Mold or Yeast...Sorry to ask again

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BHMPIRE

Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
19
Reaction score
3
Location
The BHMpire
I know this has been asked before but I can't make up my mind.

On 12/13 I divided hopped, 1.030 wort into three containers, placed one in my attic, one in my cellar, and one in my front yard. On 12/14 I transferred them to growlers and airlocked them.

The one from my attic has seen the fastest growth...of something. At first I was certain it was white mold, but now I'm wondering if it is indeed yeast. There are bubbles coming through.

They started off as a few small, round, white spots on top of the wort and have since multiplied to this:

attic-yeast.jpg

What do you think?
 
This is funny. I made some 1.040 wort that I lightly hopped with a handful of aged hops on the evening of the 15th. I felt it on my front porch (covered with a wire strainer) from about 8 pm until 8 am; it got down to about 40 degrees that night. I transfered to a sanitized growler and shook the be-jesus out of it. To make a long story short I had growth in mine, yesterday morning that looked EXACTLY like that, with almost 1/2 again as much when I got home from work. I tried sniffing but all I smelled was bitter-ish (old-hops) and unfermented wort. When I swirled it though it did off gas a little and form a bit more krausen with dissipated in about 10 minutes or so. I would also LOVE to know what it is we caught.
 
This is funny. I made some 1.040 wort that I lightly hopped with a handful of aged hops on the evening of the 15th. I felt it on my front porch (covered with a wire strainer) from about 8 pm until 8 am; it got down to about 40 degrees that night. I transfered to a sanitized growler and shook the be-jesus out of it. To make a long story short I had growth in mine, yesterday morning that looked EXACTLY like that, with almost 1/2 again as much when I got home from work. I tried sniffing but all I smelled was bitter-ish (old-hops) and unfermented wort. When I swirled it though it did off gas a little and form a bit more krausen with dissipated in about 10 minutes or so. I would also LOVE to know what it is we caught.

I'm starting to think this is yeast. I think the small white spots floating on the wort are yeast colonies and now they're multiplying and starting to form a krausen. At least I hope so. They don't look fuzzy, and everyone says that if it's mold it will be fuzzy. I guess we just give it a couple weeks and see what happens. This is a good article if you haven't yet seen it: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/04/ambient-spontaneous-yeast-starters.html
 
Yeah, I have seen the article. His site is pretty damn great, and one of the first (Good) online resources I found for sour beers, besides here of course.
More than anything I was surprised at how fast mine seemed to grow something, yet how unlike any of my other yeasts it has looked (so far anyway). As I said, mine looked just like your top post a little over 24 hours after I put it in the growler and oxygenated (via shaking). I will report back tonight, possibly with a pic.
 
That'd be great, thanks. I'll do the same. That'll be helpful since we're on a very similar timeline. It's also interesting that my outside container has hardly grown anything, it just has a few floating white spots, but the one from my attic went crazy.
 
Okay. For some reason my picture is not posting. Suffice to say that I have more or less full Krausen.
 
When I first transfered it into the growler I shook it heavily for a good 2 minutes to aerate. I also swirled it heavily this morning to aerate. No stepping up yet.
 
When I first transfered it into the growler I shook it heavily for a good 2 minutes to aerate. I also swirled it heavily this morning to aerate. No stepping up yet.

I appreciate your help. Yours looks great! Foil, airlock, or something else?
 
So, any update on yours BHMPIRE? For what its worth I have stepped mine up once and plan to do so again saturday. I am going to brew a 3 gallon test batch with it sunday or monday.
 
So, any update on yours BHMPIRE? For what its worth I have stepped mine up once and plan to do so again saturday. I am going to brew a 3 gallon test batch with it sunday or monday.

Sorry for the slow response...mine's been going slow. I never really got a krausen on it but it smells nicely tart and fruity. So I did step it up once, but nothing really happened. A few bubbles, but again no krausen or really active fermentation. So I guess I'll give it another couple weeks and go from there.
 
Back
Top