BeerBorg

Hate to admit it, but since I stop'd using MrB stuff, HMEs and LBKs, I have not had a single infection. Sure had a few too many when I used their expensive products.

I've actually had a similar experience. While I have clumsily infected one grain batch with an un-sanitized cup, all of my other infections were LMEs. I had one infected LBK, and one leaky one. I prefer Ale Pails and all grain, with occasional extract experiments. Certainly I know that many members here produce clean, tasty batches using MrB. I'm just not one of them. Part of it must be my learning curve: I started with LMEs and made other mistakes. But I'm sure I'll never go back. My methods now succeed.

When I still use an HME, what I've been doing lately (I started mostly because of doing hopstands, but have done it for everything since as it causes no harm and keeps my house brett at bay) is:

Boil water (a bit more then needed) with lid on pot to generate massive steam and sanitize the pot and lid.
Add HME, put lid back on.
Bring it back up to 180 or more - sometimes to where it is just barely starting to boil - with a lid on the pot. (this doesn't seem to hurt the HME in any way).
Let cool for a bit to desired temp then toss in hops.
Put lid back on pot and let stand for however long.
Dump immediately into campden treated near freezing water in the lbc. Yeah it's still hot. HSA doesn't happen.

That keeps everything at pasteurization temperatures for a long enough time that I've not had any trouble with infections from can opener/lid/etc. even if sanitation goes bad somehow, and helps to keep my house brett at bay.

If I do a recipe without an HME but where I add late extract at 10 minutes or so, I make sure to return it to a full boil and do tend to put a lid on it at that point especially if I am going to do a hop stand - except I chill it once done since those are full volume.

Even AG BIAB beers, I toss a lid on near the end. It's the only way I can keep my house Brett out of the beer at certain times of the year. I do not get DMS from doing this.

(Unless I think my house Brett might be interesting in a beer)

Good tips Mash.
I always cover my wort when chilling, the best I can.

Feel you pain John. I am still working up the courage to dump some beers that have gone stale.

Think of it as free bottles, Brau.

Dumped more today, gushers all. Final grade on those batches is F. Make room for some A and B.

If it has to go, it has to go. Makes me sad to read this, but you have to be proud of your craft. If it doesn't meet your standards, get rid of it.

I think dumping beer is the most painful thing any brewer can do, it's not just the expense of the ingredients it's the time spent that's a killer. In my years of brewing I had to bump one batch because I used a galvanized strainer to strain leaf hops out of an LBK. Needless to say I threw the beer and the strainer out the same week and haven't had an infected batch since.

As for gushers after seeing someone open a bottle and randomly getting one every once in a while I went out and bought a bottle brush to clean the insides of the bottles and haven't had a single gusher since. Using a bottle washer attachment on the faucet to blast the bottles, then dipping the brush in StarSan and scrubbing them before blasting them with water again seems to have done the trick. I had noticed that the neck of the beer bottles had a ring around the inside at the beer level, scrubbing the inside of the neck to remove the ring is probably what resolved the gushing issue.