FAIL Ale....

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zavoid

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Jul 10, 2009
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Location
Frenchtown, NJ
Hey guys,

me and my buddies just did our first brew at our office last week, I'm guessing we didn't sanitize properly? take a look...

3813928517_ddbc32c7fa_o.jpg

3814738484_18ea072473_o.jpg
 
Have you tasted it? I can't really tell if those are just floating yeast rafts or a true infection. Realistically it is hard to actually get an infection, especially on your first batch. So most of these threads turn out to be nothing more than newby nerves.

Our beer is really tough that way...it's really not like a frail newborn, the yeast are pros at survival.

Can you get us a better quality photo of those floaties?

But really even with floaties on the top, if the beer doesn't taste bad, it may still be okay. No known pathogen can grow in beer, so nothing will hurt you. And some people intentionally brew infected beers, and like funky and sour, so even if it is tart and you like the taste you can rack beneath the floaties.

I've racked under mold before (as have several others) and the beer was drinkable.

Looks can be deceiving...It's going to come down to taste and smell.

That could be pre krausen yeast starting to bloom, or it could be post krausen fall yeast rafts, colonies of yeast kicked up by co2 from the bottom ann brought to the surface, which is completely normal.

Better pics would be helpful.
 
Green bits = infection.
My condolences.


But as stated, you might still be able to salvage it by racking beneath it when it's done.

What yeast did you pitch and how did you do it? If it's 7 days later and there's no active fermentation then it sounds like you pitched a bunch of dead yeast.
 
Have to agree with all that Revvy said but if that was my beer I'd be worried too. But the answer to some questions might help with some reassurance.

What was the actual brew date?
What sanitizer did you use?
What yeast did you use?
How did you prepare it?
What was the OG?
 
Have to agree with all that Revvy said but if that was my beer I'd be worried too. But the answer to some questions might help with some reassurance.

What was the actual brew date?
What sanitizer did you use?
What yeast did you use?
How did you prepare it?
What was the OG?


1. August 5th we brewed
2. We used starsan(don't fear the bubbles right?)
3. Our first brew was from a kit we got.(good stuff is saved for 2nd attempt) so umm yeat in a packet?
4. prepared in warm cup of water that we chilled.
5. unsure on the OG.. because my buddy dropped the hydrometer in the brew and it broke, its still in there :)

AnOldUr.. your very local to me.. my office where the beer is, is in lambertville if you wanna come on down and take a look ;)

thanks all
 
I honestly can't tell from even the single clump if it's mold or if it's hop scum on a yeast raft.

And MOLD IS NOT THE SAME THING AS AN INFECTION. The mold only sits on the top of the beer and the beer can be racked under it.

Honestly the only time we can TRULY visually diagnose an INFECTION by looking at it, is if a pellicule forms OR if the growths have tendrils hanging down into the beer (think of those jelly fish with a head on top and a bunch of arms hanging below.

But if it is anything, it just appears to be a surface issue. And most likely will not affect the taste of the beer below.

We do need more info in the recipe and the gravity, etc to know where you are at in the beers process.

But if it is surface mold and fermentation is complete I would carefully rack it to a secondary vessel, leaving behind and inch of the beer and the floaties behind.
 
Yeah i'm leaning towards the yeast dead theory as the active fermentation i see in all the pictures hasn't happened in over a week.

I honestly can't tell from even the single clump if it's mold or if it's hop scum on a yeast raft.

And MOLD IS NOT THE SAME THING AS AN INFECTION. The mold only sits on the top of the beer and the beer can be racked under it.

Honestly the only time we can TRULY visually diagnose an INFECTION by looking at it, is if a pellicule forms OR if the growths have tendrils hanging down into the beer (think of those jelly fish with a head on top and a bunch of arms hanging below.

But if it is anything, it just appears to be a surface issue. And most likely will not affect the taste of the beer below.

We do need more info in the recipe and the gravity, etc to know where you are at in the beers process.

But if it is surface mold and fermentation is complete I would carefully rack it to a secondary vessel, leaving behind and inch of the beer and the floaties behind.
 
. . . unsure on the OG.. because my buddy dropped the hydrometer in the brew and it broke, its still in there

AnOldUr.. your very local to me.. my office where the beer is, is in lambertville if you wanna come on down and take a look
I have to go up to Flemington today. Might be able to swing down to Lambertville. PM me the address.

But . . . may be it's just me. But if I had a broken hydrometer in my beer, I'd toss it.
 
Just out of curiosity, why was the hydrometer in the beer in the first place? Most people take some beer out and put it in a graduated cylinder, then drop (carefully) the hydrometer in the vial to measure. You have a carboy... how did the hydrometer get in there? lol
 
Just out of curiosity, why was the hydrometer in the beer in the first place? Most people take some beer out and put it in a graduated cylinder, then drop (carefully) the hydrometer in the vial to measure. You have a carboy... how did the hydrometer get in there? lol


I'm not entirely sure. I was writing an email while my buddies were doing that part and next thing ya know i see them trying to get it out of there...
 
Did you guys really just drop a hydrometer inside a carboy?

:facepalm:



Everybody knows you have to tie a string to it first so that you can get it back out.
 
I would'v just left the hydrometer in there if it wasn't broken and worrying about getting it out after I've syphoned the beer out
 
I as well put my hydrometer in my glass carboy on my first batch. I thought I was being genus and would be able to tell the progress throughout fermentation. I hadn't even heard of the word krausen at that time and had no idea the hydrometer would disappear under inches of foamy goodness. Oh well I didn't break it and was able to retreieve it after I racked. So for the uninformed first timers it doesn't aound that crazy.
 
Back in the old days doctors (and preachers) making house calls would be paid in chickens, so a drink for the beer doctor wouldn't be too bad of a price I guess. :D
Well, I don't even play a doctor on TV, but swung by zavoid's place for a look. Good to meet Colin's and the guys at Talkfree. Great work place! But the funk they have growing in that carboy looks just like the Brett growing on top of my Flanders. And they never had any krausen formation. So we have wild yeast growth, glass and lead. I'd go by the "three strikes" rule and dump it.

The good thing is these guys aren't giving up. They already have a couple more kits ready to brew.

Left them a six of homebrew, but they look too thirsty for that to make a dent!
 
Very well done on the tech support, AnOldUR. Good to hear that the lads are keeping the faith. I haven't had a drop yet from our brews, with the first one only started a week and a half ago, and still in secondary, but already have an imperial stout in primary, and are planning on a cerveza crema clone THIS weekend.
Hey, ONE of them's gotta turn out good, right?!?!? :drunk:
 
Well, I don't even play a doctor on TV, but swung by zavoid's place for a look. Good to meet Colin's and the guys at Talkfree. Great work place! But the funk they have growing in that carboy looks just like the Brett growing on top of my Flanders. And they never had any krausen formation. So we have wild yeast growth, glass and lead. I'd go by the "three strikes" rule and dump it.

The good thing is these guys aren't giving up. They already have a couple more kits ready to brew.

Left them a six of homebrew, but they look too thirsty for that to make a dent!

Thanks so much for stopping by. And no, we are not giving up.

Yes, it was I who broke the hydrometer. I grew up working at a winery, and am not used to working with limited equipment......I literally had NOTHING tall enough to take a reading in without wasting a gallon or more, and thought I could retrieve it with what I had at hand. Obviously that didn't work out.

We're going to get a graduated cylinder or something similar and give it another go. Things didn't look right to me after a day or so (nothing looked active) but I still wasn't sure, as I'm trying to compare this to 550 gallon tanks of white and 300+ gallon lugs of red. If it worked, I was planning on racking it out and giving it a shot.....I'm sure I've tried worse in the past :)

Zavoid and I will definitely be giving updates on the progress. Thanks again for all of the suggestions, and we at TalkFree are pleased to provide you with some newbie folly entertainment.
 
I use the plastic tube that serves as the case for my floating thermometer when I take a hydro reading. I made a mark on the side to know where to fill it to. As a matter of fact the plastic tube that the thermometer came in has been more use to me than the actual thermometer, which I broke last week...
 
We're going to get a graduated cylinder or something similar and give it another go. . . Zavoid and I will definitely be giving updates on the progress.
If you swing back by the brewshop pick up a test jar. Get the plastic one (I broke the first glass one I had.) You should be able to use your autosiphon to take the sample. It'll work just like a wine thief. Another cheap thing that's nice to have is one of those trays that are used for wall paper. A paint store or may be Home Depot has them. They work really well for sanitizing long things like your auto siphon and racking cane and don't take a lot of sanitizer to do it. Look forward to hearing how things go.

Hope you had better luck with the sushi than you did making that first homebrew. ;)
 
During my long and stumbling path through d'internet, I discovered the trick of pouring a little of your wort into an empty beer bottle before you seal up your primary, to use to take gravity readings along the way. Since it's beer your not drinking, who cares if it gets contaminated, and it should (theoretically) ferment at the same rate if kept in the same place as your fermentor. Just pour the contents into the handy-dandy test jar, take your measurement, and pour it back in the bottle when you're done!
 
During my long and stumbling path through d'internet, I discovered the trick of pouring a little of your wort into an empty beer bottle before you seal up your primary, to use to take gravity readings along the way.
You know, I've always done something similar, but never carried it far enough. My pre-yeast sample gets left on the kitchen counter in the test jar covered with tin foil. I watch to see if it starts to ferment from wild yeast before or soon after the main batch as an indicator of possible trouble. After reading your find, I may pick up an extra test jar for a second post-pitch sample. Cover that with foil, but keep it with the main batch in the ferment chamber, then just drop a sanitized hydrometer in for progress readings.

Thanks for sharing that.

Edit:
I'm wondering if the volume difference will effect the rate of fermentation?
Would someone with experience doing this comment?
 
During my long and stumbling path through d'internet, I discovered the trick of pouring a little of your wort into an empty beer bottle before you seal up your primary, to use to take gravity readings along the way.

Actually that "satellite fermenter" idea will only tell you WHAT YOUR BEER WILL FINISH AT, NOT when your 5 gallon batch of beer will be done.

It's used to measure attenuation of the yeast, not rate of fermentation.

It will take yeast a lot less time to chew through 12 ounces of wort than it will 5 gallons.....so don't trust that silly thing that someone came up with because they are too afraid to take samples from their beer as being accurate.

If you do take that as "gospel" you more than likely are rushing your beer off the yeast way to soon. You know "bottle Bombs" or suddenly posting an "is my beer in secondary ruined?" thread because now that you moved it to secondary because the "satellite" said it was done, you now have this scary looking growth that you have never seen in your bucket (because the lid is one) that suddenly grew on top of your wort and is ugly as sin....which we of course will tell you to rdwhahb because that is just krausen and it formed because you racked too soon and the yeast is still trying to work to make beer for you.

The idea came from commercial breweries, but you have to realize when they are using in it a 3 or 7 or 10bbl fermentaion setup, that their sattelite looks like this.

use+this+ale+pail.jpg


And they are drawing off hydro sample out of that bucket just like we do.

And they are STILL going to be taking readings and tasting the REAL beer in the ACTUAL FERMENTER, before making any determination.

It's been adopted by some home brewers, and unfortunately gets perpetuated by people (mostly noobs scared of taking real hydro readings) but it's about as accurate as airlock bubbling, (and you know where I count that in terms of fermentation gauges- slightly below the astrological calender :D)
 
Actually that "satellite fermenter" idea will only tell you WHAT YOUR BEER WILL FINISH AT, NOT when your 5 gallon batch of beer will be done.
Revvy, thanks for saving me from a failed experiment. No short cuts this time! :D









Edit: Thanks for bringing this back on topic. :eek:
Looking forward to hearing more from these guys.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
 
I'm going to prost this thread because it is a riot... zavoid, I hope your next attempts come out with more success...I didnt finish reading but I recently had my first infected batch and it sucks... but something in here appeals to me as straight up comical!
 
It's been adopted by some home brewers, and unfortunately gets perpetuated by people (mostly noobs scared of taking real hydro readings) but it's about as accurate as airlock bubbling, (and you know where I count that in terms of fermentation gauges- slightly below the astrological calender :D)
Hey. Are you calling me a noob that scared of taking a real hydro readings?!?! Because I completely and utterly...

Oh. Right. :D

So the spigot at the end of my primary bucket (pronounced "boo-kay" - it's French) would be where I'd draw samples from, but would that not induce contamination by opening/closing it?
 
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