Post your infection

I dated this stripper once.......

I had a pale/amber ale that accumulated a thick cakey substance on the top. I sampled it and there was no off flavors. I dry hopped, then bottled. It still tastes fine. Because of the thick cake like material, I named it Urinal Cake Ale

dang....double post.

planetscott said:

I dated this stripper once.......

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I believe the OP said name it if you can. Trouble here is what are you naming; the stripper or the infection?

so mean,

I cannot name it, its actually my first infection.

Anyone know what that is?

I have no clue what that is but I'm wondering if I have something too.....It's not white and the taste was OK. It's Cat's BBD Saison Furtif. The whole is where I put my thief for a grav reading.

pwortiz said:

I have no clue what that is but I'm wondering if I have something too.....It's not white and the taste was OK. It's Cat's BBD Saison Furtif. The whole is where I put my thief for a grav reading.

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That looks like like an infection and more like the yeast just hasn't settled yet. Give it a good swirl or shake and that should fall out.

Just racked into my secondary. A few hours later I notice this little "gremlin." I named him Herbert, see photo one.

Day two in the morning, roughly 12 hrs after transfer, I see Herbert has grown and reproduced. A few say protein strands and others say yeast. I want to clarify... Everything tasted and smelt fine. See pictures 2 & 3.

Is this an infection or anything of the like or am I good?

V/R,
BrewTech

Definitely not an infection. More like yeast rafts, trub, or proteins.

sdsurfaddict said:

I cannot name it, its actually my first infection.

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I'm no expert but it looks like lacto.

This thread makes me glad i use 8 gallon plastic buckets for brewing, if i saw everything that was actually going on in this thread i'd probably have 50 posts about infections that werent....makes it easier to just put the lid on and hide in the corner of the room if you cant see in.

guidos858 said:

My beer looks like a lunar landscape. Saw a pic exactly like mine in one of the first threads. It was one of "Evan"'s threads and pics he said it was " it's probably infected with brett, lactic bacteria, or some other kind of similar stuff."

Mine is an irish red ale, my own receipe. I used wyeast 1098 a british ale yeast. All
I want to know is do I have to throw it away? Is it going to be sour in a bad way? Or can I still drink it?

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Looks like mine. What was the verdict?

BLAST! I dreaded the day I had to post here.

I left town for Labor Day knowing my Breakfast Stout was infected but when I got home, my Cream Stout had the same infection....

They taste OK. Kegging tonight to try to save em.

rhamilton said:

BLAST! I dreaded the day I had to post here.

I left town for Labor Day knowing my Breakfast Stout was infected but when I got home, my Cream Stout had the same infection....

They taste OK. Kegging tonight to try to save em.

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That looks like lacto to me. The white waxy chunks look exactly the same as my fermented kosher dill pickles. I'd either ditch or bleach bomb hoses, siphons, etc. Or start brewing some sour beers.

rockaction said:

Looks like mine. What was the verdict?

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That looks like some type of Brett to me.

So Herbert, as I have named him, has grown and his legs now dangle into my beer. His reproduction is also growing and bubbling. I just want more clarification that I'm still good...

It has been 5 days in the secondary.

V/R,
BrewTech

Jaehnig said:

So Herbert, as I have named him, has grown and his legs now dangle into my beer. His reproduction is also growing and bubbling. I just want more clarification that I'm still good...

It has been 5 days in the secondary.

V/R,
BrewTech

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How does it smell and taste? Has the gravity changed? I'm still saying it looks okay to me. Looks like fermentation started again. What was your gravity last time you checked? If it was higher than expected, racking to secondary could have roused the yeast back in to action.

White waxy chunks and big white, hairy looking bubbles are indicators that something could be wrong. A pellicile or spider web looking streaks are also signs something is wrong.

Damn...

I've got a REALLY tasty IPA in secondary that been there a week that has those weird bubbles that are separated and on top.. I NEED this to not be a lacto infection. I need to bottle this and serve it at the end of this month for a wedding.. UGH!!!!!

I shook the secondary up while it's dry hopping, and the bubbles all got dispersed in there and are gone now... Hoping it's nothing!

FATC1TY said:

Damn...

I've got a REALLY tasty IPA in secondary that been there a week that has those weird bubbles that are separated and on top.. I NEED this to not be a lacto infection. I need to bottle this and serve it at the end of this month for a wedding.. UGH!!!!!

I shook the secondary up while it's dry hopping, and the bubbles all got dispersed in there and are gone now... Hoping it's nothing!

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Which weird bubbles? How did it smell and taste? Post a picture.

Jaehnig said:

So Herbert, as I have named him, has grown and his legs now dangle into my beer. His reproduction is also growing and bubbling. I just want more clarification that I'm still good...

It has been 5 days in the secondary.

V/R,
BrewTech

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I had one just like that when I brewed an oatmeal stout in 2 plastic Sparkletts bottles ... don't mean to disappoint you, might not even be the same, but I ended up throwing mine out, tasted horrible, but it also smelled horrible

seigex said:

I had one just like that when I brewed an oatmeal stout in 2 plastic Sparkletts bottles ... don't mean to disappoint you, might not even be the same, but I ended up throwing mine out, tasted horrible, but it also smelled horrible

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What did it taste like? Sour/acidic or dirty/earthy/funky? Looking ugly and tasting ugly are different. I toss batches for tasting bad, but looking bad just makes me love them more. Hah!

It does not smell rancid or anything and not sour enough (or at all) to make me cringe or bother the nose or even notice. I smell spices. There are evident signs that there is carbonation (bung pops up when I stuff it down but it still blocks the opening and there are bubbles in airlock.)

Think it will be fine?

Jaehnig said:

It does not smell rancid or anything and not sour enough (or at all) to make me cringe or bother the nose or even notice. I smell spices. There are evident signs that there is carbonation (bung pops up when I stuff it down but it still blocks the opening and there are bubbles in airlock.)

Think it will be fine?

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If I had to bet, my money is on it's fine and fermentation just started again when you racked to secondary. I'm still saying Herbert is a chunk of coagulated protein.

cadillacandy said:

What did it taste like? Sour/acidic or dirty/earthy/funky? Looking ugly and tasting ugly are different. I toss batches for tasting bad, but looking bad just makes me love them more. Hah!

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It smelled rancid, I would say earthy/funky explains it perfect, taste was the same, literally all I can think of is the wet cardboard description, but I don't even know if that explains it. I think it was the Sparkletts bottles, since I'm notorious for over sanitizing. That one just didn't work out ...

I had a stout look like Herbert once, but it tastes great. I think it was a combo of hop oils, cocoa powder and krausen. Looked like **** bubbles but taste great even 9 months later.

cadillacandy said:

Which weird bubbles? How did it smell and taste? Post a picture.

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Had those filmy pinky nail sized bubbles randomly spread across the top. No real sheen to them yet, and no film on the top, so I'm just wondering if it's just something else.

I haven't tasted it yet. I will tomorrow when I'm suppose to rack to the keg, dry hop more, and gas it to death for 2 weeks before I bottle from the keg for a wedding!

I swirled it and the bubbles are gone, it looks normal for the moment. I'm going to see if the same bubbles return tomorrow. My blonde next to it looked to have those same filmy bubbles, but it's in primary and hasn't been opened yet to even check gravity in over 2 weeks. Just been lazy and left them. I swirled it and those two went away for the most part, other than obvious floating crap like yeast and hop trub.

Bockinstein said:

Will this ever be drinkable. I have 3 batches that are 6 weeks and taste sour. I kegged at 4 weeks and saved the trub, because I knew something wasn't right. I've got plenty of kegs so I can sit on it as long as it takes. But is there any need to keep it?

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This looks almost exactly like what I just put into secondary.
I would love to know what this type of bubble signifies, and I'd also love to know what you did with the beer.

I like sours and brett beers, so I'm not creeped out by it, other than that it may mean buying new stuff to prevent future beers from being similarly contaminated.

I brewed 3 beers the day I did the one that looks like this. I will be crushed if they're all screwed.

My paranoia has taken over this week.. I think my IPA is slightly infected, but I'm not positive. It's got a few of those round filmy bubbles on top. I doused it down with another ounce of hops yesterday and left it. This morning the bubbles appear to be trying to come back a bit.. Swirled the carboy a tad and they go away.. So I don't know. Beer was brewed almost a month ago, and was fine until I dryhopped and moved to secondary last weekend.

My blonde next to it is fine, and I've got a chocolate porter that I brewed last sunday, that is in the primary I racked the IPA out of. It's still slowly bubbling away a week later. Has some gunky diarrhea bubbles on top still like it's krausen though. I used cocoa powder in the boil, and pretty sure that crap is from the chocolate.

I checked gravities on all of them yesterday, and took samples to taste/smell. IPA is nice and citrusy, good bitterness, no souring in aroma or flavor. Gravity is the same as it was when I checked it last week before dry hopping. The Blonde was fine, despite appearing to have the same cloudy looking bubbles. Hadn't checked the gravity, but it was an extract batch that I did really fast, and it's spot on for FG. The Porter was AG, and I was worried that it was infected to.. Checked the gravity and it's right at the FG of what the recipe calls for, but I could be going lower, as I mashed a bit lower, and longer, and I broke my hydrometer and didn't get a original gravity, although all of my pre boil OG and volumes were right as well.. I think I'm close, but if this Porter drops 5 more points, I've got a feeling it's no good. Good thing is.. It taste really awesome, one of my better beers, and I can tell it's got a bunch of crap suspended in it. When I chilled a tasting glass of it, I had a ton of crap fall out of it. So I'm sure it's still going and nothing is wrong. Only been a week in primary at a 1.060 gravity( or should be ), it's only halfway there.

I'll take pics of the IPA though tonight when the bubbles should return. In the mean time, I'm going to bleach, OXY, Starsan bomb the hell out of my siphon and hoses while I mash in a batch this afternoon.

Not sure what this is. I left this raspberry and lemon wheat for 5 months.

In my ongoing quest for better and better beer, I've been wondering about this film that appears on top of my beers after primary is done. This pic was taken today after 2 weeks in primary prior to racking to keg:



The stuff in question is in between the island of bubbles and the reflection of the overhead light. It's bluish clear if that makes sense and makes way when an autosiphon is pushed in.

Anything to worry about? If so I can narrow it down to post boil transfer (I still dump (5.5 gallon full boils) into primary) and pre-rack to keg.

Here is another shot of it as well, again, not the bubbles, but the bluish clear thin looking film (it almost looks like what star San -which I use - residue that you get when racking finished beer into a keg that had star San in it):

duckmanco said:

The stuff in question is in between the island of bubbles and the reflection of the overhead light. It's bluish clear if that makes sense and makes way when an autosiphon is pushed in.

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While I'm giving a purely amateurish suggestion here, did this recipe use a lot of hops or dry hopping? It could be a sheen of hop oil on top

^ I get that film all the time. I find 90% (if not all) of it just sticks to the sides of the bucket as I siphon out the beer. The stuff that doesn't will never make it into a bottle or keg anyway as it's just sitting on top of the liquid.

Never had a problem or off-flavour that was not related to any of my obvious boners.

^^^^ appreciat the above two replys, and to the first one, nah just 2 total ounces in the whole recipe actually, which a lot less than I typically use. It's also a Nottingham dry yeast fake lager (59f) style beer.

And yeah, that's what this "film" seems to do which is hang out top even during siphoning.

I'm not searching for a problem, but still, if I need to tighten up my practices pre-racking then so be it. Anyway, I'm still open for suggestions either way.

duckmanco said:

^^^^ appreciat the above two replys, and to the first one, nah just 2 total ounces in the whole recipe actually, which a lot less than I typically use. It's also a Nottingham dry yeast fake lager (59f) style beer.

And yeah, that's what this "film" seems to do which is hang out top even during siphoning.

I'm not searching for a problem, but still, if I need to tighten up my practices pre-racking then so be it. Anyway, I'm still open for suggestions either way.

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I guess the question is, how are you racking? Are you using carboys, bbs, or buckets for secondary? I use a carboy, so when I rack, I start dumping co2 (at very low psi) into my carboy with a racking hood, then stick the racking cain in until it touches the wort, right into my keg that is already pumped with co2 to clear out stale air so stale air never touches my wort, and the only time I've had an infection was when I used plastic sparketts bottles instead of my glass carboys.

I should have been clearer, I don't secondary. So this is happening (whatever it is) in the primary. I pour the full volume bath into the bucket and either shake the bucket (lid on of course) or use my o2 setup. This batch didn't get the o2 setup, so I've ruled that out.

At this point, I'm going to keep an eye on my next batch which will be brewed tomorrow, and see if it shows up prior to taking a hydro sample. If it doesn't show up prior to the sample, my plastic turkey baster may be the culprit. I doubt it will be that easy though

Two infections. Two different batches.

I'm not posting an image, because there's not really any visible sign, but I've had two batches in a row catch the same infection. Both came out smelling and tasting strongly of chlorophenol - an IPA and an altbier. Having brewed over 20 batches with the same tap water without this problem, I'm pretty sure its an infection. Both were fermented in the same 6 gallon Better Bottle, so I'm guessing the bugs are hiding in there. Given that it survived my sanitation procedures once already, I'm just going to throw out everything those two batches have touched that isn't made of metal or glass.

I made a pumpkin ale the same day as the alt, which is doing great last I checked. Its fermenting in a plastic bucket instead. My plan is to start fermenting everything in corny kegs going forward, and using only glass or metal implements where possible - you can't beat the "cleanability" of stainless.

Its definitely frustrating having to dump 2 batches in a row. I haven't had an infection before in about 20 batches, and now I'm running severely low on homebrew. I imagine I'll be out before the pumpkin ale is ready to drink.

I brewed a Rogue Dead Guy clone on 4/24 of this year and have been busy/lazy since (quit job, moved, got married, started PhD program) and finally got around to bottling it today. This is what I saw...


It is VERY sticky. Looks like sawdust on the surface but is squishy (and sticky) to the touch. The brew has a pretty strong alcohol smell (should only turn out to be around 5.8% or so) but other than that it doesn't necessarily smell bad. Very weird.



I still bottled it. What's the worst that can happen, right?