Small white flecks in primary

I could use some guidance on a strange sight I found in one of my batches.

-It's a BIAB all-grain pale ale, just Maris Otter, crystal 40L and Cascade hops, brewed mainly to test out my system with something simple.

-Around the end of primary fermentation at day 14 or so, I noticed some small white flecks bobbing around on the top of the liquid. I googled around and searched the site but can't find anything specific about what it might be.

-In the week since, it doesn't appear that they've multiplied. I notice that they sometimes travel slowly up and down in the beer.

-The beer doesn't smell bad through the airlock.

-When I poured the beer into the fermenter, I just dumped in all the trub which may have included some grain hull flecks that got through the bag. I'm thinking one possibility is that those have decided to float around some instead of settling out.

-The airlock is still outgassing a bit, if that means anything. I haven't taken a gravity measurement in more than a week but when I did I was just about 1.015 which is a hair over my target F.G.

-It's a 2.5g batch in a 3 gal carboy.

Some pictures attached from a week ago although there's actually less floating around now. The rest of the beer is really clear. Any ideas? I'll be racking this into a 2.5g corny keg this weekend and carbonating with corn sugar unless it turns out to be really nasty stuff.

Images didn't post, trying again...




Or just raw links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39206202@N05/4363028251/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39206202@N05/4363770440/

Looks like grain husks.

i agree with ArcaneXor. a closer shot would help. if that is what that is you have a hole in your grain bag.

Yeap, looks like either grain husks or coagulated proteins (hmm...isn't that basically what grain husks are?) or something.

Either that or beer gremlins.

Thanks for the replies. Strangely, this is the third all-grain batch I've done but the first where I've seen any hull flecks. I've got one more in carboy I did after this and I'll monitor for the appearance of similar flecks. Any other downsides to having these in the wort/beer?

did you remember to recirculate your mash and sparge water? that will help allot in the future. the husks eventually form their own filter that keep the rest of the grain husks out.

the only downside i can think of is the possibility of tannin extraction. i have no idea if this is a real concern or not.

I use BIAB so there's no vorlauf step. I drain the bag in a colander over the mash kettle, then soak in 168-170 degree water in the boil kettle, draining and resoaking twice to approximate a sparge.

On this last batch, I poured the mash and sparge water into the boil kettle through the grain and bag. It was way overcomplicated but appeared to reduce sediment in an approximation of a vorlauf.

I have a very, very small space and not having a dedicated mash tun is one way I save on equipment. I mash in a 3-gal kettle in the oven on warm and get 65-70% efficiency with excellent temp holding. I may break down and harvest some space to store a mash tun in the future...

Looks like Goldschlager