When in the course of your homebrewing adventures, your equipment can get contaminated. It can be a bummer, especially when it ruins all your hard work to brew a beer. Thankfully, it’s not the end of the world and it can be resolved. Watch this video about how Mike took measures to turn around a contaminated fermentor.

Mike’s Cleaning and Sanitizing Steps

Mike decided to use a bleach solution as a first pass to kill the contamination in his fermentor. He doesn’t typically use bleach as a part of his cleaning and sanitizing practice, but this situation called for an extra step.

Another thing he did was give his fermentor a good cleaning. As Mike told us, this step doesn’t necessarily mean expending a ton of energy. Hot water, a proper amount of Powdered Brewery Wash (PBW), and time can do wonders to clean your equipment. An overnight soak did a good job at cleaning the carboy.

Lastly, Mike used a different sanitizer than his usual Star-San. This time, he used Iodophor as his final step in his fermentor recovery. With the fermentor back in brewing shape, Mike was able to brew his Redemption Best Bitter which was the style of beer that had the phenolic off-flavor that he determined came from the contaminated fermentor.

Thanks for reading. Remember – you too can bring a fermentor back from the brink.

Brew on!