uh oh... mold?

Just started brewing my first batch of beer... Insanely happy (hoppy?)

anyways... it's been 3 days into the primary fermentation and I'm getting what appears to be mold growing in my carboy. I thought I sanitized correctly... but maybe not. I've got little white blotches growing around the opening of the carboy... Anyway... it doesn't seem to have gone any farther than just around the rim so far, but it's only been 3 days. Is this normal? Am I screwed? Any suggestions?

pictures?
pictures?

Welcome to HBT!

I suspect what you are seeing is krausen and that is a very good thing indeed. Krausen looks different on every batch, always looks weird, and often very ugly but it's all perfectly normal.

You are getting krauzen with hops in it...All perfectly normal..fermentation is often ugly. You have the first batch jitters, we get 10-20 posts like this a day.

And 99.5% turn out fine.

Remember this is a hobby, not something to stress out about, and it is very very very very hard to ruin your beer....

I wonder if is yeast colonies. I have the same thing in my Wee Heavy.
I used dry yeast and sprinkled it into the carboy.
No doubt some grains stuck in the neck.
Perhaps they grew when the krausen reached them.

beersydoesit said:

I wonder if is yeast colonies. I have the same thing in my Wee Heavy.
I used dry yeast and sprinkled it into the carboy.
No doubt some grains stuck in the neck.
Perhaps they grew when the krausen reached them.

Click to expand...

X2 This happened to me and it was just some dry yeast stuck in the neck and they started to look like they were rehydrated. There were some that couldv'e looked like mold but everything came out fine

Yeast is mold, to technically he is right

Seriously though, you don't have to worry about mold growing on top until fermentation is over and its been sitting for about a month. If it happens, just rack out from under it.