White stuff floating on my beer

Hi everyone, I am a new brewer and I am brewing Brewers Best Scottish Ale as my second batch. I have had it in its secondary fermentation bung for two weeks. I was going to start bottling today and noticed that there are a several small islands of white stuff floating on the top of my beer that to me resemble mold. I thought that I had washed and sanitized everything correctly but I now have my doubts.

As a new brewer I am not sure how to proceed. Are these little white floaties bad or normal? If they are bad, should I dump the whole batch or should I give it a try? Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

I have had several batches develop white floaties on them and even big waxy looking bubbles and they turned out great. Don't worry about it. Fermenting beer can look ugly.

Thank you for the reply. I thought that it might be but since I am new to this I thought that I should double check. From what I have read it the "Did I ruin my beer" pages it is pretty hard to screw up a batch of beer.

They are more than likely yeast rafts. Little bits of yeast that float to the surface buoyed up by co2 coming up from the trub.

Rarely is the top of a beer ever completely empty of stuff.

Hey Mike,

I am also a beginner brewer, I just started my first batch on the 6th. 3 days later (I checked after 24 hours then I just had time to check it today) and I found this:





Is this similar to what you are talking about?

Thank you for the reply. I thought that it might be but since I am new to this I thought that I should double check. From what I have read it the "Did I ruin my beer" pages it is pretty hard to screw up a batch of beer.

Neohistory, it doesn't look quite like what you posted. This looks more like a cup of coffee that has been sitting out for a while and has developed little islands of mold. A good comparison since my beer is black/dark brown. Since it is in the secondary tank it is pretty clean and all the from the initial fermentation was left on the bottom of the first carboy.

I am just afraid that it got contaminated when I was switching tanks. I was careful but there is always the chance that I made a mistake.

Revvy I thought that it might have something to do with the yeast. So they are called yeast rafts? Good to know.

I'm experiencing the same condition with what's in my primary right now. Little white discs, smaller than the size of a pinkie fingernail.

Glad to hear that this may not be catastrophic, and that I can proceed with bottling today.