This is bad... Right?

So, my first attempt at reusing yeast resulted in a really weird film at the top of the beer during fermentation. My guess is that this may result in some sour beer, so I plan on tasting when I move to my bottling bucket, but I wanted some feedback from you guys to see if I should bother trying to salvage it, and what the dangers might be.

Additionally, any suggestions on how to avoid this gunk when I siphon to my bottling bucket?

On a side note, anybody have any idea on what this stuff is or where it came from? I'm a little concerned about it but I've heard of worse things happening and the beer still being good/ drinkable.

That doesn't look bad, although it's hard to see (on the left pic, is that baby Jesus floating on top?). It's not unusual to have yeast rafts floating on top.

Look a little more closely at the second and third pictures, you can actually see where it's bubbled up at the edge. It's some really funky looking stuff.

I'm presuming these pictures are of your primary fermenter. Take a hydometeer reading and taste the sample. If it doesn't taste right, wait a week. Take another reading and of course a taste. If the hydrometer reading is stable you are ready for bottling, or aging longer in the primary. Lot of variables. Don't be in to much of a hurry to bottle. Normal fermentation usually will not produce toxins. If your hydrometer sample tastes pretty good, your okay. More time in the primary may be good. Avoid the questionable junk with positioning and repositioning your siphon. Relax, most brews turn out good, sometimes not with the anticipated favor though.

How many other brews have you completed? How many days into this one are you?

If you go take tour of the "Wild Lambic" forum here, they discuss a thing called pericle [SP].

You may have something going on, but I wouldn't get too worried.

I tried a piece of clean sterile cheesecloth with a cage around the end of my siphon tube going from fermentor to bottling bucket last brew. It seems to have worked well.

Definitely looks like you have some form of a pellicle growing in there. If you aren't hard up for beer, give it a taste now and see if it gets better or worse in another week or two.

Yeah definitely infected.

I wouldn't worry about it getting into your bottling bucket as the bacteria/wild yeast are in the beer and will make their way over anyway. Suffice to say, you will need to thoroughly clean and sanitize everything that has come and will come in contact with this beer to prevent further outbreaks.

I'd give it a taste and see how it is. It might be ok. It might get better or worse over time.

Looks like it could be infected with Pediococcus, which is a slow souring bacteria. Of course I can't tell for sure from here. It could be fine or it could be the makings of a lambic. It really is hard to tell from th pics and yeasts can look weird at times but I would lean towards this being infected with Pediococcus.

Pediococcus tends to leave a thin flakey layer on top. (with bubbles if fermentaion is active). It works much slower than Lacto. I fell victim to Pedio infecting my secondaries due to my AC system blowing that crap around the house. Since Pedio works slowly, the beers weren't all that sour and since I was kegging I just put it in the keg (after fermentation) and keeping it cold arrested further development.


Another thing to keep in mind is brews are more likely to become infected by bacteria if you under-pitch/under-oxygenate. A healthy and quick growing yeast population crowds out the growth of bacteria, at least till fermentation is complete. (Under-pitching though is recommended for some beer styles as it increases esters).

Dynachrome said:

How many other brews have you completed? How many days into this one are you?

If you go take tour of the "Wild Lambic" forum here, they discuss a thing called pericle [SP].

You may have something going on, but I wouldn't get too worried.

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I was hoping that worst case scenario it would just sour the beer. So far that seems to be the general consensus of what I have to look forward to.

As far as brews go, I think this is my 10th or 11th batch that I've done, and this is the first time anything like this has shown up.

This batch sat in primary for 2 weeks and has been in secondary (same vessel in the pictures) for about 2 weeks as well. I'm probably going to bottle some time in the next few days provided the taste tests meet approval.

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

Another thing to keep in mind is brews are more likely to become infected by bacteria if you under-pitch/under-oxygenate. A healthy and quick growing yeast population crowds out the growth of bacteria, at least till fermentation is complete. (Under-pitching though is recommended for some beer styles as it increases esters).

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I'm glad you brought this up as no one else seemed to have made any mention of it in other posts that I've read about re using yeasts. I'll be more diligent about this in the future.

cactussam said:

I was hoping that worst case scenario it would just sour the beer. So far that seems to be the general consensus of what I have to look forward to.

As far as brews go, I think this is my 10th or 11th batch that I've done, and this is the first time anything like this has shown up.

This batch sat in primary for 2 weeks and has been in secondary (same vessel in the pictures) for about 2 weeks as well. I'm probably going to bottle some time in the next few days provided the taste tests meet approval.

Click to expand...

It sounds like you are right behind me with the number of batches you've done about 17. I've tried a few alternative styles too for fun and to learn what happens.

I use buckets with lids for fermenting. I don't do a secondary because I want to reduce the chance for infection. ...also, I like to delude myself that keeping a single fermentation over a short period of time keeps a layer of CO2 on top of the beer.

It probably actually does work to some extent. The layer of CO2 should generally be heavier than air combined with the lid (held in place by gravity, not sealed as such) keeps the gas from escaping.

If I was doing a secondary, I'd be really careful about sanitation.

I am fairly diligent the way it is. With the single fermentation, the yeast kicks back into action again in my bottles and makes, obviously, more CO2 which really is trapped. The other bugs mostly don't seem to do well in a CO2 environment.

Dynachrome said:

It sounds like you are right behind me with the number of batches you've done about 17. I've tried a few alternative styles too for fun and to learn what happens.

I use buckets with lids for fermenting. I don't do a secondary because I want to reduce the chance for infection. ...also, I like to delude myself that keeping a single fermentation over a short period of time keeps a layer of CO2 on top of the beer.

It probably actually does work to some extent. The layer of CO2 should generally be heavier than air combined with the lid (held in place by gravity, not sealed as such) keeps the gas from escaping.

If I was doing a secondary, I'd be really careful about sanitation.

I am fairly diligent the way it is. With the single fermentation, the yeast kicks back into action again in my bottles and makes, obviously, more CO2 which really is trapped. The other bugs mostly don't seem to do well in a CO2 environment.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I generally only do a primary as well, but that doesn't work as well for me because I often brew a couple brews at once and my carboys only hold 5 GAL. This brew in particular occupied over 6 GAL in the primary before straining out all the pumpkin meat. I've also had issues with autolysis in the past which was a real bummer with the beer I had brewed.

In general I'm also very mindful of sanitation, but of course, I could always be more careful. I'm still convinced it was the re captured yeast that introduced the bacteria, so I'll have to be better about that process in the future.

You could try a trick from the wine industry and hit it with sulfite with an airlock for 24 hours then repitch yeast.

Actually since the flavor part of your yeast is likely done, hitting it with sulfite then pitching some ec1118 might work out. (EC1118 is often used to restart fermentation for high abv beers like barley wines).

How sour is a sample? I found pedio sours fairly slowly. Lacto usually works pretty fast.
Pedio does effect flavor in other ways though. Tends to make the beer taste less flavorful. Hard to explain. Some styles were more noticeable than others.

Denny,

The first link in your sig was pretty neat.

The second one is broken....

Thanks though - good idea for the new guys.

I let it sit for another week before bottling and when I did my taste test it did seem to have gained a sourness to it. It was somewhat underwhelming, but it is noticeable in the flavor profile. I'll definitely be doing starters from now on to hopefully prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

As far as sanitization goes, what would you guys recommend for making sure I get rid of this stuff? should I go as far as bleach and boiling water or will a long soak in starzan do the trick?