Beginning of infection?

It's hard to see. May be freaking out over nothing

I very highly doubt it. That beer looks fine to me.

Uh... specs? What kind of brew? How long has it been in there? Primary or secondary? Temperature? Any known chance of contamination?

More than likely, RDWHAHB.

Thanks, I thought that it had a whitish cloud on the surface, as soon as I opened the beer lightly moved and the cloud was gone.

A nut brown ale, it's been in primary for 5 weeks.

It's been fermenting only in primary and at around 60 degrees

I'd say it's doomed. Seriously, in that first picture it appears to have some crystalline eye with an evil glowing pupil floating around in it. Did you make the mistake of brewing the Beholder Ale recipe?!?!?

Yea bad picture.

That first pic looks like I'm staring down a fiber optic cable

Have you taken any SG readings yet? It's hard to tell if anything looks visibly wrong from those pictures. If your OG is stable and you're still worried, bottle or keg as soon as you can. That's all you can do, right?

Here's a recent pic with the cloud for lack of better word

It looks like off gassing to me

Is that something to be concerned about.

Hmmm that last picture doesn't look good but it's hard to tell. Can you get a better pic?

Kinda bubbly and foamy on top

Those are much better pictures, and that does look a little gnarly. I'll defer to the more experienced brewers, but I'm sure they'll suggest to bottle it anyway (why not??) and see how it turns out. I think it'd need to be growing hair before anyone here suggested to dump a batch.

Bottle it! I bet it will come out to be one of your tastier brews, just try to siphon from under the beer funk

Bottling tomorrow it smells pretty good

benzy4010 said:

Kinda bubbly and foamy on top

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That is completely normal, not gnarly at all. Cheers!

brulosopher said:

that is completely normal, not gnarly at all. Cheers!

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+1

When I bottle it do I need to get some of the yeast off the bottom when I transfer to bottling bucket or will it still have enough In suspension to carbonate the beer? Or do I swirl carefully before racking? I kinda struggle with having a fully carved beer. And can the cap give off favors?

benzy4010 said:

When I bottle it do I need to get some of the yeast off the bottom when I transfer to bottling bucket or will it still have enough In suspension to carbonate the beer? Or do I swirl carefully before racking? I kinda struggle with having a fully carved beer. And can the cap give off favors?

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There is more than enough yeast suspended in your beer to carbonate it- don't swirl or disturb the yeast cake at all, just gently rack it into a clean/sanitized bottling bucket (w/ priming sugar mixture)

Is 5 ounces of pruning sugar the norm for beer or does it change depending on certain beers and ingredients?

benzy4010 said:

Is 5 ounces of pruning sugar the norm for beer or does it change depending on certain beers and ingredients?

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It very much changes based on beer style and personal preference. With forced carbonation, it's much easier to achieve the perfect level of CO2. However, I've found this tool to be very useful in getting good carbonation out of priming sugar: http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html?13524782#tag

Just pick out your beer style and it'll tell you what the typical volumes of CO2 are for that style. Fill out the last few specs about your brew and it'll spit out how much sugar is needed to carb to style. Usually it's less than the 5oz they give you with your kit, since 5oz is typically the upper limit (though not always).

benzy4010 said:

pruning sugar

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Mmmm... Pruning sugar...

+1 on metanoia's link. Very useful. Generally I shoot for the middle of the range for a given style.

Bottled!! Thanks for everyone's input. Looks great and smelled great

What do you put for desired level of carbonation? Not sure what it is asking

benzy4010 said:

What do you put for desired level of carbonation? Not sure what it is asking

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I assume it is asking how many volumes of CO2 you want.

Yeah

benzy4010 said:

What do you put for desired level of carbonation? Not sure what it is asking

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Select your beer style from the first drop-down menu. It'll show you the typical range of carbonation levels for that style (i.e. 2.5-3.3). I'd shoot for the middle of the range at first, then adjust up or down in future batches to preference.