Started fermenting a new batch. Is this mold?

Do I need to start over?



There are two small scobys from when I used a smaller container. I am concerned about the darker spots

Any advice would be great!

I'm a biotech student and I can tell you mould or funghi come in many different shapes and colours, to play it safe I would skim the trouble colonies with about a 2mm buffer zone to be on the safe side

Are you using regular white sugar? Are you covering your container with a cloth or coffee filter paper? Was the water you added too warm?

I'm not sure what st brewer is talking about re: 2mm buffer

This is mold. It looks like a batch made with bad sugar, or the water was too hot to start off.

You can either grab a bottle of plain unpasteurized kombu from a health food store and start over, or you can try to pull out your socbys, rinse them under cool water. make a new brew medium, add oh i dunno... about 1tbsp of apple cider vinegar to it, an drop your rinsed socbys back in. I did the latter and everything worked fine. but grabbing a bottle of new kombo just might be easier

How long has it been fermenting? If it is close to when it is supposed to be done, I wouldn't worry about it. If you just started fermentation (i.e. lots of sugar, not much alcohol), I would worry more.

I had a batch during which I went on a ski trip, so I left it in the carboy for an extra week. Upon return, I found a massive fuzzy-like village on top of my beer (picture attached). Not wanting to *ever* throw away beer (especially an IPA), I decided to rack it to a keg (where I condition) and continue with the process.

The result is I drank tonight (and a bunch of other nights) a very nice LakeFront IPA. Yummy.


ThePonchoKid, what does Kombu do?

copyright1997 said:

ThePonchoKid, what does Kombu do?

Click to expand...

Kombu - Kombucha,

This is a thread regarding Kombucha tea A fermented tea drink, typically using black/green tea and sugar with a yeast and bacteria culture. It comes out tasting a bit like a cider. It's rich in probiotics, b vitamins, it has anti-oxidant properties, boosts immune system, and even acts as a mild anti-depressant or mood enchancer/mood softener. Very easy to make, very cheap, very resilient to contamination and laziness

GT brand Kombucha is often a go to for making a starter batch of your own Kombucha tea:

It doesn't look too good to me. The main indication, though, is whether its fuzzy or not. If its not fuzzy at all then its not mold.

It looked fuzzy to me and its green. I'd chuck the whole thing and begin again, with a new scoby.

Certain molds are more powdery than fuzzy. The green color is a clue. There is only 1 known bacteria that produces a green pigment, and that is not what it looks like. Yeast does not produce that type of colony.

You might get lucky and not have a harmful effect from drinking mold-contaminated brew, but if it's producing a toxin, you could get sick. Pulling off the colony doesn't really help, as the spores are already there and there could be cells in the liquid as well.

I'd scrap it.