The Brew Times Homebrewing Blog
What is a tincture in homebrewing?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="SmGBRBOJHfA" video_title1="What is a tincture in homebrewing?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} What the heck is a tincture and how can you use it in homebrewing? We break it down for you in this week's episode of BrewTalk with Mr. Beer. This is something that I have seen a few people ask about in the group. I know that Ashley is a big supporter of this to get some unique flavors in your beer. At its basic definition, a Tincture is an infusion created with fruits, spices, flowers, etc. using alcohol. Tinctures can be made using clear rum or vodka, which fortunately sanitizes the ingredients you use in your brew. This works great when you are using fresh ingredients, so fresh fruits, herbs, spices, peppers, etc. to impart flavor into your homebrew. Now you might be thinking this seems like it could be a little difficult, but it's actually very simple. What you will need to do this is a mason jar, your choice of fruits or herbs, and then vodka. You will add your fruit or whatever you are using to the mason jar then you will cover it with vodka and then put the lid on and let it sit for 1-2 weeks. Depending on what you are using in your tincture you will want to put it into a hopsack. So if you are using chunks of fresh fruit, or peppers, or an herb or even bacon, you will want to put it into a hopsack. If you are using a puree you don’t need to put it into a hopsack. Now when you go to add this to your fermenter you will want to open the jar and pour it all into your fermenter. The fruit, vodka, all of it. You will want to do this about 5-7 days before you bottle your beer. This will impart that flavor into your beer. It is also good to note that adding this to your beer will increase the ABV so be mindful of how much alcohol you are adding and what the ABV of the beer is that you are brewing. Tinctures are a unique way to add some crazy flavors to your brew. So next time you want to mad scientists try doing a tincture in your brew. Cheers, Robert
Read moreThe Brew Times Homebrewing Blog
What type of bottles can you use to bottle your homebrew?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="u20fUMJBh8M" video_title1="What type of bottles can you use to bottle your homebrew?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} There are a lot of different bottles you can use to bottle your homebrew. We talk about some that are great to use and ones you should not use in this episode of BrewTalk with Mr. Beer. I see this question get asked quite often by new brewers in our Facebook group or just in general. There are obviously a ton of bottles out there that you can use but we wanted to break down some of our favorite ones to use and ones you should not sure when you go to bottle your homebrew. Up first is our Mr. Beer 740mL and ½ liter PET bottles. These bottles are great for bottling your homebrew for a few reasons. One they are plastic so you can't drop them or have them shatter when bottling which can happen. Another reason I like these is you can also perform the squeeze test to see when they are fully carbonated. Once they are fully carbonated they will be rock hard. Also, this is a good way to see if you have one or two bottles that are leakers that never carbonate. That is why it is always good to number your bottles so you can track down issues easier. Next would have to be pry-off glass or swing-top bottles. These work great and are awesome for storing beer for long periods of time. They are easy to clean and they do a great job of preventing oxygen from getting in your beer. If you are going to be aging any beer for 5+ months I would suggest using these glass bottles. Now, when using beer bottles make sure to only use swing top or pry-off bottles. The twist-off glass beer bottles or metal bottles for that matter will not hold the CO2 for your beer and you will get a flat beer so make sure to not use those. You also want to be careful about using growlers, I know some people do, but they are not designed to hold that kind of pressure build-up that takes place during carbonate so we suggest to not use them. Some other bottles that you can use are basically anything that has held a carbonated beverage, like soda bottles for example. Just make sure that you clean them out very well, and if they are clear, make sure you keep them out of sunlight. For all the bottles that we listed any size will work, just make sure you adjust your priming sugar accordingly and you will be good to go! Cheers, Robert
Read moreWhat to do with old or extra yeast?
If you brew and brew a lot, you may get an excess pile of extra yeast packets. Often with our Mr. Beer Recipes, you will use a different yeast and not use the one that is under the lid of the HME. Now most people will just save the yeast, or they will even toss it! Don’t ever toss the yeast, its always good to keep some backup yeasts lying around. You never know when you’re going to misplace a packet or possibly lose a packet of yeast, which can be devastating! Can you imagine you are all done brewing, then you go to pitch your yeast, and it's gone! Noooo!!! Always, make sure you are saving these packets, and it's always a good idea to just buy a few extra and store them in your refrigerator for long term storage. Another thing you can do with the excess yeast packets is to use them as yeast nutrients for your brew. This will help give your yeast a little more life and get it to a strong and healthy fermentation. To do this you can add 1-2 of the gold packets, the little 5 gram packets that come under the lid of your HME, to the last 15 minutes of your boil. Now what this does is it will kill the yeast, but it will keep the nutrients their to promote healthy yeast growth when you do pitch your new yeast. This is great for those big brews that are 8%+ ABV. Those beers have a lot of fermentable sugars for the yeast to eat so giving them something to help them grow will help your fermentation. So, always make sure to store those extra yeast packets in the refrigerator for long term storage and make sure to keep a few available just in case one gets missed placed. A bad brew day is no fun for anyone. Cheers! Robert
Read moreHow to easily brew hard cider with Mr. Beer.
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="0mJiOBTouns" video_title1="How to easily brew hard cider with Mr. Beer" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} Making hard cider is pretty simple, but we wanted to break down what you will need to do it in this episode of BrewTalk with Mr. Beer. I have noticed a few questions where people are asking if they can use their LBK to make hard cider. The answer is yes you can, the LBK is perfect for fermenting any beverage of choice. To make hard cider it is pretty simple. You need your fermenter, cleanser, yeast, bottles, and apple juice. Picking the juice can be the hardest part for most people. The best option is fresh-pressed juice, you can press it yourself or you can purchase freshly pressed juice from a local orchard or farmers market. You can also buy juice from the grocery store, just make sure it is free of preservatives like sorbates. When brewing its pretty simple, make sure you sanitize your equipment. Then you need enough juice to fill your LBK up to line 2 on the back. It is about 2.25 gallons of juice. You add in the juice, give it a little stir for some aeration then pitch your yeast. We have used S-04 for a long time with our cider and it works well. Then you let it ferment for 2 weeks and carbonate and bottle. This will get you a cider that is around 5% ABV and will be dry. There are all kinds of different things you can do with cider, you can add fruit, different adjusts like brown sugar or you can use different juice like pear and make a pear cider. Cider is a fun way to experiment and try some new things. Cheers!
Read moreHow quickly can your beer be done fermenting?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="MTu-DkPhwWE" video_title1="How quickly can your beer be done fermenting? " video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} Can your beer really be done fermenting in 10-14 days? We let you know in this episode of BrewTalk with Mr. Beer. I have seen this question a few times so I thought it would be helpful to break it all down for how quickly a beer can truly be done fermenting. If you are brewing any of our standard refills, we give you the time frame of 10-14 days for the brewing process. Often times you will try your beer on day 10 and it seems to your surprise it tastes like flat beer, but you think there is no way it is done, well it is! We have done countless tests in our brew room and we work with Coopers brewery very closely to develop our instructions for brewing. One key to our products is the Coopers yeast that we use. It is a descendent from distillers yeast so it has a very fast and robust fermentation and it can be fermented at slightly warmer temperatures. Now, with any fermentation, the primary fermentation takes place in the first 72 hours. After that has passed the yeast is cleaning up the more complex sugars and any possibly off-flavors that may be present from the fermentation process. We give that extra 4-day window on the refills just to make sure the yeast can clean up those flavors and if your temperature is off that extra time will help as well. Our recipes are a little different they will either ferment for 14 or 21 days depending on how big the recipe is. But again with these, the primary fermentation is done in 72 hours, and the rest of the time the yeast is eating those complex sugars and cleaning up any off-flavors. So yes, your Mr. Beer Standard Refills can be done fermenting in as little as 10 days. Which is awesome if you're looking for a quick amazing beer to brew. Always remember to follow your instructions, the best up to date instructions are on the website, sanitize everything, and make sure your brewing temperatures are consistent.
Read moreIs it better to condition beer in the refrigerator or at fermentation temperature?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="-isqiauUepE" video_title1="Is it better to condition beer in the refrigerator or at fermentation temperature?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} Both of these can do some great things for your beer, but we find one of them better than the other. With a lot of new brewers out there we thought it would be good to answer this question. Depending on what you read or who you ask everyone has a different answer to these questions. So we are going to tell you what we think you should do and why you should do it. When it comes to conditioning your beer it is better to let it sit at fermentation temperature. Just like wine beer’s flavor will improve with time. When you bottle your beer and you add your carbonation drops or sugar the yeast wakes back up again to eat those sugars and create the C02 in your beer. The yeast will also clean up off-flavors during this time. The longer your beer sits the more time the yeast will have to clean up off-flavors. So if you have a bad taste in your brew let those bottles sit out at room temperature for another a few weeks and the majority of the time that flavor will clean up. With all of our bottles of beer that we have in the office, we have them sitting at fermentation temperature for a few weeks. Then when we are getting ready to drink some, we will move them into the fridge. Now letting your beer sit in the refrigerator will do a few things. The cold will help your beer clear up and have all that sediment settle to the bottom of the bottle. The cold will also help your beer absorb all the C02 that was created to make sure it is nice and carbonated when you go drink it. The general rule of thumb is to let your beer sit in the fridge for a minimum of 48 hours. We always try and go for at least 72 or longer. A few tips for you when it comes to conditioning your beer. Hop bitterness and aroma will fade over time, so don’t let those IPA’s and Pale Ales sit for too long. Beers high in ABV will smooth out over time during conditioning. If your going to condition a beer for longer than 6 months we would suggest getting oxygen barrier bottles or glass bottles for that. Cheers!
Read moreHow to carbonate and condition a true lager?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="AP9ff9-Vjd0" video_title1="How to carbonate and condition a true lager?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} I saw this question the other day, and I thought it would be a great episode as it is a question that I have had as well! Now for this, we are talking about brewing true lagers, so those are beers that are brewed between 53 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit. This is not for our lager-style beers like the American Lager, Oktoberfest Lager, Etc. However, you can take any of our lager styles and brew them as a true lager if you can hold the fermentation temperature. Lagers that are brewed with lager yeast tend to be a little crisper, and smooth and they are also very clear. Also, brewing with lager yeast can take a little longer than normal as the yeast can move a little slower at those temperatures. Alright, so you brewed your lager and your bottling it now, do you let it carbonate at the fermentation temp or room temperature? Either way will work, one will just take longer. If you let them carbonate at room temperature you can let them sit at room temp for 2 weeks to build up the C02. If you are not in a rush you can carbonate them at the fermentation temperature but they do take significantly lager to carbonate at that temperature. Now the term conditioning can also be referred to as aging or lagering. Lagering is when you store beer for a longer period of time at a cold temperature. The ideal temperature for that seems to the range, but it does seem consistent that for long term lagering of 3-4 weeks you will want to be at a temperature of below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Most brewers seem to be around 32-34 degrees. Cheers! Robert
Read moreWhat is Mr. Beer's Booster?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="2HEM2uMs-rQ" video_title1="What is Mr. Beer's Booster?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} This has to be one of the most commonly asked questions that we get. Mr. Beer has used Booster for years and years. We see a lot of people ask what it is or if they need it, so we wanted to break it all down for you. First lets talk about what it is. Our booster is made from corn syrup solids. It is 8% glucose, 56% maltose, 16% maltotriose and 20% dextrins. This is designed to mimic the wort profile you get from brewing. This helps promote a healthy fermentation, healthy yeast growth and it also does not add any flavors. It will also not add any color to your beer which can sometimes be difficult when adding different adjusts. So, it's perfect if you want to keep your beer lighter in color. The booster is designed to increase the ABV of your beer and add a touch of body to your final beer as well. Each packed of booster will add about .65% ABV to your brew. Overall it is just a great extremely versatile adjust to have in your brewing arsenal. Booster can be added to Refill or Recipe or any brew that you are creating. You will want to make sure you add it to your water that is warming and mix until it is dissolved. One unique aspect of the booster is that you can boil hops in it and extract bitterness out of those hops. We did a whole episode on this but basically since the booster mimics the wort profile, hops react the same way in a boil with a booster as they would in a traditional boil. What this does is helps you keep your beer lighter when you're wanting some extra bitterness in your brew but no extra color. Lastly, you do not need to use a booster to brew with Mr. Beer. The cans by themselves make a perfectly good beer. So if you bought a refill can from somewhere other than Mr. Beer it will not come with a booster but that is perfectly fine, you can still brew it up. If you want to increase the ABV we have a video about what other adjuncts you can add to increase your ABV. Cheers!
Read moreHow to get a good pipeline of beer built up?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="m00AVJiVL_8" video_title1="How to get a good pipeline of beer built up?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} When you run out of beer that is not a good thing. We wanted to provide some tips and advice to keep the beer pipeline flowing! This is a question we get quite often, especially from new brewers. You want to keep the homebrews flowing but you are not sure how much you need to brew or should be brewing. Well first off that depends on how much you drink. If the average person drinks 2 beers a day, that would be about 1 of our 740ml bottles. So 1 batch would last you 11 days. The easiest way to get a pipeline of amazing homebrew built up is to brew more! What we have seen work for our customers is usually brewing about 4 batches a month. That would give you a little more than a bottle day of homebrew, but you might want to have a few extra or share with friends. In order to do this, you will need to have 4 fermenters and then make sure you have enough bottles as well. The brewing is the easier part figuring out carbonating and conditioning time can be a little difficult as that varies from batch to batch. But the best way to get a pipeline going is just to brew and brew and brew. The more batches you brew the more beer you will and the better you will be at the brewing process. A few tips to help you along the way. Don’t think about what you want to drink now, think about what you want to drink 4-6 weeks from now. Make sure to always label your bottles and your batches so you know when your beer was brewed and the fermenter it came from. This can help you track down any infections or anything that might arise in a certain fermenter. Be patient. Building up a pipeline of beer takes a little bit of time, but once you get it going you will have your own bottle shop in your house.
Read moreBest Brew Tips from 50 Episodes
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="ZYocY2xXT6w" video_title1="Best Brew tips from 50 Episodes" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} For this episode, we decided to take our top 20 tips from our previous 49 episodes and put them all into one awesome mega homebrew tip episode. Sanitize- Always make sure everything is that might come in contact with your beer is sanitized. Follow the Directions- we say this a lot but it's very important. All of Mr. Beer’s Refills or HME’s are made by Coopers Brewery out of Australia. They are the largest family-owned brewery in Australia and have been around for over 150 years. They are well known for producing the highest quality malt extract for homebrewing. You can brew with expired Mr. Beer ingredients but your be will be darker than it should be and you will want to get new yeast. You can boil hops in Booster as booster mimics a wort profile. This will help you add bitterness without adding color to your beer. Adding beano to your beer will dry out your beer & create an awesome low carb or low-calorie beer. To keep your fermenter cool for summer you can, have a dedicated room for brewing with its own thermostat, use a chest cooler with frozen water bottles, or getting a mini-fridge with a temperature controller to maintain the temperature. The best type of water to use is any filtered water, RO water or bottled water. You can use tap water if it tastes good to drink and you can use distilled water when brewing with hopped malt extract. When you run out of sanitizer you can use Bleach (make sure to rinse until the smell is gone), Oxy Clean Free or Hydrogen Peroxide. Bittering Hops- Hops you want to boil. You will want to boil these in either, DME or after steeping specialty grains or in booster. The longer you boil the more bitterness you will get. When selecting your own yeast for your own recipe, read the description of the yeast and see what the manufacture recommends to brew with that style. You can use a lot of different adjuncts to bottle your beer from dextrose, honey, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coffee, whiskey or flavor syrups. Adding specialty grains to your brew is a great way to add color, body, and mouthfeel to your beer and good for hop boils. Dual-purpose hops provide great aroma but can also be used for bitterness. They are a great way to add unique characteristics to your beer. If you want to dry hop your beer make sure your using aroma hops to provide the aroma and flavor you're looking for. If you have off-flavors let your beer age for a little longer it might help. Cold crashing is a great way to help clarify your beer and prevent excess trub from getting into your bottles. Use a heating pad or wrap your fermenter in a blanket to help it stay warm during winter. A hydrometer is an essential tool for any brewer. You can check your ABV and see when your beer is done fermenting. Always have fun and make sure you're drinking a beer while brewing some beer, it's required! We hope you guys have enjoyed these last 50 episodes as much as we have! Cheers!
Read more3 Ways to Prevent Darkening Beer When Brewing with Extract
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="8ILHgO8Yik4" video_title1="3 Ways to Prevent Darkening Beer When Brewing With Extract" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} This is a question that we get quite often. People will brew their beers and it turns out darker than usual. So we wanted to talk about 3 ways to prevent darkening your beer when brewing with extract. In a previous episode of BrewTalk, we talked about why brewing with malt extract makes your beer darker but now we wanted to talk about some reasons to help prevent darkening. Malt extract, in particular liquid malt extract or LME, is known to create a darker finished beer because it is a concentrated product created through evaporation. It allows for the brewer to skip the time- and attention- intensive processes of mashing and sparging, since these processes are completed to create extract. A wort is made through mashing and sparging, then concentrated down to a thick syrup (for LME, powder for DME) by using an evaporator and vacuum pressure to remove the moisture. This process causes the wort to darken slightly and can result in darker beer than normal. All Mr. Beer’s extracts are made by Coopers Brewery out of Australia. They are the worlds biggest producer of malt extract for homebrewing and they create the highest quality malt extract with their state-of-the-art low-temperature evaporator. They control the entire brewing process from the grains grown in the field to the malting of the grains and then brewing. The same malt extract in your can comes from the same wort that the brewery uses to brew their beer for commercial distribution. 1. Do Not Caramelize Partially-Dissolved Malt Extract As you pour liquid malt extract into hot water, it does not dissolve evenly or instantly. It instead needs to be stirred to combine with the water because it is thick like molasses. Small, caramelly blobs of the extract can remain, even after attentive stirring. If the bottom of the pot your brewing in is hot, those small blobs can caramelize onto the bottom of the pot. Scorching extract onto the bottom of the pot is sure to darken the wort. To avoid darkening your extract brew, be sure to turn off the heat before stirring extract into the water. You will want to stir until you no longer see small partially-dissolved blobs of extract in your wort, then continue to stir for about a minute for good measure. 2. Do a Partial Mash or Steep using DME Dry malt extract undergoes similar processes to liquid malt extract, however, even more water is removed, allowing it to stay fresher and store longer. Brewing with dry malt extract also provides a lighter finished beer than brewing with liquid malt extract. Many brewers choose to use DME to steep their grains in or do hop boils before adding their LME. This helps keep the color lighter. Boiling with LME will cause your beer to be dark, DME does not. 3. Be Sure Your Extract is Fresh Fresh and properly-stored liquid malt extract is crucial for achieving a lighter finished beer. The older liquid malt extract gets, and the more it is exposed to heat/warmth, the darker the melanoidins in the extract become. If you want to be confident that your beer will stay on the lighter end of the spectrum, you'll want to be sure the Best By date on your extract is far off and you are storing it in proper conditions. Though even with all of these smart tips at your disposal, it's important to remember that lightening your beer will not make it any more flavorful or refreshing. It's a greater priority to choose the right extract for the style of beer you wish to brew than for the color you believe it should have.
Read moreWhy is My Beer Flat?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="ESZj7ZgSuSM" video_title1="Why is my Beer Flat?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} This can be one of the worst experiences to have when you’re going to open your first homebrew or any brew for that matter. We wanted to break down why you get flat beer and some ways to fix it if it happens to you. This can be one of the worst experiences to have when you’re going to open your first homebrew or any brew for that matter. You get all excited to drink this amazing beer. You clean your favorite glass so it’s perfect and shiny. Then you got to open the bottle and the one noise you expected to hear, you don’t. Then disappointment sets in right away. Having an uncarbonated beer is just not a good experience and it really alters the taste of beer as well. The two most common issues resulting in flat beer are: Not giving the beer enough time in the bottles (we suggest a minimum of 2 weeks) or not using enough pricing sugar in your beer. Now if your beer is flat there are a few things you can do to spruce it back up. Before doing anything, you want to be sure that your beer was sitting at the ideal temperature, 70-78 degrees, and you want to be certain that you added the right amount of priming sugar or carbonation drops. If you are certain that your temperature is right, and you added the right amount of sugar then it is mostly like two issues. Either the yeast for whatever reason did not eat up all the sugar you added, or your bottles are allowing some CO2 to escape. The majority of the time it is that the yeast did not eat up all the sugar, in the bottles. What we recommend here is letting the bottles sit for another 2 weeks at room temperature and that should help fix the under carbonation. Another yeast issue is that if you brewed with an expired can then the yeast could just be too old and there are not enough active yeasts left to eat up the priming sugar. In this case, you can sprinkle a little bit of yeast into each bottle to see if this will help. Just be sure you are only doing a little bit as you don’t want to create bottle bombs. If you are using our Mr. Beer bottles then you can squeeze the bottles and if you hear or feel air coming out around the caps, then you have a leaking bottle. Not much you can do that this point, but you will want to replace your bottles before your next brew. Lastly, if you did notice that you did not add enough priming sugar to your bottles, and you are 100% sure that you did not then you can open the bottles and add in some more sugar. Now, this will lose any carbonation that you already had and introduce oxygen to your beer. So we don’t recommend doing this, but if you feel you need to, you can remove the cap, add the missing sugar and then close the cap and let the bottles sit for another 2-3 weeks at room temperature.
Read moreIs My Beer Infected?
{{widget type="Solvature\VideoSlider\Block\Widget\VideoSliderWidget" video_embed1="IJt5syUSWgc" video_title1="How to tell if your Homebrew is infected?" video_cta_color1="white" video_cta_color2="white" video_cta_color3="white" video_cta_color4="white" video_cta_color5="white"}} This is a question that we get quite often so we wanted to provide some information so you can tell if your brew is good or not. When you are new to brewing the first time you see the fermentation process it can look a little crazy. Each batch you brew will behave and ferment differently than the batch before, so it is possible that your fermentation will always look different. Some people will dump perfectly good beer thinking it has an infection when it does not. So before you decide whether your beer is a dumper, you will want to visually inspect and possibly even taste it to make sure it's still worth keeping or not. So let's talk about what fermentation looks like. During fermentation you will get foamy bubbles on the top of your beer, this is called krausen and is perfectly normal for brewing. Depending on the batch that you are brewing you may get a very high krausen or a low krausen. Some beers might now show much of krausen at all. This all depending on what you are brewing, the ingredients you are using, temperature, etc. One way to always check for fermentation is to see if you have any trub build up on the bottom of the fermenter. If you do, then your good to go. So just remember that all fermentations will not look the same. Okay so now onto how to spot an infection. An oily sheen on top of your beer that may look kind of like thin white ice sheets with jagged edges is a sign of the beginning of an infection. This infection is usually caused by wild yeast such as Brettanomyces or wild bacteria such as lactobacillus. In some cases, it could be a combination of these or other bacteria/wild yeast. In more advanced infections, this layer of biofilm called a "pellicle" may look very wavy, sort of like ramen noodles. Or it may look like bubbles with webbing coming off it. These are different types of infections, but they are caused by similar bacteria/yeast strains. A pellicle is only formed in the presence of oxygen and is a way for the wild yeast/bacteria top protect itself from oxygen because they prefer an anaerobic environment. So you can still have an infection even without the pellicle formation if your beer was free of oxygen exposure during fermentation. In this case, the only way to know whether it is infected or not is to taste it. Don't worry about getting sick because none of these wild bacteria, yeast or mold can harm you. If the beer tastes bad or rancid, you might wanna dump it. But in some cases, an infection can result in a pretty good tasting beer. Keep in mind that sour beers, which are all the rage right now, are brewed with these wild yeasts and bacteria. If you are brewing with our LBK and you consistently get infections it is possible that it got into some small scratches or the plastic of the fermenter. In this case, we would recommend replacing your fermenter with a new one. If your beer is infected with mold, which will be fuzzy and discolored (usually green but can be white or brownish – but always fuzzy), this can typically be skimmed off the beer. Mold only grows on the surface and will not penetrate the beer itself. Mold cannot survive the alcohol in beer. Fortunately, mold usually takes a long time to grow on beer so as long as you're not leaving it in the fermenter for too long, you shouldn't have this issue. Proper cleaning/sanitizing, and the proper care of your plastic equipment (only soft cloths for cleaning, nothing that can scratch the plastic) will help prevent these types of infection. But always keep in mind that even with the best cleaning and sanitizing procedures in place, you can still get infections from time to time. Don't let this discourage you. Learn from it and keep brewing.
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