what the heck is that?

my first batch ever. a milk stout with chocolate and vanilla. when i opened the bucket after a week to check the gravity, i was eye to eye with this. i was a bit panicky during the brewing process because i lost power (hurricane Irene) in the middle of the boil, so many mistakes could have been made. that thing floating on top was probably 1/8 inch thick, crusty, and would break apart and sink when disturbed. i have moved it to a secondary, so i could start another batch with no modifications or complications. the smell was fine and it tasted quite good, which leads me to believe its ok, i was just wondering what the heck was on top.

Welcome to HBT!

Looks like normal krausen to me. Let it sit another two weeks, then take gravity readings to find out if fermentation is done.

RDWHAHB!

It's proably a reaction between the krausen and the fats in the chocolate you added to make the chocolate stout.

Does it smell/taste bad? Fermentation is ugly even on good days, so just looking at something tells you nothing.

With that lighting it almost looks like an omlette floating on top of your beer. But I'm going to go ahead and guess you didn't dump your breakfast in the fermenter and say it looks like a bunch of flocculated yeast, hop matter, and other stuff in a krausen that hasn't yet sunk to the bottom.

so the move to the secondary was most likely a mistake?

Without a gravity reading it would be hard to know whether or not your fermentation had completed before racking it over to a secondary. Even if there are still sugars in there some yeast will get over in to the secondary as well and some bit of fermentation will continue. You might end up with a bit sweeter of a beer than you were expecting.

OG was 1.06. the reading at racking was 1.025. i was going to let it sit out the week and take another reading. if it hadn't moved i was planning on bottling this weekend.

an update for anyone who cares. it finished at 1.025, probably because of the lactose. i have bottled it...

Das ist bier or a septic tank... did you use lactose? I just finished up a milk stout and did have anything like that but as everyone says each fermentation is different. I would close it up and give it 3 weeks to settle and clear.

Looks like something yummy being made there