White granular spots on top of beer in secondary

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wondercow

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Hello,
This afternoon I checked on my secondary and was unhappy to see small, white, granular spots on the top of my beer. I searched the forums and saw other people discussing white spots on top of their beers, but most were talking about coin-sized spots of white. My spots are tiny and 3-dimensional--it kind of looks like someone sprinkled cornmeal on top of my secondary and it all floated. Should I be concerned about this?

I tried to take some pictures but they turned out reeeeally badly. I'm going to post them anyways. Here is a blurry top view to give you an idea of how plentiful these are:
img_3362.jpg


And here is a blurry side view where you can sort of see how granular they are:
img_3361.jpg


The beer is a "Brewer's Best American Micro Style Pale Ale" kit made with dry yeast. Are these just grains of dried yeast? Should these have made it all the way to the secondary in this form? Thanks for any advice or comments you might have!
 
Happens all the time - no worries. You will find all sorts of weirdness in a carboy.

Always remember - it is REALLY hard to infect a beer if you are halfway diligent in cleaning stuff.

probably bits of yeast or drywall from the basement and 99.99% of the time it is of no worry.

After reading my original post it sounds like rhetoric but there is nothing you can do so why worry and seriously it will not hurt the beer.

just watch for them when bottling.
 
Very common! I call those "yeast clumpies". What they actually are are just sticky yeast that have clumped together ("flocculated"). They often settle on the bottom and most of them are, but quite a few will float or suspend.
 
I have that exact same thing in my pumpkin ale right now and I've never seen it before. Thanks for posting this. That beer has its own set of issues separate from from that though.
 
Hey, if you guys want science and a smart forum member, see "Kaiser". If you want a doofus who likes to brew, I'm your man! (Well, you know what I mean!)
 
Awesome, thanks for the reassurance, everyone! I work in a lab with people who do cell culture (but don't do it myself) and have conditioned myself to panic at the slightest possibility of contamination. It's nice to know that beer can be a bit more tolerant.
 
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