dandw12786

Recipes 

Hey all,

I've tried two bottles of my second batch so far. The first at about 1 week, the next at about 3. The first one obviously had no carbonation, I know its not surprising because it was early. The one thing i did notice though was a bit of an oily looking substance floating on top after i poured it. Looked kind of like the slick you see if some gasoline or oil drips into a puddle of water. Didn't think much of it and dumped the rest of the glass out. At 3 weeks, it had a big ol' head and the actual beer was absolutely flat, which I'm guessing means its not ready still. The weird thing i noticed was that the head didn't recede at all, and had kind of a weird, greasy layer on the top of it... reminded me a little bit of the foam you get when you make a root beer float. Any ideas on what this could be, and if its normal?

mojotele

Recipes 

It's usually hop oils. If the beer tastes fine then there's nothing to worry about.

And yeah, you have to wait longer if the beer is flat but you have a massive head on it. The CO2 needs to get absorbed by the beer. The good news is that you're well on your way to a carbed beer.

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Primary 1 - The Pious New World (Westvleteren 12 Clone)
Primary 2 - Nothing
Secondary - Gun Stock Ale (11-11-11 Anniversary Series)
On Tap - Flat A** Tired (Fat Tire Clone), Irish Tan Pale Ale v2.0 (original recipe)
Aging in Kegs - Nothing

jfr1111

Recipes 

It also could be soap or detergent. When I got my new brew kettle, I washed it with a powder base product and didn't rinse it well enough. No krausen during fermentation and you could see some of the oil floating on top of the fermenter. None of it got in the glass though.

But you still got head, so I doubt it could be soap.