Small things on the top of my beer.

So I have a batch of stout in my secondary at the moment. I noticed on the top of the beer, some pale circles floating there. It doesn't seem that they have have increased in size, they are just kind of there. Very small, from .5 to maybe 1.5 mm in diameter, and not covering the entire surface area of the beer. Is this sign of a bacterial problem?

I sanitized using starsan, and hit everything involved. Soaked it all for damn near 10 minutes, and I am pretty sure that I missed nothing.

Oh, and the beer smelled fine going from primary to secondary, so I don't think that it had issues in the primary.

Any thoughts?

RDWHAHB
Its fine, if it smells fine and they are not continuously growing its fine.

Check out HBT stickys they are always good help

1.) Pictures speaka a thousand....Oh nevermind.

2.) If it winks at you. You have a problem. See #1.

3.) Prolly just gas and protein. See #2. If you are still worried or things change see #1.

Probably just CO2 bubbles. Nothing to worry about. Now if it starts to look fuzzy or ropey that's a problem. But if you kept everything sanitized your probably fine.

I kind of figured, after all any bacterium worth it's flagellum would reproduce like crazy in an open environment like that.

Unless of course it is an aerobic bacterium, and the lack of oxygen and lower temperature is slowing reproduction..........


Dammit, better have 2 beers, and try to forget what I learned in Microbiology.

RR hit it on the head (get it? "Head"?)

Residual fermentation continues in the secondary and the CO2 will pool in small patches on the surface.

No worries.

Pretty damn sure I hit everything with Starsan. Carboy, plug, airlock, racking cane and tube, thief, even the hydrometer, even though it didn't come into contact with the beer in the fermenter.

I can try and get a picture, but the damn rascals are small, and near a curve in the glass.

dont sweat it, mine get it everytime