conditioning?
First, it won’t be poisonous. Assume two ounces, even four ounces spilled into the brew. At 1 tsp of bleach per gallon of water, you’ve spilled 1/32 of a tsp of bleach into five gallons of beer. My household bleach is 6% sodium hypochlorite. That’s 60,000 ppm straight. You’ve diluted it by . . . 128 ounces, 6 tsps/ounce, so 768 fold? So your sanitizing solution is now about 78 ppm. You’ve further diluted that by a lot - 5 gallons, 128 oz/gallon, 640 ounces. If you added 4 ounces, that’s 312 parts added, so you’re down to less than 0.5 ppm. Drinking water typically has 2-3 ppm chlorine - so definitely not poisonous.
Will it be ruined? Maybe, but I don’t think so. The taste threshold for chlorophenols should be much higher than 0.5 ppm.
Will it inhibit the yeast? No. You can make a beer with straight, unfiltered, chlorinated tap water, and the yeast will not be inhibited.
All of this assumes of course that my math is right - I think it is though, but if I’ve screwed something up someone tell me!
Do not trash it until you’ve tasted it. You haven’t added that much bleach. The best you’ve done is given yourself an excuse for why the batch doesn’t taste perfect ;).
Thanks all for your comments and insights. Exactly what I was hoping for. In a few weeks I may come back and let you know how it turned out. Thanks again!