Ye Old Moldy Ale

I brewed a batch of all grain two days ago. Left it. Came back to check on it today, no yeast activity and the entire surface area is covered in mold. I assume it is a wash, but a friend of mine is telling me to skim it, boil it, and repitch. Thoughts?

So it is done with the heavy fermentation... leave it go! I wouldn't scrape and reboil. Is your airlock poping at all? Even every 30 -60 seconds? This would indicate that the initial heavy fermentation is done and it's just on its course to becoming beer!

No, it hasn't fermented at all. I believe the yeast culture was is sorry shape when it was pitched. My suspicion is that the absence of any alcohol allowed the mold to grow.

yarg.

You'd probably do OK to re-boil, and re-pitch. Personally I think I'd just dump it and start over.

Did you make a starter for your yeast? If nothing else, doing so will let you know if your yeast was viable to begin with. Chalk it up as a lesson learned....I'm sure there was probably something you wanted to tweak with that batch, anyway (I know I do with every one).

The wort is too dense for the mold to do any real harm. It's just on the surface. You can just skim it off. The flavor won't be affected. If there isn't any fermentation yet, you'll want to re-pitch. Next time, make a starter

It took a while but there was enventually yeast activity. I transfered it to the secondary today. Seems OK.

If it tastes OK in a few weeks I will bottle it.

This happened before you skimmed the mold off of it?

Yes. For various reasons I could not get to the house where my beer is until today. It was doing OK.

Just for kicks I made a sourdough culture from the trub and it is rocking out. I'll make bread from it tomorrow.

In short, the yeast is all good, just not up to par when it was pitched. I was in a hurry. Lesson learned. (IE, don't brew when you are visiting family!!)

Ye Olde Moldy Ale will not be the best beer I've done, but at least I seem to have salvaged an 8-hour all-grain brew. (Knock on wood.)

Ruy Lopez said:

Yes. For various reasons I could not get to the house where my beer is until today. It was doing OK.

Just for kicks I made a sourdough culture from the trub and it is rocking out. I'll make bread from it tomorrow.

In short, the yeast is all good, just not up to par when it was pitched. I was in a hurry. Lesson learned. (IE, don't brew when you are visiting family!!)

Ye Olde Moldy Ale will not be the best beer I've done, but at least I seem to have salvaged an 8-hour all-grain brew. (Knock on wood.)

Click to expand...

I know this isn't Betty Crocker talk.com, but could you give me the recipe for that bread? Man, that's like water from wine! The bread possibilities are as varied as the beer we brew ! what better companion to homebrew than homebake?

Sudsmonkey

Beer and bread go hand in hand!

As far as a recipe goes, I recommend you check out World Sourdoughs of Antiquity by Ed Wood. This dude spent a large portion of his life traveling the world collecting ancient yeast cultures. As a matter of fact, I believe Michael Jackson consulted him for yeast for the National Geographic stuff he did on beer. The book is great. A lot of information on sourdough cultures and how to use them. I've made a lot of bread from heirloom cultures as well as cultures from beer yeast.

Check out his web site: http://www.sourdo.com/ You can order cultures as well as his books.

The one I did today has molasses and whole malted barley. Damn good.