Darned white-ring in the bottle

OK, I feel dirty. But I'm a grown up and can admit my failures and learn from them.

I bottled a batch of citrus ale two weeks ago and now I have white rings of "stuff" floating in the necks of my bottles.

I know what happened. I let the sanitized bottles sit overnight before filling. Dumb, I know.

Anyway, I know that nothing pathogenic can live IN beer, but can it live ON beer.

I drank a bottle right after I discovered the problem. Flat but tasted fine. If I let them go to full carbonation I'm afraid the light amount of mold may get thicker. Are there any mold strains that could pose a problem.

Personally, I'll drink it if it tastes good and won't poison me. Of course, out of pride I will never let anyone else see it. Or drink it.

I doubt that anything dangerous would be growing in there. However, I would be concerned if you're bottles start becoming over carbonated as it may lead to bottle bombs eventually since sometimes infections are able to digest those more complex sugars.

I'm a little paranoid about that. When I was a kid, 30 years ago, my dad brewed a batch of root beer and had a chain reaction incident. I think like 6 or bottles went off at once. I have a little PTSD from the clean up. I store my bottles in big Rubbermaid bins with lids until they go in the fridge.

I know what you mean. I accidentally over primed a batch a couple years ago, and they didn't go off until I started up the oven one day. As they were stored in a nearby cabinet the residual heat must have been enough to bump the pressure up and cause a handful to explode. Very emotionally traumatizing.

Are you sure it's mold? Did you by any chance prime with DME?

Nope. No DME. Mold or other floating film.

tau7 said:

Nope. No DME. Mold or other floating film.

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Darn....