mold in the fermentors

I brewed during the hottest and stickiest day of the year and now my fermentors have mold in them. I am looking for some advice on how to deal with it, and/or if I should chuck the batch. My current plan is to rack to a clean fermentor, leaving as much of the mold behind as possible. But since I will undoubtedly be transferring spores as well, I will repitch a heavy starter to hopefully retard the mold growth or kill it.

Has anyone had a successfull recovery from mold? I am hoping to hear something positive to bolster my confidence, chances are though that it will end up in the garden.

Suggest racking as you mention, then pasteurize at 170-180 for half an hour or so. Cool, and pitch again. You may lose a little flavor, but not the whole batch.

^ what he said. plus maybe add some DME in the boil to make up for lost flavor. The batch may not come out as planned but you can salvage.

got any pictures? What does the wort smell like?

Yeah, I had some "stuff" on top of my wort too that I initially thought was mold but was told later it was the remainder of the krausen after it fell back and all was good.

Unless you know absolutely for sure its mold, I'd post a pic if ya can. There are lots of people that THINK they have mold only to find out its just small patches of yeast working. Mold will usually be FURRY. I don't know your experience level so its possile that you may be mistaken. It would be a shame to dump it if your not positive.

If it's furry and/or forming spiderwebs across the top of the wort then you've got a problem. I'd second the recommendation to gently siphon the beer out from under it, gently pasturize it and cool it back to fermenting temps and then repitch. If you were expecting a lot of hop aroma then I'd consider dry hoping the batch to recover any aroma lost during pasturization. Of course you could also let some hops steep while pasturizing.

I'd also take a good look at your sanitation procedures so this doesn't happen to another batch. It's not about the weather being warm, it's about there being some source of contamination that you may or may not have control over. If you're using plastic fermentors then be sure to clean the infected fermentor real good with bleach to avoid any carryover contamination.

It was definitely mold, green with white edging and climbing up the side. I will post pictures that I took once I figure out how, holding the picture to the monitor doesn't seem to be working.

The batch was in two glass carboys, both were infected. This morning I noticed that one batch had started to ferment, the small bits of mold were now suspending in a large krausen. The second batch simply had larger mold rafts. This was a high gravity scotch ale, I had planned on two yeast pitchings and had underpitched the first batch. If I had made a starter, I doubt I would be in this predicament now. This was the first yeast activity I had seen after seven days, a rather long lag time.

The batch that had a kausen I racked out from under the mold and pitched a double batch of starter, roughly two pints. The second batch went back in the boil pot with some more DME and pasturized for half an hour at about 180. I wish I had some hops on hand, I love my hop aroma.

All I am hoping for now that it will be drinkable, it was about $80 worth of grain, I am willing to toss $5 more and a couple hours and hope for the best.

DAMN dude tough break. Hope it works out in the end.

$80 worth of grain for 10 gallons?

wow

Chimone said:

$80 worth of grain for 10 gallons?

Click to expand...

Um how big was this batch. I get crap for efficiency, and still spend less way less then 30.00 for malt in my 10 gallon batches.

Apparently I need some practice with digital photos, an image of 500k doesn't seem to want to load.

My effiency sucks, probably around 55%. This is my third all grain batch, I am hoping that this is mostly due to my technique instead of my equipment. The batch had a target OG of 1.091, I used around 50 lbs of grain and still fell short. I don't get a good price on the grain, I don't have the room to deal in bulk just yet.

The mold hasn't come back just yet in either carboy, I also treated all my equipment with bleach which I only use when I really need it. This was one of those times.

I have had around 30 batches, this is my first bad one. Better sanitation next time and I should be golden.