Mold on outside of fermenter

So I have a small predicament on my hands here. I have a brew in primary that I had in a water bath and wrapped in a wet towel to keep the temps down. For the first few days I had a fan blowing on it to keep the air circulating. I had to go out of town for a few days and I didn't want the fan running while I was away so I turned it off. Now that I'm home, I've discovered a small amount of mold growing on the outside of the bucket near the lid. I'm sure the beer in the bucket is fine, but I don't want any mold spores contaminating it when I transfer it out. Any suggestions on how I should proceed? I washed the outside as well as I could with star san but I just don't feel too confident that was enough to kill the problem. Thoughts, anyone?

Personally I wouldn't be too concerned with mold on the outside. After all, you don't sanitize the outside of your fermenter, do you (I don't)!

I am guessing some bacteria in the air found the nice moist towel a good place to breed. A very different environment compared to the inside of the fermenter which will be sanitized and have big bad yeasties guarding your beer from any other baddies.

Ive had an issue with mold around my airlock plug,just try not to move it around to much but maybe wipe the outside off with a sanitizer.
Why dont you try rotating 20 oz frozen water bottles in the bath while keeping a thermometer in it? Instead of a wet towel.
Next time you brew be there at least the first week during fermentation to control temps until you find a permanent solution like a used fridge with a $70 thermostat controller. If you plan on brewing often and have temp control problems you may want to look into this. Im pretty lucky i have areas in my house where i can keep between 60-70 year round.

Wipe it off with a bleachy cloth or paper towel. Spray StarSan around the neck and stopper area before you rack it and you'll be fine.

I wouldn't worry, recently I had mold growing in my airlock, however the beer was totally fine.

It happens, nothing to worry about.

Happens all of the time. That's why we call it a swamp cooler.
Just use your spray bottle of starsan and squirt it down good before opening.

So is Star-San effective on black mold?
I seem to have a problem in my cellar - found a few boxes seem to have it on there.
The boxes are going to be chucked, but I don't want to throw out all those bottles.
Would a good soak in Star-San be enough to get rid of the issue?
I am planning on moving in the next couple months and don't really want to transport an infestation along.

jrgtr42 said:

So is Star-San effective on black mold?
I seem to have a problem in my cellar - found a few boxes seem to have it on there.
The boxes are going to be chucked, but I don't want to throw out all those bottles.
Would a good soak in Star-San be enough to get rid of the issue?
I am planning on moving in the next couple months and don't really want to transport an infestation along.

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Use Oxyclean or PBW for cleaning the mold. Rinse well and then dry the bottles in a different area. That should take care of the mold until you are ready to use the bottles again.

flars said:

Use Oxyclean or PBW for cleaning the mold. Rinse well and then dry the bottles in a different area. That should take care of the mold until you are ready to use the bottles again.

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Thanks for the help.
Can I presume the same protocol will work on bottles that are still full? (mostly commercial stuff, though I may have a case of homebrew back there I haven't gotten to yet.)
capped as well as cork and cage.

Yes, same procedure.