Vinegar mother.. in beer?

[feedmec00kies]

So over on beer forums at a different site, someone posted a picture - click here - of a beer glass with some random sludge that came out of the can. It freaked the drinker out.

I'm pretty unknowledgabe about vinegar mothers, but for some reason that popped into my head when I first saw the picture. Is this possible, with a sealed can of beer (9.4% abv, if it matters)? Apparently there were at least 2 cans with this issue, so I wonder if there was something going on when the cans were sealed or something.

(I'm asking on the cooking forum because this is where the majority of vinegar topics seem to reside...)

[Kerry Beal]

Read the topic title, assumed you were asking if you could use vinegar mother to make vinegar from beer. Was already to hop in and say - why not?

But I suppose if there was some sort of contamination of your beer you could get sludge like that. I'd want to smell it before deciding there was acetic acid in it though.

[JimH]

That came out of a commercial beer in a can?

[Batard]

Do you remember what kind of beer it was? I have never seen this "sludge" in a canned beer, but it is common to see some yeast slurry on the bottom of an unfiltered or bottle-conditioned beer. People who don't like the sediment usually decant the whole beer at once so that the gook at the bottom doesn't cloud up the beer. But it's harmless.

I don't know what is exactly involved in the production of vinegar, but I have left wine sit and seen it turn to vinegar on its own. I've never heard of beer turning to vinegar.

Edited January 14, 2008 by Batard (log)

[cdh]

Hmmm... If the ABV weren't so high, I'd guess it was pediococcus "ropes", and the beer would be lactic rather than acetic.

But 9.4% seems high for pedio to survive, making acetobacter a good suspect... but it is usually not so ropey looking, and more jellyfish looking.

[feedmec00kies]

This is, for me, more of a theoretical question (though it seems that at this time, no one has a definite answer).

It's a commercial beer, called Ten Fidy (Ratebeer entry here). I personally did not come in contact with the mysterious gelatinous blob; someone on Ratebeer encountered it (apparently, the same thing was found in 2 other cans so far). If it was just the usual yeast at the bottom, there'd be an answer already.

It was suggested by someone that it was just a lot of sediment and whatever that had collected into a clump at the bottom and ended up coming out at the same time (not sure if the beer is unfiltered... not bottle-conditioned because I don't believe that's possible in a can)... though this person described the mysterious blob as more.. ermm.. "boogery" than what he'd experienced.

If I'm not mistaken, a mother needs to be oxygen to form, right? I'm not sure how it would have gotten in the can, but I don't think it's out of the question. Unfortunately, I don't know anything else about how the beer tasted or smelled when the blob was found.

[cdh]

Yes, a vinegar mother (colony of acetobacter) needs oxygen to form. Pediococcus hates oxygen and forms "ropey" slime and generates some lactic acid in anaerobic environments. I don't know what else it could be in there... I just did a bit of googling, and have found that pedio can withstand as boozy an environment as that beer is... so that is probably what it is. If there's no lactic, then I'm stumped.

Edited January 15, 2008 by cdh (log)

[Adam Balic]

Looks like some sort of biofilm crud, not likely to be a vinegar mother though, more likely cruddy pipes back at the brewery. I have had some pretty bad real ale in the UK which had a distinct taste of acetic acid, this was from hand pumped ale lines.

"Vinegar" was made out of ale historically (it was called "alegar"), a modern derivative is called "Malt Vinegar".

[Doodad]

Looks like a bacterial infection to me. I used to homebrew a lot and have seen similar things when people did not take proper care in cleaning.