stringy aftermath ....bombshell blonde

I've done a handful of all grain batches. This weekend I tried a summer beer; the highly rated bombshell ale from the recipe database. I have never come across this stuff before

I first noticed the stringy material when I dipped my hose (from first runnings) into my sanitizer bucket. It looks like snake shed but much smaller; empty "tubes" about a half inch long that have the firmness and stability of skin. It takes a moderate amount of torque to tear them.

I run a devise that aerates the wort (lazy method) that is a cone that connects to the hose and ispointed towards the incoming wort. Anyway...this devise caught a ton of these stringy things when I transferred to the fermenter. And now that I take a closer look at the bucket that that I soak some of my equipment, I see many more (now floaters).

Imagine trying to peel off a hangnail and a half inch of skin comes with; this is what it looks like. We can talk about why that is my best description later

The only thing I can think of that I did different was add more rice hulls, which are the same size as mysterious phenomenon.

God, I hope my beer doesn't have the swine flu

thanks,

JLS

That sounds pretty nasty actually.... do you have any pictures?

Here are some pics of the goobers:

Edit: pics deleted

I have no idea what those are but in ther interest of helping to brainstorm:
Did you rinse your hulls before adding them to the mash?
Fomr your post it sounds as though they were formed post mash, is that correct, or were they formed post/during the boil?

Is it possible that that something was dried in your tubing and worked it's way out when draining your runnings?

I did not rinse the rice hulls and have no idea when they were "formed"

conpewter said:

Is it possible that that something was dried in your tubing and worked it's way out when draining your runnings?

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great theory, but no I used clean tubing. There is quite a bit of the stuff...what you see in the kettle is from me just rinsing the tubing after transfer. Now that I think about it, I had these things on my mash paddle during boil...so they came from the tun

They look to me kinda like the "skin" part of a sunflower seed, you know the part that gest caught beneath your tounge when you eat several handfulls..., the protective coating on the seed inside the shell (i don't know the technical term).
I don't kow if rice has the same think but if they do and some were stuck to the inside of your hulls that could be it. Maybe take a small handful of them and do a little experimient with some hot tap water and see what you get...

Or I could just have my head up my bum which has happened before...

Any teflon tape on your setup?

davebl said:

Any teflon tape on your setup?

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yes on both the MLT and HLT

Does it look like little bits of teflon tape that could have come off and made its way through your setup?

i just looked and all the tape seems to be in tact. definitely not Teflon tape. It is much like the sunflower seed comparison from above

That's not how you do it......

my boys!.....

Brings a whole new meaning to blond bombshell, maybe it sould be "blonde c*mdumpster ale"

It looks like lemon/orange pulp--like what you get stuck in your teeth when drinking a brand of OJ other than Donald Duck. Have you recently transferred a lemonade or something like it?

Unless the brew starts smelling like sourdough, I wouldn't worry. Actually, since you boiled it, you should be fine anyway.

really? no one else has seen this before?

Do you use a cooler mlt? Do you stir your mash? What with?

I am wondering if you have cooler wall shavings. or, maybe a protective lining from your cooler is delaminating from heat.

taste them to see if they tase plasticy or vegetal....

yes I use a cooler, but I just checked and the surface is still good as new. I am not willing to taste one; if that's what it takes then this will be an unsolved mystery.

great guesses ...any more? I guess I will just have to wait until my next batch to see if they show up again

Are you going to toss your batch of beer?
If not then I don't see why you would not taste the "floaties" they're in your beer already and you surely will tase them when you drink it....whether or not they taste like anything at all remains to be seen.

Maybe a bird crapped in your kettle during the boil, I always get bits of trees and stuff falling in there when I brew outside

-Archroy

I give up on this...chalk it up to swine flu

Way to hang in there...

*unsubscribed*

sorry to disappoint...

36 hours isn't very patient. I've actually given this some thought over the last day or two. Any chances we could get some action shots of the primary? In all likelihood the yeast are going to chew up whatever you're seeing.

Invest another hour in bottling the batch when it's done fermenting, throw it in the back of the closet until you remember it, then taste it and see what happens. I bet it tastes like great beer.

As an aside, do you leave things soaking in starsan for a long time? Like your transfer tubes? Starsan and some detergents will leave a film on your equipment if soaked for a long time.

As someone else mentioned, that looks an awful lot like teflon tape to me.

jkpq45 said:

As an aside, do you leave things soaking in starsan for a long time? Like your transfer tubes? Starsan and some detergents will leave a film on your equipment if soaked for a long time.

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I have left things in starsan as long as a month...but not the equipment that I used this time. Now that I think about it; there was one new variable for this batch. The LHBS gave me a grain bag to put my crushed grains in. I am now going to investigate it to see if I see anything like whats in my kettle...will update soon

just checked the grain bag and nothing suspicious. But I just stirred the kettle and there are way more of these things than I thought. some of them are three inches long. when you try to grab them they just kind of disintegrate in your hand which leads me to believe that its not Teflon tape. Man...this is frustrating

Updated Picture:

Maybe some different eyes around here during the weekend?

Bump!

Starsan? I've racked on top of a lot of foam that eventually turned into gross stuff like that.

I had tiny little strings somewhat like that form before and I attributed it to the gelatin I added to clarify the beer. It looked like the gelatin proteins linked together somehow. Did you use gelatin finings in this batch? My other guess is that it's something that formed on plastic tubing or something after sitting in starsan a few days. I've noticed a thin milky, slimy film form on some plastic tubing after leaving it in starsan for a few days and imagine it could kind of "roll" off into little tubes when beer flows by.

A new development unfolded last night. I took a look at my brew supply and was not very impressed so I decided to do a quick extract batch. I did a full boil and when cooling the wort I saw the stringy things! So they had to of come off my brew kettle. It sort of (but not really) makes sense because I noticed the bottom of the kettle (stainless steel 8 gal) looked a lil hazy (dull, not shiny like the other parts of the kettle). So there must have been some sort of water residue on te bottom and sides. What causes this "haziness"? I thought stainless steel was not supposed to do this?

Has anyone experienced this before?

anyway...thanks to all who helped me investigate. Im still not sure what the stuff is, but since it appeared in an extract batch it must be the kettle, right? Or, maybe I didnt clean it good enough from the last batch...although I did scrub it with a cloth...

I answer because I think it is in the wort/beer right?

I have to say that looks alot like the protein and hot/cold break that I had in my belgian barleywine. I wish that I had taken a picture because it looked a lot more similar to me masturbating into boiling water. One guy that I gave a sample of was like, "What the hell!"

It didn't affect the flavor, I just had a lot of proteins in the boil I guessed and chalked it up to that. A good whirlpool will get rid of most of that.

Thankfully Im beginning to realize that its most likely something from by brew kettle...

This isn't a new pot is it? There wasn't a plastic film on the inside of the pot when you bought it to keep it shiny and scratch free for shipping/displaying in the store?

FlySpargeVorlauf said:

anyway...thanks to all who helped me investigate. Im still not sure what the stuff is, but since it appeared in an extract batch it must be the kettle, right? Or, maybe I didnt clean it good enough from the last batch...although I did scrub it with a cloth...

Click to expand...

My guess is starch from the rice hulls. When I cook long grain rice in my Stainless pots (not my brew kettle) I get a film that is almost impossible to see and even harder to clean off. If you don't get it all off, the next time you boil water in the pot, you get little strings of stuff like that.

you need to get some Bon Ami and really scrub your brew kettle with it. (Though the last extract batch may have removed all of it).

IrregularPulse said:

This isn't a new pot is it? There wasn't a plastic film on the inside of the pot when you bought it to keep it shiny and scratch free for shipping/displaying in the store?

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LOL ...no, this is a pot Ive been using for some time now