After a year of homebrewing, it looks like I’m dealing with my first infection.
I brewed a 2.75 gal SMaSH saison with 100% belgian pils - mashed at 152, I pitched a packet of rehydrated Lalleman’s Belle Saison yeast, and fermented on the upper end of the 70s/lower 80’s (ambient temps). OG was 1.049 and 6 days later I’m at 1.002. I can only conclude that I have an infection. The beer has a mild sourness to it which I would describe as lactic. While I don’t have any homebrewing experience with sour beers, this doesn’t taste nearly as funky or wild as the commercial Brett beers I’ve had - this is much more mild.
While I’m concerned that I have an infection in the first place, I feel like I’ve lucked out on a good style to have a little sour character. I’d like to bottle it but I have some concerns about it:
Can the infection be easily spread to my bottling equipment: vinyl tubing, racking cane, auto siphon, bottling bucket, beer thief, etc…? (all plastic and vinyl)
Is it likely for the beer to finish lower still? There is still minor activity in the airlock so I’m obviously going to wait until that subsides but I don’t want to use my beer thief again to test if there’s any chance of it being infected long term.
The fermenter is a glass carboy so I’m not too worried about about residual problems after a good overnight soak in PBW. Should I be?
Or maybe it’s possible that there is no infection in the first place and I’m imagining the light sour taste. But the gravity just seems too low.
Any feedback is helpful
Cheers,
Glen
Brooklyn, NY