APA/IPA recipe feedback needed

[maltbarley]

Why start dry yeast? I normally just rehydrate with nutrient and pitch. I know that's not the cause of your infection, but was curious about the starter.

So are both kegs bad?

[lexuschris]

Why start dry yeast? I normally just rehydrate with nutrient and pitch. I know that's not the cause of your infection, but was curious about the starter.

So are both kegs bad?

I only had 2 packets of US-05 and wanted to get my cell counts up to the recommended levels (~475 billion), so I just made a starter to step them up.

Both kegs are bad...
--LexusChris

[maltbarley]

If both kegs are bad, I'd lean towards something in the fermenter or your racking system.

[DrDually]

Chris
How are you racking from Sanke to Corny kegs?
If using a pump, the diaphragm may have some gunk in it
How do I know this??? Been there and done that
Fairly easy to open pump and clean, but I did lose 3 kegs of tasty beer

[JonW]

While your keg process does sound suspect, you might also check our your CO2 equipment. Cleaning the beer lines is not always enough. CO2 lines may need cleaning as well. I like to use clear tubing for my CO2 so I can see if the line is dirty.

If you've ever had a really full keg kick back into a disconnect, they can get quite nasty inside and send mold/bacteria right into your next keg. I recently bought some replacement disconnects so I can change my setup back to threaded MFL fittings instead of barbed fittings mostly because I want to be able to remove them to clean.

[lexuschris]

Some good ideas. However, my sample from the fermenter tasted great. Maybe something took hold as it aged at room temp.

When I rack, I just use CO2 to push the beer through the racking cane. Its a sanke fermenter with Derin's kit for fermenting.

I do not use an inline filter on my CO2, so I guess that is always a possibility.. the CO2 could have been infected.. but I am still leaning towards an improperly cleaned keg. I cleaned both of them the same way..
--LexusChris

[JonW]

I wasn't talking about CO2 being infected. Sometimes when you pop a gas disconnect onto your keg, some beer can shoot back into the disconnect. It ends up spoiling there and can then infect future batches down the road.

I just took apart all the gas disconnects from the club jockey box setup last weekend and some of them had serious crud/mold in them.

[maltbarley]

What's more shocking is this jockey box has a gas connection.

[dhempy]

And now, looking back on kegging day, I remember one of the kegs had a real funky smell when I took the lid off. I re-rinsed it with hose water (and I might have givin it a quick shake with some oxyclean), then sanitized with SaniClean as usual. The 2nd keg did not smell funky, so I just sanitized as usual, and transferred the beer into the kegs.

---LexusChris

If I had to place my bet I'd say it was your kegs that caused the issue .. certainly the funky smelling one.

Bummer on the loss!

Dan

[JonW]

Smart ass Tim... I did say "club jockey box setup", meaning the manifold and jockey box.

But the warning remains.... CO2 disconnects can easily harbor bacteria.

[lexuschris]

Thanks for the added notes on gas disconnects Jon... I had not seen your post, as we were typing them up at the same time!

I had not given much thought to CO2 side contamination, until I saw a liquid backup happen on a clear tube gas line once. Prior to this batch getting put on, I did some work on my kegerator's gas system, and unscrewed the gas disconnects to take a look in the tubing. Fortunately it was all clear (visually from the ends, as they are red tube lines). Someone else pointed out that I should take apart the disconnect assembly itself to give it a good soak/clean... I will do that shorty, as I did not think about that during my last line cleaning.

--LexusChris

[BrewMasterBrad]

Sorry for your loss Chris. That really sucks. Hopefully, you can track down the problem and won't have this issue again.

[jward]

I had a blonde ale that was good going into the kegs but had a slight off flavor when I shared it at a party. It was some kind of infection too. I had not gotten around to dumping until this weekend. The infected keg did get worse and was dumped. The other keg was still good to go. I generally clean kegs and let them dry sanitizing before use. Probably time to clean all the gas QDs too.

[lexuschris]

I got myself one of those video inspection cameras with the long flexible tube/light at the end. Taking a look inside my sanke fermenter was just as scary as I suspected. There are various spots of organic buildup (krausen leftovers) in the very upper band of the sanke... where it is just about impossible to scrub well.

I filled up the sanke with water today to let it soak and hopfully loosen. Without being able to get my hand in there and put some elbow grease on it, I'm not sure how best to go about trying to really give this upper area a thorough cleaning.

Fill it with 15 gals of PBW? Use the carboy cleaner drill attacment with maybe just 5 gallons of it? Tilt on its side? Try something more acidic than oxyclean?

My usually cleaning routine is to rinse with a hose, turn upside down on Mark's Keg Washer with oxy-clean solution for 15-20 minutes. Then I fill it with 2 gallons of the oxyclean, and use a carboy brush while tilted on its side. That is where I can get some scrubbing inside there, but that section near the top is hard to reach. Finally, I re-rinse and dry upside down.

On brewdays, I usually prep by boiling about 2 gallons of water in the sanke for about 20 minutes. I guess that has worked pretty well, as I have had many good beers out of this fermenter this past year or so. My IPA was probably still a victim to poor keg cleaning on my part.

Maybe its time to look into a different style fermenter?
--LexusChris

[DrDually]

Getting to the gunk for cleaning is always a problem
So here is one more solution
After cleaning with scrubber on drill, put about 7 gallons of very hot water into sanke, add PBW or other type of cleaner, then insert this http://www.brewershardware.com/American ... owell.html and secure with tri-clover clamp
Cap the vent tube and place inverted sanke on a 5 gallon pail
The racking tube allows gas to escape while the top of keg is totally immersed in solution
I like to also give it a shake every 30 minutes or so
The gunk is very soft at this point and will wash away