Mold? Salvagable?

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NinjaMedic

NinjaMedic

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Ok folks I've looked around on here and seen many different opinions so I'm going to post my pictures and get some advice. We brewed the Deception Cream Stout recipe I found here, and used a wyeast smack pack. We started the pack about two hours before pitching in a pitcher of water (unopened) at 70° but there was no swelling. Pitched the yeast, 24 hrs later there was no activity, 48 hrs later we found this, is this mold? Infection? Pitch the beer and start over?


image-4168249880.jpg

Let me know the photo worked. I can post more tomorrow.

G
 
Revvy said:
It's yeast. You're growing a krausen in there, like you're supposed to.
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Are you sure? I've never seen it like that before. I'll get better pix tomorrow morning when I'm of work. I hope you're right!!!
 
Revvy I don't mean to second guess you. We're allergic to mold... Thus the worry about serving bad beer...
 
I agree with Revvy...mold would be covering the yeast rafts, or someone can correct me if I am wrong. there is a definite separation between the white substance and the earthier colored substance. Again, correct me if I am wrong, but the krausen bubbles breaking would gently push the yeast rafts away?
 
Looks like the recipe calls for a starter and you under-pitched, possibly with old or mishandled yeast, hence the delayed yeast activity. Pic is hard to make out, but it's almost certainly yeast. I doubt there could be that much mold growth so soon unless your carboy was fuzzy when you racked into it.
 
Why would you think in 48 hours after yeast pitch that it would be ANYTHING OTHER than yeast? And what would give you any thought that MOLD would be forming in such a short time? Yeast is going to start forming any time between 24 and 72 hours, ESPECIALLY if you didn't make a starter.

Why do folks automatically assume that whatever they see is something bad??? Fermentation is ugly and stinky even when perfectly normal.

Mold is something that people get if something is sitting stagnant for weeks if not months. Not something that's going to develop so soon after they moved the wort into a clean, sanitized vessel.

And besides if mold DID develop on TOP of your fermented beer, all you would need to do is rack below the mold, and the beer would be fine. Mold doesn't mean our beer is bad. Mold develops on the surface of something in the presence of oxygen, it actually ends up protecting the beer, which is in an anerobic environment...It's usually perfectly fine and drinkable below the mold. Many of us have racked and drank beer that did have some mold on it, like if it's been in a secondary for months and the airlock has dried out. Which is one of the RARE situations where mold could actually form.

And in most situations that beer is fine. It can't harm you, because no matter what kind of infection a beer might get, even mold growing on it, nothing that can harm you can exist in the acidic, boiled, hoppy and alcoholic environment that beer is. The only types of infections that can grow in beer, lactobasilus, aecetobactor, pediococcus (sp) are not harmful to human consumption, they may not taste pleasant (though sometimes they do to sour beer fans, or fans of MALT VINEGAR (Acetobactor))

But they can't harm you. Even mold.....

It's not going to form in an active environment where yeast is consuming sugars, waking up from lag, and being forced to reproduce in situ because you didn't make a starter for it. There's a lot going on on a micro level in our fermenters, even when we think nothing is happening.

I bet today you have an even larger krausen forming.
 
Revvy said:
Why would you think in 48 hours after yeast pitch that it would be ANYTHING OTHER than yeast? And what would give you any thought that MOLD would be forming in such a short time? Yeast is going to start forming any time between 24 and 72 hours, ESPECIALLY if you didn't make a starter.

Why do folks automatically assume that whatever they see is something bad??? Fermentation is ugly and stinky even when perfectly normal.

Mold is something that people get if something is sitting stagnant for weeks if not months. Not something that's going to develop so soon after they moved the wort into a clean, sanitized vessel.

And besides if mold DID develop on TOP of your fermented beer, all you would need to do is rack below the mold, and the beer would be fine. Mold doesn't mean our beer is bad. Mold develops on the surface of something in the presence of oxygen, it actually ends up protecting the beer, which is in an anerobic environment...It's usually perfectly fine and drinkable below the mold. Many of us have racked and drank beer that did have some mold on it, like if it's been in a secondary for months and the airlock has dried out. Which is one of the RARE situations where mold could actually form.

And in most situations that beer is fine. It can't harm you, because no matter what kind of infection a beer might get, even mold growing on it, nothing that can harm you can exist in the acidic, boiled, hoppy and alcoholic environment that beer is. The only types of infections that can grow in beer, lactobasilus, aecetobactor, pediococcus (sp) are not harmful to human consumption, they may not taste pleasant (though sometimes they do to sour beer fans, or fans of MALT VINEGAR (Acetobactor))

But they can't harm you. Even mold.....

It's not going to form in an active environment where yeast is consuming sugars, waking up from lag, and being forced to reproduce in situ because you didn't make a starter for it. There's a lot going on on a micro level in our fermenters, even when we think nothing is happening.

I bet today you have an even larger krausen forming.
Click to expand...

All of that is probably true, except that he did mention an allergy to mold. So while "many of us" may have no problems with it, you might imagine the OP's concern and question.
 
I pitched a liquid yeast once when the wort was a bit too cold. Then the yeast floated to the top as rafts. I swirled it a bit,& later it went back down into the wort & started fermenting. Maybe that's what your seeing here?
 
ericbw said:
All of that is probably true, except that he did mention an allergy to mold. So while "many of us" may have no problems with it, you might imagine the OP's concern and question.
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An allergy to mold usually infers INHALING mold spores. IF they were truly mold spores to begin with, how would he be inhaling them? They would be left behind in a solution when he was racking carefully out from under them. He's in a IDEAL environment NOT to be able to inhale them...He's not in a bucket, he's in a carboy, it's doubtful any spores would come out of there.
 
Revvy said:
An allergy to mold usually infers INHALING mold spores. IF they were truly mold spores to begin with, how would he be inhaling them? They would be left behind in a solution when he was racking carefully out from under them. He's in a IDEAL environment NOT to be able to inhale them...He's not in a bucket, he's in a carboy, it's doubtful any spores would come out of there.
Click to expand...

You asked a question about why he would think it was mold, and the answer is that he is asking because he has an EXTRA concern about mold, given his situation.

I think someone with an allergy might be a bit more vigilant than many others.

Maybe you weren't actually asking that question that I thought you were.
 
It's yeast, OP. Mold takes a long time to grow. If you see ANY growth in your beer within the first couple of days, it's close enough to 100% chance (as to be statistically insignificant) that it's yeast.

Differet yeasts look different. Some do like this (floaty white spots). Some look stringy. Try a nice English yeast that look like clumps of brains in your beer!

Relax. I'm with Revvy, it kills me how quick people are to worry about things going wrong.
 
I bow to your experience, gentlemen. My concern come from, yes the fact that both I and one of the other principal consumers are allergic to mold. Mine is moderate but his is quickly lethal. The comments, however, about airborne spores is correct tho, thank you for that info too. Secondly we've never had a beer act like this, I've always used the smack packs (always = this is our 4th beer) and had extremely great results. The last beer blew over so I thought under pitching might solve that with this brew. I thought it was mold because: it looks fuzzy, white and blue/green and smells different than our usual fermentations (and aweful). I misspoke, heh actually with how much I've been working I "lost" a couple days. This is day 6, still normal? Should I take a SG reading? Repitch? To be honest we've had very few problems before this. Thanks a lot to all, especially Revvy... Almost pitched this beer.


image-3571967150.jpg



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image-3764373373.jpg
 
TNGabe said:
Looks like the recipe calls for a starter and you under-pitched, possibly with old or mishandled yeast, hence the delayed yeast activity. Pic is hard to make out, but it's almost certainly yeast. I doubt there could be that much mold growth so soon unless your carboy was fuzzy when you racked into it.
Click to expand...

No fuzz, just a couple sanitizer bubbles.
 
NinjaMedic said:
I thought it was mold because: it looks fuzzy, white and blue/green and smells different than our usual fermentations (and aweful).
Click to expand...

I take it back, apparently mold can grow in beer in 6 days. You didn't mention that it was blue/green. From the new pics, yeah, it's mold.
 
TNGabe said:
I take it back, apparently mold can grow in beer in 6 days. You didn't mention that it was blue/green. From the new pics, yeah, it's mold.
Click to expand...

Certainly looks like it.
 
TNGabe said:
I take it back, apparently mold can grow in beer in 6 days. You didn't mention that it was blue/green. From the new pics, yeah, it's mold.
Click to expand...

Yeah I work 24/12 hr shifts I've been gone a couple days. That's what I came home to.
 
Yup def looks like mold and for anyone that thought that it couldn't grow so quickly, anything can thrive in your beer bc it contains the perfect environment for microbes to flourish. Yeast isn't the only microbe that ferments sugars lol.
 
Such a shame. OP, did you aerate the wort thoroughly? I wonder of maybe underpitching, combined with a lack of/inadequate aeration are what caused your yeast to stall long enough for the mold colony to get a foothold?
 
BMClark2210 said:
Yup def looks like mold and for anyone that thought that it couldn't grow so quickly, anything can thrive in your beer bc it contains the perfect environment for microbes to flourish. Yeast isn't the only microbe that ferments sugars lol.
Click to expand...


No, no, no, mold can't grow that fast. Must be blue/green krausen. I am being sarcastic.

When someone asks about infections on here, invariably multiple people insist that nothing can grow in beer that will hurt you, etc. And the attitude is often that noobs worry too much. Instead of considering the possibility, the advice is RDW[whatever]. Not always the best advice.
 
ericbw said:
No, no, no, mold can't grow that fast. Must be blue/green krausen. I am being sarcastic.

When someone asks about infections on here, invariably multiple people insist that nothing can grow in beer that will hurt you, etc. And the attitude is often that noobs worry too much. Instead of considering the possibility, the advice is RDW[whatever]. Not always the best advice.
Click to expand...

I just got finish microbiology and trust me in the right conditions mold can grow at rapid rates. We have grown plenty of bacteria and molds overnight a bunch of times that flourish like crazy.
 
We don't really know if there are any live yeast in there at all as he didn't make a starter and the smack pack didn't inflate. If the yeast was mishandled and got hot, they could have easily all been dead.

That is more than "under pitching".
 
BMClark2210 said:
I just got finish microbiology and trust me in the right conditions mold can grow at rapid rates. We have grown plenty of bacteria and molds overnight a bunch of times that flourish like crazy.
Click to expand...

I believe you! That's why I think the advice to relax, rack out from under it, it's not mold, etc. is probably not the right advice. Especially since the OP mentioned a severe allergy to mold.

I'll admit, I'm ragging a little on the people who always respond that it's fine and not to worry about it.

Out of curiosity, what kind of bacteria or molds have you grown that flourish overnight?
 
ericbw said:
I'll admit, I'm ragging a little on the people who always respond that it's fine and not to worry about it.
Click to expand...

In two years on HBT and on reddit (which represents hundreds upon hundreds of "is this infected?" posts), this is literally the first time that I've seen mold in a short timeframe. Yeast usually starts major growth within 24 hours, and it chokes everything else out. OP, I know it dosn't feel like it since you are the owner of a spoiled batch, but this is pretty cool/unique.



As an aside, please do note the following caveats to the "nothing harmful can grow in your beer" comments that I, and many others make:

1. We are assuming that you don't have an allergy to typical organisms. Some people are allergic to yeast, ergo the advice is obviously not applicable to them. Same thing here. A mold allergy doesn't fall under that advice. We're talking about things like e coli, botulism, and normal foodborne illnesses. Beer doesn't carry these.

2. We're talking about actual beer, with actual yeast colonies as the predominant microorganism. For mold to take this quickly, I wonder if the OP pitched live yeast at all (or enough live yeast to do anything).
 
ericbw said:
I believe you! That's why I think the advice to relax, rack out from under it, it's not mold, etc. is probably not the right advice. Especially since the OP mentioned a severe allergy to mold.

I'll admit, I'm ragging a little on the people who always respond that it's fine and not to worry about it.

Out of curiosity, what kind of bacteria or molds have you grown that flourish overnight?
Click to expand...

We used several different types of agar and temperatures to test and see which was the best for the growth of mold, certain bacterias, fungi grow best in. We also had to test an unknown using all the techniques we learned over the semester which was pretty cool. Of course all the microbes we dealt with were harmless but as for the name I would have to look at our syllabus bc it was about a month ago and scientific names are hard to remember lol. Especially when your also taking anatomy and physiology 2 with it. Talk about a brain meltdown...
 
homebrewdad said:
In two years on HBT and on reddit (which represents hundreds upon hundreds of "is this infected?" posts), this is literally the first time that I've seen mold in a short timeframe. Yeast usually starts major growth within 24 hours, and it chokes everything else out. OP, I know it dosn't feel like it since you are the owner of a spoiled batch, but this is pretty cool/unique.



As an aside, please do note the following caveats to the "nothing harmful can grow in your beer" comments that I, and many others make:

1. We are assuming that you don't have an allergy to typical organisms. Some people are allergic to yeast, ergo the advice is obviously not applicable to them. Same thing here. A mold allergy doesn't fall under that advice. We're talking about things like e coli, botulism, and normal foodborne illnesses. Beer doesn't carry these.

2. We're talking about actual beer, with actual yeast colonies as the predominant microorganism. For mold to take this quickly, I wonder if the OP pitched live yeast at all (or enough live yeast to do anything).
Click to expand...

But in this case, neither of those items were taken into account when they have direct relevance. The OP has a mold allergy. The OP didn't have actual beer (because of pitching what is probably dead yeast). He also was a little off on the amount of time since pitching. Those things add up to a different situation than an "anxious noob" asking a question.
 
kombat said:
Such a shame. OP, did you aerate the wort thoroughly? I wonder of maybe underpitching, combined with a lack of/inadequate aeration are what caused your yeast to stall long enough for the mold colony to get a foothold?
Click to expand...

Yes, used an attachment at the end of the tubing into the fermentor that causes a spray.
 
homebrewdad said:
In two years on HBT and on reddit (which represents hundreds upon hundreds of "is this infected?" posts), this is literally the first time that I've seen mold in a short timeframe. Yeast usually starts major growth within 24 hours, and it chokes everything else out. OP, I know it dosn't feel like it since you are the owner of a spoiled batch, but this is pretty cool/unique.
Click to expand...

Ha well I must say I understand what you mean. I'm a paramedic and work in the ER as well. So when you get that one in a million injury/illness you get all the students to come look. Not so fun for the patient though. In this case the brewer.
 
BMClark2210 said:
I just got finish microbiology and trust me in the right conditions mold can grow at rapid rates. We have grown plenty of bacteria and molds overnight a bunch of times that flourish like crazy.
Click to expand...

I've worked at a hospital for 31 years- yes, mold and other micro-organisms can grow at very rapid rates. Even a bacteria culture gets only 24 hours and then 48 hours to grow.

One of the things to remember about homebrewing is that we sanitize- not sterilize. Any yeast we pitch is normally enough to outcompete other microorganisms, if we pitch enough yeast. But when we underpitch, other microorganisms can outcompete the chosen yeast strain.

I know many people say "it's hard to ruin your beer! I dropped a screwdriver in mine and it's fine!". To that I can respond that if you looked under a microscope, many beers have a low level of infection. Wild yeast, mold spores, and bacteria are everywhere. That doesn't usually ruin a beer, but it's certainly possible to have contamination no matter how well you sanitize.
 
Yooper said:
I've worked at a hospital for 31 years- yes, mold and other micro-organisms can grow at very rapid rates. Even a bacteria culture gets only 24 hours and then 48 hours to grow.

One of the things to remember about homebrewing is that we sanitize- not sterilize. Any yeast we pitch is normally enough to outcompete other microorganisms, if we pitch enough yeast. But when we underpitch, other microorganisms can outcompete the chosen yeast strain.

I know many people say "it's hard to ruin your beer! I dropped a screwdriver in mine and it's fine!". To that I can respond that if you looked under a microscope, many beers have a low level of infection. Wild yeast, mold spores, and bacteria are everywhere. That doesn't usually ruin a beer, but it's certainly possible to have contamination no matter how well you sanitize.
Click to expand...

Yes I do know the difference between sterilization (60 min boil) and sanitization (starsan) but what I didn't know was that the yeast can outcompete any low levels of microbes or vice versa. Good info and I was waiting for someone to agree with me lol. I'm going into the nursing program soon so I been doing all these fun classes lol
 
BMClark2210 said:
Yes I do know the difference between sterilization (60 min boil) and sanitization (starsan) but what I didn't know was that the yeast can outcompete any low levels of microbes or vice versa. Good info and I was waiting for someone to agree with me lol. I'm going into the nursing program soon so I been doing all these fun classes lol
Click to expand...

Well, they can't outcompete "any" low level of microbes- more like "many" low levels of microbes.

Even a 60 minute boil isn't complete sterilization- for that you need a pressure cooker or an autoclave.

But usually, sanitation is good enough. Except, or course, when it's not! :D
 
Yooper said:
Well, they can't outcompete "any" low level of microbes- more like "many" low levels of microbes.

Even a 60 minute boil isn't complete sterilization- for that you need a pressure cooker or an autoclave.

But usually, sanitation is good enough. Except, or course, when it's not! :D
Click to expand...

Well actually I depends on the microbe, temperature, and time. The 60 min boil could be long enough for some but if they were thermophiles then obviously more extensive measure would need to be taken but unless we know what it is specifically then we really have no argument lol. Besides are we giving a micro lecture in how to sterilize medical equipment or the ways to insure minimal contamination in ones wort lol. What do u do in a hospital anyways?
 
NinjaMedic said:
Yes, used an attachment at the end of the tubing into the fermentor that causes a spray.
Click to expand...

For the record, this is not the best method of aeration. If I remember correctly, this yields somewhere between 4-6 PPM of oxygen dissolved. Shaking the heck out of the fermenter nets you 8 PPM of oxygen (same as you get with an aquarium pump).

Ideally, you'd like 10 or so PPM of oxygen, but to do that, you have to use pure O2.

Bottom line - in the future, shake your carboy/bucket/better bottle to get the best aeration you can witout the purchase of new gear. You'll get healthier yeast and better growth rates.
 
BMClark2210 said:
Well actually I depends on the microbe, temperature, and time. The 60 min boil could be long enough for some but if they were thermophiles then obviously more extensive measure would need to be taken but unless we know what it is specifically then we really have no argument lol. Besides are we giving a micro lecture in how to sterilize medical equipment or the ways to insure minimal contamination in ones wort lol. What do u do in a hospital anyways?
Click to expand...

There aren't degrees of sterilization. Either it's sterile or it's not. I believe that is what Yooper was referring to. In the hospitals and research labs that I've worked in, no equipment is considered sterile without being autoclaved, and no liquid is sterile unless it's been run through a .22um filter.
 

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