H.R. Pufnstuf

The Acetobacter Factor

H is for heart break. That a children's entertainer as delightfully terrifying as H.R. Pufnstuf should have his name placed upon this batch, is a tragic twist of alphabetical -- something,.

I'll describe the train wreck after we deal with the manifest of lost goods.

The grain bill:

• 9.35 Pounds 2-row
• 0.50 Pounds Crystal
• 0.05 Pounds Chocolate
• 0.05 Pounds Black

The hopping and yeast was identical to Gene Simmons, in fact the 1275 was captured from that brew's primary.

THE MASH PROFILE

• Strike with 10 Litres @ 71° Celsius for 62° Celsius
• Rest for 60 Minutes
• Decoct 1/5th and add back for 68° Celsius
• Rest for 40 Minutes

THE RESULTS

The strike worked perfectly. The decoction less perfectly. It ended up around 65° Celsius. I decided to just leave it at that and see what the results were. At this point I was beginning to suspect that a combination of mishandling both the strike, and the decoction, and a wrong assessment of my heat loss constant was the culprit.

Other than another episode of slapstick with my wort chiller things seamed to be in order.

OG: 1.044

So a couple days go by, and tragedy strikes. It was a few orders of magnitude more serious that one five gallon batch though. My Grandfather's second wife had a serious stroke that basically left her brain dead. She had been deteriorating for years from progressively worsening strokes, but this was the final straw.

Now granted I was worried about my Grandfather, and preoccupied with sorrowful thoughts of the woman whom I had known since I was three, but I had a small practicality to consider. I had to leave right away for my Grandfather's home. It's in a town some two hours drive away, and I would not likely be back for at least three days.

The primary. It's a plastic bucket. What do I do? Do I leave it in and avoid risking autolysis and air lock jams in the secondary, or do I transfer now and avoid air exposure.

I opted to leave it in the primary, assuming that I would probably be back not too late for a transfer.

I was wrong.

I tasted a sample before I left just for piece of mind, and though it tasted like two day old beer, it showed no signs of lactic infection, which was something that Frank Herbert had made me nervous of.

To just come to the point, the sample I tasted after I got back, turned my stomach. It was as if some one had dumped a bottle of malt vinegar into the primary. That was in fact what I had on my hands now. 5 US Liquid Gallons of malt vinegar -- in progress.

Now I LOVE malt vinegar, but not under these circumstances. I ended up dumping it out into the toilet I've only had two do this twice before, and I tell you it never gets any easier.

The probable explanation is that with the primary fermentation physically ended, the pressure dropped. Air got into the fermenter, and was absorbed by the beer. This gave Acetobacter an opportunity to start turning the ethanol into acetic acid.

It's bad enough when bacteria screws up the taste of your beer, but it's just adding insult to injury when it de-alcoholyses the beer in the proses.

Oh well, some small consolation was that it was nice and clear, the colour was good, and it was well attenuated.

TG: 1.008