This is disgusting...is this an infection?

So I almost puked after looking at this. This has been sitting in the primary for 17 days. For the record this is the batch that I wrote about here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/why-should-i-stick-frustrating-hobby-344691/
I wasn't able to filter out my hops either.

How does it smell? Sneak a taste from underneath the top layer?

Just looks like a fallen krausen. After 17 days, if the airlock activity is very slow, I would switch to secondary fermenter. RDWHAHB.

Well, first thing, you should taste it. Does it taste good? If it tastes good let it roll.

To me it just looks like yeast floating on top and co2 coming out of solution, hence the bubble like structures.

Edit: See the post in my signature if you want to see what real infections look like!

Just tasted it, which I can't believe I did. It tastes very good at first but then it has a bitter after taste. It's an Imp Hef, it's got that Hef flavor but no banana and clove tastes. It smells like all my other batches. I took a sample, the temp was 69 and here is a pic of the reading. The SG is 1083 and the FG is 1020.



On second smell, I do smell alcohol.

If it's bitter, which hops and how much did you use on what boil time schedule?

No clove or banana? What yeast did you use?

1.020 seems like a good FG for an imperial. It may go down a bit more though.

Dude, everything will be fine. Keep in mind, people brewed beer for hundreds of years with no idea how it actually even worked. Let alone sanitation or other techniques that we take for granted. Your beer will be awesome, just have some patience.

BoomerHarley said:

Dude, everything will be fine. Keep in mind, people brewed beer for hundreds of years with no idea how it actually even worked. Let alone sanitation or other techniques that we take for granted. Your beer will be awesome, just have some patience.

Click to expand...

For most of that time spoiled beer was generally accepted as the norm. Probably we would HATE the beer that was served back then.

Those bubbles don't look good, but they might be normal too. I'd shake them down. If they form again, you're probably gonna need to see a doctor

I used a Wyeast 1036 I think and then a packet of dry yeast that came with the kit.

Should I rack it into the secondary right now?

james138 said:

I used a Wyeast 1036 I think and then a packet of dry yeast that came with the kit.

Should I rack it into the secondary right now?

Click to expand...

There is no 1036 from Wyeast.

Don't rack to a secondary yet. That's a huge beer that is just taking its time finishing up final fermentation. Plus you have a lot of solids in that beer, between a hefe grain bill and the hops... the surface has a lot of tinsel strength... hence those mammoth bubbles.

Give it another week and then rack.

3056?

passedpawn said:

For most of that time spoiled beer was generally accepted as the norm. Probably we would HATE the beer that was served back then.

Those bubbles don't look good, but they might be normal too. I'd shake them down. If they form again, you're probably gonna need to see a doctor

Click to expand...

You know that and I know that, but I was trying to make the guy feel better. And now he knows it too.

BoomerHarley said:

You know that and I know that, but I was trying to make the guy feel better. And now he knows it too.

Click to expand...

I get it. I don't want to alarm anyone either, really. But I'd hate to see the guy bottle something that might blow up on him later.

If it is still fermenting, which I doubt after 17 days, maybe those bubbles are normal. But if theirs a lacto infection, which is possible given his previous disaster thread, then this thing is gonna go south.

Good thing is, the solution is to just let it sit for another week or two. If it doesn't sour, or develop a cute pellicle, sweet.

passedpawn said:

For most of that time spoiled beer was generally accepted as the norm. Probably we would HATE the beer that was served back then.

Click to expand...

I just don't know that I agree with this. Sure, they may have not known the bio-mechanics involved but they still knew the difference between fresh and rotten meat, for example.

If anything, I might expect the beers of yore to be far less carbonated than most of us prefer. Maybe even still.

james138 said:

3056?

Click to expand...

Ah... then yes.... definitely give it more time.

Belgian and Bavarian strains... especially wheat strains... can be real on-again / off-again fermenters.

3056 isn't quite as estery/phenolic as the other bavarian strain 3638. This explains the lack of banana/clove you're experiencing.

Warm it up a bit and you may still get a little bit more flavor out of the yeast. :rockin:

GilaMinumBeer said:

I just don't know that I agree with this.

Click to expand...

A "mild", for instance, was a young beer that hadn't started to stale or sour. Sure, I wasn't alive back then, but I'm guessing without the knowledge of microbes or sanitation, or even refrigeration,there were some serious problems with infections. I'd say infected beers were very, very common.

passedpawn said:

If it is still fermenting, which I doubt after 17 days, maybe those bubbles are normal. But if theirs a lacto infection, which is possible given his previous disaster thread, then this thing is gonna go south.

Click to expand...

I just had a 1.079 DIPA take a freaking month to ferment out. It can happen, especially if he underpitched or didn't oxygenate thoroughly (I'm fairly certain those 2 factors are why mine took so bloody long). 17 days isn't typical, but it isn't necessarily a harbinger of doom either.

James, I would wait a few more days before racking. Let that kraeusen settle out first.

Your sample looks pretty clean.

passedpawn said:

I'd say infected beers were very, very common.

Click to expand...

I am not saying infections weren't common, just that I do not think they were savoured or tolerated much more than they are now.

If anything, I'd expect beers were consumed younger than we are accustomed to in order to move them through the "best before" period faster.

OT: Just came back from PCB, FL. You guys still getting drenched by storms?

GilaMinumBeer said:

I am not saying infections weren't common, just that I do not think they were savoured or tolerated much more than they are now.

If anything, I'd expect beers were consumed younger than we are accustomed to in order to move them through the "best before" period faster.

Click to expand...

Right. I agree. I think they did a lot of blending back then. Good / Better / Best, depending on how nasty it was.

Thanks guys, glad to know all is not lost. I'll give it another week before I rack it to the secondary.

I don't know if this helps explain anything any more but I used a 4.25 packet of the Wyeast 3056 and a 11.5 g packet of Safebrew WB-06 dry yeast. I had to use the combo because my home brew store guy only told me I needed the one packet of Wyeast. I was told here that I need two so I had to improvise and do the wet and dry yeast combo. I still have a 11.5 g packet of Safebrew WB-06 dry yeast left over,

You could let that beer warm up to about 72F no problem, Belgian yeast don't mind going up but if you chill it they will stop dead in their tracks. That brown crud is the hop residue oxidizing at the surface...no worries. I haven't tasted a green beer yet that wasn't plenty bitter on the back side...carbonation will fix that harshness. The initial 2-3 seconds in your mouth is more indicative of the flavor.

This may sound silly but how do I warm it up? Should I just bring it upstairs? It's probably around 72 at night. Would I do any further damage by bringing that bucket up the stairs, it will slosh all over the place, not sure if that's bad or not.

james138 said:

This may sound silly but how do I warm it up? Should I just bring it upstairs? It's probably around 72 at night. Would I do any further damage by bringing that bucket up the stairs, it will slosh all over the place, not sure if that's bad or not.

Click to expand...

Do you have a heating pad? Or a large incandescent bulb you can get close to it?

No, i don't have a heating pad, I could put a lamp next to it?

If it's sitting directly on the basement floor, raising it up onto a palette or something may warm it up a small amount, though probably not as much as you need.

james138 said:

This may sound silly but how do I warm it up? Should I just bring it upstairs? It's probably around 72 at night. Would I do any further damage by bringing that bucket up the stairs, it will slosh all over the place, not sure if that's bad or not.

Click to expand...

You do have a cover for your pail, correct?

That looks normal for the yeast used. My last wheat I made I used the same yeast and it did the same thing. Some of the yeast colonies start floating and trap CO2 bubbles. For my batch they never fell to the bottom and it still turned out good.

Just want to chime in to agree with OG that this looks absolutely disgusting as a many-handed cuttlefish.

aquarium heater, repurpose your swamp cooler (you've got one of those for some semblance of temp contrrol, right?)

When I bought mine the cashier at petsmart tried to make conversation and asked what size tank I had, the perplexed look on his face when I said a couple 6.5 gallon buckets was priceless.

Yes, I still have a lid on the bucket and it is sitting in the basement on a table and not on the floor.

fnord said:

aquarium heater, repurpose your swamp cooler (you've got one of those for some semblance of temp contrrol, right?)

When I bought mine the cashier at petsmart tried to make conversation and asked what size tank I had, the perplexed look on his face when I said a couple 6.5 gallon buckets was priceless.

Click to expand...

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have thermostat and that's about it!

On a side note, if your looking for a fun brainless action flic, the Raid: Redemption is fabulous. It's even better with copious amounts of Scotch.

james138 said:

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have thermostat and that's about it!

Click to expand...

Sorry, it is in reference to how to raise the temp up to try to make sure that fermentation is done. I use a water bath (probably improper to call it a swamp cooler, my understanding is that swamp coolers are evaporative coolers) to control my fermentation temps. Add frozen water bottles to keep it in the low 60s for the first few days on cleaner beers, with yeast strains that like a higher temp or tend to stall out I usually raise the temp of the water bath to at least 80 (over a few days) with an aquarium heater after the first few days.

fnord said:

aquarium heater, repurpose your swamp cooler (you've got one of those for some semblance of temp contrrol, right?)

When I bought mine the cashier at petsmart tried to make conversation and asked what size tank I had, the perplexed look on his face when I said a couple 6.5 gallon buckets was priceless.

Click to expand...

We just moved a few weeks ago. I had put the fish, and the fake plants in an old ale pail. I put an air stone through the airlock hole and set it in the garage at the new place. I setup the aquarium in its new spot but could not the heater, filters, other pumps and all the other stuff. The fish sat in the pail for 3 weeks in the hot garage until the accessories finally showed up and all the fish survived.

Thanks for the info...right now I'm getting some activity on my airlock about every 30 seconds. So I assume it still fermenting and hope that's a good sign!

So this is the same beer 12 days later. This looks so gross. Should I try racking it to a secondary?

james138 said:

So this is the same beer 12 days later. This looks so gross. Should I try racking it to a secondary?

Click to expand...

That looks delicious. Fermentation is an ugly nasty process with all the fungus sex, gorging on sugar, farting CO2 and pissing alcohol. If you put the lid on and never looked at it until bottling time 30 days later, you would have a few less grey hairs (or is that just me).

james138 said:

So this is the same beer 12 days later. This looks so gross. Should I try racking it to a secondary?

Click to expand...

Looks fine to me. Have you taste it again? Id check you FG if your good wait another day and do another FG. Still stable ypu rack if you want. Or leave it sit in primary for another week or bottle up to you. If I was home I would show you my Oktoberfest nice and yeasty. Your beer is fine unless it smells sour or different.

If it still tastes good, rack it and let it fall clear. It'll be fine, that really doesn't look like an infection at all.

Seriously, you said in your first post that you did not filter the hops...Just dumped everything in the fermentor? That is fin but expect a ton of hop and protein everywhere.