Mold or Flocculated Yeast

Hello everyone. I just wanted some opinions. Here's the scenario...
Fermented this ipa with wyeast thames valley. (I noticed the color of the yeast was slightly darker than normal and had a slightly stronger aroma than usual). I've had no airlock activity so I decided to check it today and I noticed white clumps. My reasoning is that the yeast was no good and those are clumps of dead yeast. When I have time I'm going to take a hydrometer reading and see what's going on. So do you think it's mold or flocculated yeast? All opinions and advice are welcome. Cheers!

I would assume that flocculating would fall not stay on top. Would be interesting to follow this thread as I would think your beer is infected. How interesting the yeast at first was off to begin with. I would email wyeast and ask them if they have had similar cases with the yeast strain you used.

My money is on an infection. I've never seen that before!

Yea, I've never seen yeastie rafts that look like that.. Did you do a starter?

I call infection. Id remove whats visible and hope for the best.

Thanks for all the responses. My plan is to remove the uglies, take a hydrometer reading, taste the sample and determine if it's drinkable, rack to secondary, and pitch more yeast if necessary. Couple of questions...
If I find that the gravity hasn't gone down would it be worth it to pitch more yeast? If I rack to a new vessel is there a chance more mold could grow back?

bytor2012 said:

Thanks for all the responses. My plan is to remove the uglies, take a hydrometer reading, taste the sample and determine if it's drinkable, rack to secondary, and pitch more yeast if necessary. Couple of questions...
If I find that the gravity hasn't gone down would it be worth it to pitch more yeast? If I rack to a new vessel is there a chance more mold could grow back?

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Use this as a learning tool. Check see what its at if need pitch more let it finish and see what it taste like carbonated. It will be dumped or drank either way another 7 bucks for yeast isnt that damaging on the pocket book.

Here's an update...skimmed the mold off the top and took a gravity reading. It hadn't dropped at all so I decided to boil the wort for 15 minutes to pasteurize, add some more hops, chill, and pitch fresh yeast.
I think it's odd that it didn't start to ferment at all. Is it possible that it grew mold because there was no fermentation taking place? Wouldn't it still ferment even if there was a contaminant present?

I would say bad dead yeast. I would contact yeast company and share your story. Pitching new yeast i think all should be good but never heard of this actually happening.

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I had stalled starter and it came sour without fermenting, @least not significant.
Did you tasted it?

Great people at Wyeast...They're sending me a coupon for a free smack pack!

bytor2012 said:

Great people at Wyeast...They're sending me a coupon for a free smack pack!

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Thats awesome I hope they were able to give you some info on what could have happened.