Has your home brew ever turned "bad"

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Has your home brew ever turned "bad"

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jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28244
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 9:04 am Post subject: Has your home brew ever turned "bad"

I have made scores of batches of wine and beer, and yes I steralize stuff, but I am not a fanatic on this score. But the worst I can say that has happened to me, is that I have felt the odd bottle was not as good as another from the same batch.

Has anyone created vinigar? or is a lot of the issues with steralisation, as hangover from days when food grade plastic was less used, and there was a reliance on wild yeasts, and long pulp fermentations?

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 7:00 pm Post subject:
It can happen, but decent cleanliness and good, quick fermenting yeasts make it unlikely. I've never had one go wrong.

sean
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 8:48 pm Post subject:
I had visions of a Jerry Springer programme about homebrew here.

guestable
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 9:59 pm Post subject: Re: Has your home brew ever turned "bad"

jema wrote:

Food grade plastic is not a panacea, as it can still harbour bacteria though not as much as the brewing vessels of yesteryear.

The easy availability of cleaning and sterilising chemicals does make it easier to avoid vinegary beer or wine, but it's no guarantee of infection-free brewing.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "reliance on wild yeasts". There doesn't seem to be any tradition of brewing lambic beers in the UK, so I can't think of a brewery that has relied on wild yeasts for brewing beer.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 11:36 pm Post subject:

"Food grade plastic" ???
I thought this was a question of not having residues of precursor chemicals, or deliberate additives like plasticisers, in the material. A matter of not having harmful materials that could end up contaminating the food.
All household plastics are very soft compared to glass or glazed china, and so will scratch much more easily - notably during cleaning! My suggestion is that micro-scratches in the surface are just the sort of place that contaminants might lurk - to spoil the brew...

I know Brewers' Yeast has been used in breadmaking for a hundred and fifty years, so the "domestication" must have taken place some time before... and I doubt the books then would have been urging you to nip down to Boots for some Campden Tablets...
Some wines, though, are still reputed to made using the natural yeasts. "Noble rot" and all that...

jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28244
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 11:37 pm Post subject:
Plenty of old wine recipes, are "yeastless" relying on the yeast already present to ferment. This is dodgey because they may be bad yeasts creating off flavours, or they may only work to a very low alcohol level, and they certainly won't create the rapid and hence safer ferment of a modern wine making yeast.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 05 11:48 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

Plenty of old wine recipes, are "yeastless" relying on the yeast already present to ferment.
This is dodgey ...

Oh yea!
I was actually referring to commercial rather than home-brewed wines. Which the pro.s seem to control...
My playing with sourdough starters gives me a healthy appreciation of the inconsistancies involved.

My main point was intended to be that plastic probably needs even more thorough sterilisation, not less, than "traditional" materials...

jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28244
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 3:56 am Post subject:

dougal wrote:

My main point was intended to be that plastic probably needs even more thorough sterilisation, not less, than "traditional" materials...

Wouldn't the lest porous nature of plastic compared to anything but glass, mean that it is quicker to sterilise?

We certainly seem to be struggling to find people having the problems that get a lot of attention in my wine making books!

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 05 8:18 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

Remember also that we take really, really clean water for granted and we normally have better and cleaner water pipes in our homes. We also have better refrigeration, so we tend to see less vinegar flies and similar beasties around in our homes during summer. And, of course, we can get all the campden tablets we need! The odds are more in our favour for a number of reasons.

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