1st Infection (w/pics)

This is probably my 20th batch and 1st infection. I'm still going to drink it though! It's an Alaskan Amber clone. I left it in primary for 4 weeks then secondary for 3 now. Going to keg it soon.

im a little scared of that... although it could be just yeast. Keep us posted.

Yeah, it does look more like yeast than an infection....based upon your pics.

It's infected with US-05!

avidhomebrewer said:

Yeah, it does look more like yeast than an infection....based upon your pics.

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To me it doesn't look like yeast (although I'm not completely disagreeing with you). It seems too white and glossy. I can't seem to get a perfect picture since the room is sort of dark and the carboy clashes with the camera flash.

veritas524 said:

It's infected with US-05!

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I used Wyeast 1007.

gdbrewer said:

To me it doesn't look like yeast (although I'm not completely disagreeing with you). It seems too white and glossy. I can't seem to get a perfect picture since the room is sort of dark and the carboy clashes with the camera flash.

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Photographing glass is an art form, and the flash doesn't help...static lights are bad enough.

But from the pics provided, it does look like yeast. You can get some gloss from hop oils. The only thing that looks a tad off is the triangular spike in the lower left, but maybe because I haven't had that shape yet. Yeast aren't always predictable. I had a pale ale fermented with Notty that never dropped, and I kept waiting and worrying that something was wrong (left it a month, and just racked between yeast layers, and it tasted great after 3 weeks in the bottle). How does it smell/taste?

edit - my only concern is that you have a lot of head space for secondary.

Mongrel said:

But from the pics provided, it does look like yeast. You can get some gloss from hop oils. The only thing that looks a tad off is the triangular spike in the lower left, but maybe because I haven't had that shape yet.

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That's the only thing from that photo that might suggest an infection to me. The rest of them though kind of look like normal yeast rafts. If it were me, I'd let it stay in the secondary for a few more weeks to see if it grows anymore.

whats your terminal gravity at?? If this is an infection you wanna get this sucker away from the mold(esque) stuff on top as quick as possible...

Wheres the infection? I see nothing but yeast rafts floating on the beer.

Revvy said:

Wheres the infection? I see nothing but yeast rafts floating on the beer.

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After looking at it again today I think I jumped the gun calling it an infection. I just haven't ever seen that in person in my limited experience. I don't ever put my beer in a secondary so I'm not used to seeing that I don't guess. Like I said though, I'm still going to drink it, infection or not!

I can't stress this enough, fermentation is usually ugly and smelly even when everything is fine, a little bit of something on the surface, a funky smell, doesn't mean there's anything wrong. It is really hard to ruin your beer. Infections are NOT the norm, so expecting them to lurk under every corner is just not worth the hassle.

Try to assume everything is fine, not that you are one second a way from death and doom, because 99.99% of the time, EVERYTHING IS FINE!

Yup, looks like a classic yeast infection to me. In the case of beer, that's a good thing.

Its hard to infect alcohol, chances are if it was an infection, it would look bizzarr, even then it may not.Drink a beer, or just get drunk- its fine.

100% sure this is a saccharomyces infection. My advice is to leave it for 3 weeks, then bottle or keg and enjoy.