At times, we all have bad brews. I’m not talking about recipe faults or errors in the implication of the recipe but contamination.

Contamination can be seen in a number of ways but mostly is a white, flaky scum on the surface of the brew in the fermenter. It will probably appear as a line in the bottle at the level of the beer. Foul smells, especially vinegar aromas and cloudy beers are good indicators of a contaminated brew.

We can easily overlook a certain problem area, even though later it may seem extremely obvious. The first thing we should do is to clean everything as well as possible. I use our cleaner, which has a Sodium Hydroxide base with free rinsing agents just like a dishwasher powder and rinse aid. Whatever your choice, you need the best and strongest detergent because a steriliser is useless if the item is dirty. Once the item is clean, it will then need to be sterilised or sanitised.

Sterilising is virtually impossible at home and even if we could sterilise our fermenter it would not be relevant. Remember that the water and the air we stir in are not sterile. Once clean, the fermenter should be filled with water and one capful of unscented bleach. Double fermenters use two capfuls. At

this point you could also add your paddle and any other items that may come in contact with your brew. This soak could also include a spare tap as standard fermenter taps often leak brew that can become contaminated. Leave the bleach in for no longer than 30 mins. Drain the fermenter and rinse out with the water you brew with. The fermenter is now ready to use.

We do not want the problem to be repeated so we now need to look at our procedure. I always like to talk about good guys and bad guys. The good guys are yeasts we are using. They should be suited to the climate where we are asking them to work. They should also be fresh and well treated. The bad guys can come from a variety of sources but some of the more common are:

1. Dirty hands
2. Bad water (especially rainwater from a tank)
3. Cross contamination. A few of these are, paddle put down on dirty surface and reused, using the same can opener that opens the dog food, using your garden hose that has been lying around your backyard.
4. Reusing contaminated equipment.

As long as the good guys are strong and the bad guys are light on for numbers, the good guys will win out and you will be back on track.

Cheers,
Younga.