Please tell me this isn't mold???

Please see the picture of the funky stuff on top of my wort. Is this krausen? I pitched yeast about 30 hours ago and have seen no activity in the airlock but am thinking maybe I had a bad seal on the lid. Should I pitch more yeast or am I okay? Clicking on the pic will enlarge it. Thanks...

Looks like krausen to me! Like you said, you probably had a bad seal.

Congrats, you've made beer. Now put the stinkin' lid back on!

Thank you and good night. Now I can go to bed..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

looks like my first batch that I didn't strain real well out of the kettle

besides mold will not grow that big that fast. that is another reason i use a glass carboy always sure you get a good seal because all that crap will be pushed up and out of the carboy.

Homebrew Saves Your Soul.

That looks fine. Beer is horrible looking for at least a week. It looks like milky tea with a layer of cat vomit on top.

Sasquatch said:

That looks fine. Beer is horrible looking for at least a week. It looks like milky tea with a layer of cat vomit on top.

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That description made me feel sick, but its true... heheheeee....

nothing looks odd to me... I have only done two brews but I've been researching for months... looks good to me...

Should I skim off the top? I checked the lid and airlock again and they seem to be seated properly. But when I press down on the closed lid the airlock does bubble. Could that layer be inhibiting my fermentation? Thanks.

No, it's fine. That layer is perfectly normal. RELAX.

Every time you open it, or touch it you expose it to possible contamination..

All that garbage will cling to the sides of your bucket when your fermentation settles down. For now, it's doing a job of protecting your beer (mostly from you, it sounds like ). The more of that glop you see, the more active your yeast is, and the better your beer will be, to be honest. Once it settles out, and you can see the liquid proper, then rack the beast to secondary.

Sasquatch said:

For now, it's doing a job of protecting your beer (mostly from you, it sounds like ).

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Good one.

are you guys sure its not mold? that looks kind of nasty to me...at first i thought it just looked like hop pellets, i havent used a bucket in like 6 years, but i dont remember my kreusen looking like that!!! in my glass carboy they always look off-white, and fluffy/rocky with scattered nastiness in there, that pic is a uniform GREEN nastiness...i agreee its not mold, but gees that cant be normal can it???

Ivan Lendl said:

that cant be normal can it???

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it's normal

That picture is a thing of beauty. The krausen tends to pick up bits of pelletized hops, etc that color it green sometimes.

I've seen pictures of a moldy fermentation... It looks completely different. There were fuzzy balls of mold on top of the krausen, connected by what appeared to be superhighways. It was very futuristic looking and very sad indeed.

Plus, if that were mold, the smell would probably knock you over when you cracked it open.

Looks to me like you're brewing beer!

Congrats!

Thanks to all for the reassurance. My wife's been telling me to relax all along. I guess you can read "Relax, have a home brew" 16 times on each page but it's difficult to practice that method.

I know, it's tough. As was mentioned before, the head will be pretty green when you use pellet hops. Didn't didn't occur to me earlier, but I recall it now.

Serious fungal growth!

Fortunately, saccharomyces cerevisiae is a good fungus.