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How to know infection before bottling.....
Now, I'm still fermenting my first batch, so I'm getting a little ahead of myself. But I was pondering this question, and thought I'd ask it now as opposed to later.
Is it possible to tell if you have an infection before you bottle? If so, does not detecting an infection at bottling time mean there is none? In other words, can they crop up after a lag time?
I'm new to homebrew (obviously), and don't believe I've ever tasted an infected beer. I've definitely had a skunk one (many actually), just not an infected one
thanks
shawn
Dont worry about it too much if its bad you might get a stomach ache or something. if you have sediment thats not white then it may be contaminated also the bad smell.
You can always drink the sample from your hydrometer jar and taste the beer. It's pretty apparent if you have an infection. It is possible to get an infection while bottling so sanitize, sanitize, and oh yeah sanitize.
Some bugs and wild yeast can contaminate your beer, but take a while to show problems.
I have open beers that were a year old or more and they were gushers. Most definately a wild yeast that could slowly work through the unfermentables that the brewers yeast couldn't handle.
There unfortunately now way of knowing if you have that type of infection.
IMO
There are a few easy ways to tell if you have an infection, things like mold are dead give aways. Bad smells, flavors, etc. are also sometimes signs of infections. A lot of infections don't show up right away though. Wild yeast will create gushers in the bottle, bugs will sour the beer, all of which can take a week or more to show up. Often infection come from bottling. Every time you transfer your beer you create another chance for something to go wrong.
Oh the other hand, beer is naturally resistant to a lot of bugs. Its lowered pH and the alcohol kills off a lot of bugs before infection can set in and as long as you are relatively clean you shouldn't need to worry much. There is a lot on this site about infections in beer and how to tell so I would recommend looking up those posts.
I just recently opened a bottle that had been conditioning for about 5 weeks. On the inside of the bottle, before I opened it, I noticed some small clusters of dots on the side of the glass. I drank it anyway and it tasted fine. I think this was my first experience with infection. My advice, drink it quick, before it goes too bad!
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