What's this crap in my beer?

I've had my IIPA dry hopping in it's secondary for about 4 days now, and today I have found that there is a bunch of crap floating on top. It's hard to describe what it looks like, small patchy clumps of tannish stuff that sinks to the bottom if I slightly agitate the carboy. It doesn't look like krausen or yeast, and all the krausen had completely settled back in, and there was nothing floating around until today in my carboy. Fermentation was complete after 9 days in primary, racked to secondary with about 7.6% alcohol which I have heard should kill any potential infections. I sanitized everything including my hands, but it took some shoving and a little time to get the hop bag through the carboy hole. Could my handling of the hop bag so much have infected my brew? I am still worried that this may be some type of bacterial infection, but my brew still smells good (pulled out the airlock to get a whiff).

ilikestuff said:

small patchy clumps of tannish stuff

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I'd say thats gunuine poopie

ok just kidding....i'm not sure but it sounds like it's ok..

Palmer says in howtobrew.com that there isn't any chance of infecting a beer with dryhopping so I doubt thats it...

I'm sure it'll all fall out and clear in a week or so

RDWAHAHB

take it easy

Ya, I studied Palmer's book, but of course my situation is just ever so slighly different that I had to at least ask. I'm thinking the yeast just may have REALLY liked each other so the decided to clump together and hang out on top. I guess I'll just have to wait to see if it's growing or if it's going to sink. At least it doesn't look like mold.

I need to throw some HB's in the fridge so I CAN RDWHAHB.

ilikestuff said:

I need to throw some HB's in the fridge so I CAN RDWHAHB.

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haha I just called my girlfriend and asked her to do that for me.....

I'm starting to apply the RDWAHAHB philosophy to a lot of other parts of my life....


good luck and hope it's not mold! jk...

Could be bits of hop resin. They'll get little CO2 bubbles on them and float. Bonk the carboy & they sink.

ilikestuff said:

I've had my IIPA dry hopping in it's secondary for about 4 days now, and today I have found that there is a bunch of crap floating on top. It's hard to describe what it looks like, small patchy clumps of tannish stuff that sinks to the bottom if I slightly agitate the carboy.

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are you sure it's tan and not yellow? If it's yellow it could be alpha acid particles . . .

if ya have some whole hops grab one and roll it between your fingers and look for little yellow pollen looking like stuff . . . it look like that?

It was about time I upgraded anyway, what's $15.

So here's my problem...



any ideas

All that stuff has just appeared after about 3-4 days of relative clarity.

I had a similar thing when I dryhopped a double IPA a couple weeks ago. The clumps formed pretty late. I racked it to the keg, and clumps pretty much broke up when it transferred. Turned out to be my best brew yet! I wouldn't worry about it.

Just out of curiosity, did you dry hop with leaf hops? I figured it might have something to do with that.

i don't mean to get off topic, but i guess i am, lol.


is that your grain bag floating in your secondary?
why? what does that gain?
please exuse my noobness.

looks like stired up yeast

is that your grain bag floating in your secondary?
why? what does that gain?

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Hes got the hops in the grain bag , makes it easier to get the beer out without getting the hops out

The only time to really worry about infection is

A) it looks like icebergs

2) it looks like a colored furry forest on top

otherwise if it smells fine then it's just looking weird.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease a little guys.

For the record, I used 2.5oz of pellet hops to dry hop, and Brian, that's my hop bag, just a small grain bag. I figured it would make it a little easier to clean as well as keep my bottles free from hop debris, then realized there's no way I'm getting it out without ripping the bag open and rinsing everything out anyway

ilikestuff said:

any ideas

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Nope...

sure you didn't have a drunk roommate barf popcorn into your carboy?