Post your infection

here is my controlled infections

rye saison fermented with WLP670 american farmhouse brewed 8-15-2011



Rye irish red fremented with WLP 670 brewed 2-14-2012

My last 2 batches had something weird. The first one was a DragonMead (found the recipe somewhere in HBT) and after transfering to secondary, it started to have a white thin film floating on top. It was breakable, and reminded me of the salt thing that floats on pickled olives or dills.
I bottled it anyway about 3-4 weeks ago, and I see that same film floating on top of the bottles.
Should I drink it or not? If I do drink it, should I "filter" out the things that float first?

Same with my other beer that started to have things that float on top. The floaters don't cover the complete surface in my bucket, and I am only looking through the semi-transparent lid of the bucket because I am not ready to do anything yet with it (either keg it, bottle it, or just pour it in the drain). What do you guys suggest? Should I syphon the bottom part to bottle/keg it, leaving the top there and pour it out the drain? Or, probably extremen, but is there danger I get poisoned if I drink it?

Thanks for the help/suggestions!

Made a Hefenwiezen and Amber Ale both had this still bottled them hopefully they'll be ok. Gave everything plastic a bleach bath last night.

Does the white stuff crumbles when you try to scoop it? If yes, this is exactly what I had in my dragonmead batch...

from reading here it cant hurt you.

taste it

Mine is like a film on top. Both of them tasted like they should. It didn't show up until secondary its something I must of used then or not cleaned enough.

jajao44 said:

Mine is like a film on top. Both of them tasted like they should. It didn't show up until secondary its something I must of used then or not cleaned enough.

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That appears to be a lactobacillus infection. It will sour the beer over time, slower if it's colder. I had it sorta like that on a porter I have kegged now. I haven't had any issues with drinkability, infact it's a great beer that I want to duplicate, minus the white filmy random bubbles in there.

I had a bit of a worry last night.
Transferred an ipa to a secondary, and when I checked the gravity, it had dropped to 1.005!!
I immediately became worried about infection.
However, nothing growing on top of the fermenter after 12 days. I tasted my gravity sample and it didn't taste sour.
But I didn't really know dry pitched S-05 could get 80% att, even during perfect conditions.
Asked a brewmaster friend, and he said the fact that I added sugar to the recipe could have driven it down that far.
I guess we'll just wait and see.

FATC1TY said:

That appears to be a lactobacillus infection. It will sour the beer over time, slower if it's colder. I had it sorta like that on a porter I have kegged now. I haven't had any issues with drinkability, infact it's a great beer that I want to duplicate, minus the white filmy random bubbles in there.

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Well that sucks I bottle so I'll have to wait atleast a week for some carbonation we'll see I guess.

How bad is it to get lactobacillus? Is is it tough to get rid of? I put all my plastic stuff in a hot bleach bath and let it soak is that good enough?

I'm not positive but- this may have picked up a bug.

mux said:

I'm not positive but- this may have picked up a bug.


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Looks nice. What is it supose to be?

mux said:

I'm not positive but- this may have picked up a bug.


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Umm....yea, thats infected. Like the above post said what's it gona be?

It was a wit racked onto 5# or raspberries. Now its a sour wit? It's been like that for about 3 months. I'm not sure what to do with it.

might as well let it ride now. I would start a new thread with your pics and ask some of the sour brewing guys for advice.Looking at the pictures I've seen of some sour brews, whatever bug you got looks like one of the "right" ones, so this might be a good, bad, thing.

From what I read here, I'll try to put one of the bottles in the fridge to taste it.
I am however concerned by 2 things :

1. The depot on top of the bottle - seems to be the same thing as in the bucket (I'll try to post pictures of the bottles tonight)
2. Possible that all my gears are infected cause my following batch has some white floaters - however they are different than the first batch.

So, I'll try to pass the beer in a filter of some kind (collander) while pouring in my glass.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to clean up my gears? I read about bleach cleaning, but I don't know what quantity I should add to how much water. Also, how long do I soak them? Is the purple powder good enough or should I use bleach we use for washing clothes?
Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help!

jajao44 said:

How bad is it to get lactobacillus? Is is it tough to get rid of? I put all my plastic stuff in a hot bleach bath and let it soak is that good enough?

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Lacto shouldnt be hard to get rid of. It dies at like 140f so cleaning everything in some boiling water should do the trick.

mux said:

I'm not positive but- this may have picked up a bug.


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Looks like lacto

Any point in saving it?

mux said:

Any point in saving it?

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Does it taste good?

FuzzeWuzze said:

Does it taste good?

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Don't know. I don't want to break the pelicile.

Tasting it is the best way to find out. The pellicle will grow back as long as there is any oxygen exposure, just be gentle taking the sample. You can smell it and see if has a clean sour smell or a nasty rotten cheese horrid one, but tasting is still the best way to know. Though given I believe you said it was going to be a raspberry wit. If it's a good infection, which it looks like, it should still have some good potential.

If you dont need the carboy just leave it alone for a year. The only worry is that is alot of headspace.

Finally thought of taking pictures last night.
The first one is not that easy to see, but it is the "crumbling layer" that appeared in my bottles - the exact same thing that I had in my secondary bucket. I haven't tried it yet and like I said in a previous post, I will probably have to make it go through a collander to get the floating parts out before drinking it.

The second picture is my SN clone that also got infected. This is still in the primary - I think that while moving it around, a small amount of the liquid from the blow off thing on the top of the lid go in the beer. Maybe this is what started the infection? Although I doubt it since it was a starsan solution...makes me wonder!
I'll still try to rack it to a secondary, making sure I don't syphon the top part. I'll then wait a couple days and see if more molding is forming at the top before I decide what I do with it.


I guess I will need to clean and sanityze all my equipment - 2 batch in a row that are turning bad....

Zoltanar said:

Finally thought of taking pictures last night.
The first one is not that easy to see, but it is the "crumbling layer" that appeared in my bottles - the exact same thing that I had in my secondary bucket. I haven't tried it yet and like I said in a previous post, I will probably have to make it go through a collander to get the floating parts out before drinking it.

The second picture is my SN clone that also got infected. This is still in the primary - I think that while moving it around, a small amount of the liquid from the blow off thing on the top of the lid go in the beer. Maybe this is what started the infection? Although I doubt it since it was a starsan solution...makes me wonder!
I'll still try to rack it to a secondary, making sure I don't syphon the top part. I'll then wait a couple days and see if more molding is forming at the top before I decide what I do with it.


I guess I will need to clean and sanityze all my equipment - 2 batch in a row that are turning bad....

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Same thing happened to me two batches in a row. I gave all my stuff a hot bleach bath not sure if its cured yet haven't gotten to my next batch. My bottles look the same also I think I'll do some tasting tonight its been a little over week since bottled.

I had a Lacto infection on my Oktoberfest that must have occurred during my transfer to secondary. I've since replaced all of my hoses, and did a bleach bath on my auto-siphon. What I did when it came time to siphon from my secondary carboy to my bottling bucket was I first poked a hole in the surface "crust" with my wine thief (I use the thief for gravity readings) and then quickly placed my autosiphon into the hole in the crud I just made. Sure, I probably got some of that bacteria into my bottling bucket, but I stopped the autosiphon before it sucked the Lacto through... I'm 1 week 2 days into the bottle carbonating stage and I don't have a white film in any of my bottles.

snevey said:

I had a Lacto infection on my Oktoberfest that must have occurred during my transfer to secondary. I've since replaced all of my hoses, and did a bleach bath on my auto-siphon. What I did when it came time to siphon from my secondary carboy to my bottling bucket was I first poked a hole in the surface "crust" with my wine thief (I use the thief for gravity readings) and then quickly placed my autosiphon into the hole in the crud I just made. Sure, I probably got some of that bacteria into my bottling bucket, but I stopped the autosiphon before it sucked the Lacto through... I'm 1 week 2 days into the bottle carbonating stage and I don't have a white film in any of my bottles.

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I'm pretty sure the lacto is in the beer and the crud on top is just a side effect.

agodfrey11 said:

I'm pretty sure the lacto is in the beer and the crud on top is just a side effect.

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I was thinking the same thing. The bottles also may not have pellicles because of the temp they are being conditioned at.

agodfrey11 said:

I'm pretty sure the lacto is in the beer and the crud on top is just a side effect.

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I'm pretty sure you're right, BUT I also think that it requires oxygen to grow, something it's not going to get in the bottle, correct?

It's going to be consumed quickly as soon as bottle carbing is complete. I didn't keg this batch, because I want to give it away before pellicles start forming in the bottles.

So, should I get scared of drinking part of the crust that formed in my bottles?

Can someone please tell if either of these two brews I am doing at are infected.

The two pics on the bottom are same batch. SG reading is at 1016 (if that means anything) using lager yeast 497.
Taste is quite odd, not sour but not pleasant like other brews I have done.

Other one looks worse but there seems to be nothing odd about the taste, SG at 1020. I used ale yeast and put a bit too much yeast in. Should that effect things?

Berrybrews said:

Can someone please tell if either of these two brews I am doing at are infected.

The two pics on the bottom are same batch. SG reading is at 1016 (if that means anything) using lager yeast 497.
Taste is quite odd, not sour but not pleasant like other brews I have done.

Other one looks worse but there seems to be nothing odd about the taste, SG at 1020. I used ale yeast and put a bit too much yeast in. Should that effect things?

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First one looks odd but it could just be the picture. The other 2 look perfectly normal.

agodfrey11 said:

first one looks odd but it could just be the picture. The other 2 look perfectly normal.

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+1

edmanster said:

+1

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Yep...+2.....Second 2 pics look fine

So this was my first attempt at a all grain. Has a really bad smell kinda burns your noise... Should i just dump it and clean everything really good? ????

No it looks fine. I'd bottle it whenever its ready and see how it goes.

The smell that burns your nose could simply be the CO2 in there. Inhaling pure CO2 burns, let me tell you. And it chokes you up nicely. heh. don't take a huge whiff from inside the bucket.

Ok thanks ....

I picked up something in my secondary for my scotch ale. Not sure what it is or if the beer is still good. Any comments would be great.

Can you post a better pic? It's really hard to discern anything from the one you posted.

Yeah, from that pic, it just looks like bubbles or yeast rafts.

Here's a better pic. Thanks!!