My fears confirmed

I thought it was only yeast rafts, but when I got home today, my fears were confirmed- definitely mold growing on the top of my inactive wort. Oddly enough, I read in "How to Brew" just today that mold is not a killer for sure. Is there anything I can do or am I better off dumping and starting over? I still have 5 gallons in a different fermenter doing good so not all will be lost.

How do you know for sure? Post a pic. I'm sure everybody would love to see an actual infection.

The beer might be fine. Just proceed as if all is well.

If your positive it's mold then I would rack to a new container. Post some pics so we can all see.

I will see if I can get a pic. Also, I just tested the gravity and obviously my yeast never got started. OG was 1.052, gravity now after 5 days is 1.050 and no action. If I decide to go on, can I order a new yeast pack and still be able to salvage the wort? (It would take 3-5 days to get to me.

Might as well give it a try. I would order more than just yeast though, since your ordering anyway.also you should keep an extra pack or two of yeast around just incase. I,ve had to re pitch before and was glad I had it around

I missed the part about your gravity reading. I would be concerned if you had mold on unfermented wort. If there was enough o2 in there for there to have been mold development then more than likely the wort soured as well.

boomtown25 said:

I will see if I can get a pic. Also, I just tested the gravity and obviously my yeast never got started. OG was 1.052, gravity now after 5 days is 1.050 and no action. If I decide to go on, can I order a new yeast pack and still be able to salvage the wort? (It would take 3-5 days to get to me.

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Was that liquid or dry yeast? if dry, did you rehydrate or pitch directly?
(doesn't matter, except for temps.) rehydrate temp - not to exceed 104.

Pitching temp - obviously not to exceed 104 either, but better at 65F

something was too hot and killed the yeast, perhaps? Watch your temps, they're important.

a spare packet or two of dry in the refrigerator for just such an occasion.
Oh, and if you have to wait 3 days for yeast, don't bother racking until the new yeast comes, or you may have more mold growing on the newly racked wort.

Would racking and re-boiling sufficiently sterilize the wort before cooling it again and pitching new yeast?

Or would this cause more problems than it's worth?

This is the best pic I could get

Hot was never the problem. For the first three days the wort was 60-63. My yeast said 75-65. It was Wyeast for bavarian hef. I think the slap pack got slapped before it even showed up. It never fully inflated but did have some pressure in the pack. First day I saw some action but after that, I thought it was slow.

Dunno
Some types of mold can be toxic and i dont think boiling helps if its already contaminated

On the other hand i would hate to dump potentially fine beer

So conclution is Dunno, but i would be conserned

I would hate to as well, but here is my main concern- if I try to salvage, I will have 5 gallons of wort with no action (or CO2) sitting there for nearly 10 days total with mold already in it. I may say f*** it and pull the trigger on a partial mash kit.

I can't think of any reason that you should not reheat this wort to sterilize it. Can anyone else think of anything.

Ok, Ninjas-
My decision has now gotten more complicated. I woke up this morning and now I have the best fermentation I have had so far going on (I moved it around a bit and I guess stirred up some yeast buried in the trub). Anyways, now I have my beer ferm under way (first in nearly 6 days) and I still have about 6 mold spots. Do I rack now into second ferm to get rid of mold, boil and pitch new yeast, or "set it and forget it"?

If you can turn your camera to Macro mode. It's usually a little flower symbol and it's typically found near the flash (lightning bolt) icon. My phone's camera even has a macro setting. It will allow you to get nice and close and take a picture that is in focus.

I'm not sure that picture shows any evidence of infection. Given, its hard to get any detail. But still...

The best way I could describe it was there was no fermentation action at all (until this morning) and there was about 5 spots floating on top, all smaller than a dime which appeared solid white with a green center (this is why I thought it was mold). There was no evidence of any bubbles in them and they did not appear like foam, they were solid. Now with the Krausen, they are raised off the liquid right now, but are clearly distinguishable from the Krausen itself. I can probably get them out of the carboy with the stick end of my stirrer if anyone thinks I should. Or I could wait until fermentation is complete and rack into new carboy

Hops are green and yeast is white. I'm just saying.

Screw it. I'm leaving it alone. Worse case scenario, it spreads and I can consider doing something then and if unable I dump like I was going to. Hell, it may turn into the best beer in the world. I'm just exicted to see the fermentation kick in finally.

dont throw away wort, get yourself a still and start making scotch out of bad batches

I can't really comment I guess based on you pictures. But I just did a google search for homebrew mold pic. Take a look. But keep in mind that it's not like you are getting this info from a peer-reviewed scientific journal...

It may very well have been kraeusen. Early kraeusen especially can look a little mold-like. I often see big lumps of green in my kraeusen; it's hops.

That pic does kinda look scary to me, but it's so blurry it's hard to tell. I think you are right to leave it alone...

jamesampm said:

dont throw away wort, get yourself a still and start making scotch out of bad batches

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... which would be illegal (home distillation)... so don't discuss here.