Mohanbrau

Recipes 

Brewing a Belgian mocha stout, fermented 2 weeks in the primary. One week ago, I racked it into the secondary onto 4 oz. of cacao nibs packaged by Northern Brewer. Sanitized my secondary fermenter and siphoning/racking equipment as usual. I assumed that the cacao nibs, packaged in the oxygen-barrier foil pouch, would be sterile and ready for use. Was I wrong?

One week after adding the cacao nibs, I have this white powdery-looking mass floating on the surface of the beer. I've only brewed once before with cacao nibs (also from NB, in a foil pouch), and I don't remember anything like this. See attached photo.

Would appreciate hearing from anyone that recognizes whatever this is. Thanks.

CCericola

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That looks infected to me - have you tried pulling a sample from it to see if it has any off flavours?

ISUBrew79

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That looks like the start of a pellicle of some sort to me.

__________________
College Creek Brewing Company, est. 2008
Primary: Belma/Cascade Pale Ale, Cranberry Melomel
Secondary: None
Bottled: Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Founder's Breakfast Stout Clone

On Tap:
Keg 1: Belgian Table Beer
Keg 2: Belgian Tripel

kirkosaurus

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Infected my chocolate stout the same way. It turned out great. Next time I will soak the nibs in vodka first though.

PhelanKA7

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It looks like Antarctica from outer space. Cool!

krackin

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Cacao nibs can be especially nasty due to the way they are processed in third world areas.

bigc3031

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So how do you prevent this using nibs?

day_trippr

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It may not have had anything to do with the nibs (did you flush the humongous head space in that carboy after you racked?) but soaking them in vodka, Everclear or Rum for a few days will pretty much kill any critters lurking within, as well as dramatically increase the cocoa extract.

It's what I do and I've never had an infection...but I also flush the head space when I do a secondary...

Cheers!

wilsojos

Recipes 

I had the exact same thing with a chocolate milk stout from nb using nibs. It did not seem to have any negative side effects and I even held on to some for several months to see if it would ever turn bad. Like others have said, I will soak in vodka next time.

Mohanbrau

Recipes 

Thanks, all. It sounds like it's an infection, but one that may not negatively affect the final product. I'll taste it when I draw a gravity sample before bottling and decide then whether to dump or keep it.

The enormous headspace is due to having only this 6.5 gal carboy available when I needed a secondary for this batch; all my other carboys were tied up. It never occurred to me to flush the headspace with CO2. The beer was still fermenting and pushing CO2 out of the airlock, so I figured it was purging the air in there by itself. Plus, by this point the beer is at about 6% ABV and pretty low in pH; I'd be surprised if anything floating in the air would infect it. I'm going with the theory that I should soak the nibs in vodka next time.