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Fruit beer problems

T

tresero

I made an extract beer at my sisters on a whim last month when I was visiting.
It was a blond ale with OG of 1.044. She added  2 lbs. fresh frozen bing cherries from her tree in the secondary. I didn't taste the the beer after primary, but assume it was ok, krausen dropped etc.

When I went back last week, I bottled this for her and pulled a small sample. It tasted like bitter, alcohol water with almost no body or cherry flavor.

My first guess is bad sanitation somewhere, probably in the racking to glass in the secondary, but it was in plastic for about 5 days.

Her previous porter was left in the plastic for over 3 weeks due to my Mothers death, and it became gushers, but no explosions.

I am wondering if there is a systemic bacteria in her fermenter or house as I have yet to get an infected batch at my house and I did the brewing for the cherry ale, and am reasonably secure in my sanitation procedures (i.e. star san and pbw + vodka for surfaces).

Oh, well any suggestions appreciated.

 
Sounds like a contamination in the plastic bucket -- tubing. With proper sanitization, there's no way that a beer that had been in secondary for three weeks should produce gushers, unless it was over-primed. If the bucket is old, get a new one and replace all the tubing -- that's always a good place to start when contamination is suspected.
 
I agree. Buy new tubing, and a new bucket. Or, bleach the living crap out of your other one. But buy new tubing all the same. It's a lot cheaper than dumping a batch.
 
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