A little worried about this one...

Extract Helles from Northern Brewer. This is about 18 hours after pitching 1 liter starter slurry (decanted.) Pitched at 65 degrees then cooled slowly to 56-58 degrees and held.

It kind of resembles a pellicle. I'm getting a big bubble in the jug every minute or so, this was brewed 3 days ago.

Never brewed a lager before, so I'm a little wary. Does this look normal to ya'll.

Cheers,
Ward

All of mine have been in Ale Pails, but the krausen was smaller, even on a full blown active cake.

Yeast are strange though, and I doubt anything else would have gotten such a foothold at such temps.

Relax and wait it out.

Thanks Cheezy, any other opinions out there?

I've never had this happen at my house...But I've seen this picture a lot, and a lot of moderators saying everything is fine. I wouldn't worry until you crack one on the 4th of July and it nearly makes you YARF.
I'll bet you a bottling session that your beer is fine and dandy.

Are there any strange smells coming from the airlock? Other than that, there is no way to even assume the beer is infected. Give it some time, let it ferment out and when you take a gravity reading in a week or two taste it, then you will know whether the beer if fine or infected. But, I think it will be fine.

Did you add any Irish moss to the boil? I had this happen to my Flat Tire because I added "to much" Irish Moss to the boil. It turned out fine in the end. I did loose almost a gallon of wort when transferring to the secondary because I did not want all the debris to end up in the secondary. As a precaution I crash cooled my wort before transferring it to the secondary to help clear the debris.

Thanks everyone. I've not smelled the off-gassing in the blowoff jug, maybe I'll do that today.

I did add 1 tbs of rehydrated irish moss at 15 minutes.

I really wanted to harvest and wash this yeast. I wonder if I'll still be able to do that.

it won't be a problem. that looks fine to me. not the most beautiful krausen, but hey...fermentation is kind of a nasty process anyway.

geis6 said:

I did add 1 tbs of rehydrated irish moss at 15 minutes.

I really wanted to harvest and wash this yeast. I wonder if I'll still be able to do that.

Click to expand...

I only use .25 tsp Irish Moss in my beer, but only in light color beers. I don't mind the cold chill haze. But BMCer's do so I put it in there for them...

I was able to wash my yeast from my primary, it just took a couple washes to get just the yeast.

Cheers

Thank for all the advice. Looks like I overused irish moss. She's bubbling away just fine now. We'll see where I'm at in a week or two when I test the gravity and rack to secondary.

Cheers!