Stuff stuck on top of the carboy

Started my first batch, it was a malt kit. Everything went fine, the only thing that might have went wrong is when i checked the carboy in the morning the bubbles went out my air lock and spilled down the side... i don't know if any air got in, the co2 was pretty strong. Next time I'll just use a tube.

But, i had a layer of crap (looks like a mix of the hops and malt) stuck on top of the karsin it went to the top of the carboy. I've been looking around i cant find any pictures of people saying this happened to them. When the karsin reduced it is just suspended there. Should i try to mix it up and get that mass reincorperated?

https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=19489

Give her a swirl... You'll dislodge some of the crap and get it re-incorporated into the beer but some will inevitably be left behind. No biggie, it's normal...

I am going to guess what you are seeing is normal krausen particles. My inclination is to leave it alone.

Regarding if any O2 got in, I think that is unlikely. All of that fermentation means CO2 is escaping (which prevents O2 from entering).

But, please wait for an expert to answer before making decisions, read my sig.

Leave it alone! After you have removed your delicious beer, you can clean off the junk but for now your beer is fine and doing what it's suppose to do. The more you mess with beer, the greater your chances of ruining your batch.

Taste some of it and you won't want to get it back in your beer.

Wait... Maybe I misread the statement... You had krausen get on the outside of the carboy and you want to put it back in? Oh hell no, leave it alone... Or, you had krausen rise to the top of the inside of the carboy and now there is residue stuck at the top from when the krausen fell? If thats the case, I say give her a swirl and get that back into the beer and let it settle to the bottom. Assuming there is a proper seal on the carboy, its a closed environment. Those particles wont do any harm...

No, I'm not saying i want to put something back in that came out. There is a picture above with what I'm looking at.

I'm an idiot. I didn't see the link the first time round...

I get that quite often. It's just residue from the krausen rising then falling. I still stand by my original answer and say swirl it and reincorporate it. You wont get it all, but a majority of it will clean up.

Leave it alone....let what falls fall, and the rest that sticks to the side you'll clean out later...

Revvy said:

Leave it alone....let what falls fall, and the rest that sticks to the side you'll clean out later...

Click to expand...

What's the reasoning behind leaving it alone? Does it impart a funky flavor? I've always tried to work it back into the beer with no negative effects that I can think of, but maybe I'm missing something...

What you are seeing is kraeusen residue, which is a mixture of yeast, proteins, and by the look of it, lots of hop particles. It's stuff you don't want in your final beer (it would settle out on the bottom anyway), so agitating the carboy to try to remove the residue won't necessarily hurt anything, but it's counterproductive because you'll just have to wait longer for the crap to settle out on the bottom. So I'd leave it alone.

UnaBonger said:

What's the reasoning behind leaving it alone? Does it impart a funky flavor? I've always tried to work it back into the beer with no negative effects that I can think of, but maybe I'm missing something...

Click to expand...

Well if it doesn't fall naturally, and it is incorporated back into the beer, it my not fall normally like a krausen would and flocculate through, and may leave some nasty flavors behind.....

It's pretty obvious that he had a vigorous fermentation...and the stuff sitting up there out of contact with the beer for a few days probably isn't gonna taste too or smell too good, especially if it pushed out of the airlock and some of it came into contact with the air, it could have autolized or at the least some of it could have oxidised ...so if someone swirled it and re-incorporated it back into the beer and it DIDN'T flocculate out normally, it could add an off flavor....

Have you ever tasted some of the remaining krausen on the side of a fermenter after the rest of it fell? Not very pleasant.

Personally, if stuff doesn't happen naturally I don't push it...It's not hurting anything staying up there...And if someone is careful racking the beer out of there, it won't touch it.

It may be fine if someone swirls it...but why risk it if it ain't hurting anything? If it was meant to flocculate through, it would have detached itself and fell....

Thanks for the help everyone, I'll leave it alone and see what happens. Should i do anything special when i put the siphon in to get the beer out?

Like Nurmey said before, if you truly about mixing that stuff back in, taste it. That will cure any inclination to reintroduce it to your beer. That crap is nasty bitter stuff that a lot of people choose to skim from the top of the krausen when they ferment in open containers or buckets.

I love the sight of that stuff clinging to the side of my carboy. It means that it is not in my beer and my beer is all the better for it.