issue with white residual

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saint_iverson

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Good evening guys! Yesterday I racked my IPA into its secondary and empties out the dry hops. Today I inspected it and I have what looks like white specs of mold on the top.

Ideas? Good bad expected?
 
Do you have a picture? I would be surprised if it was mold that formed that fast. Did you use whole hops?
 
Sorry for the photos lack of quality... Appears that the mold looking spots are starting to widen.

Yeast rafts? Is this good bad ugly?

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I don't know about yeast rafts, you will have to have the gentleman with excellent taste in a NFL team answer that. What I can say is that if you use whole hops, you will probably have little white pollen sacs floating around in your beer. It freaked me out the first time as well, but it turned out great.
 
White pollen sacks? Believable to be honest , maybe only because I want it to be that simple. What else could it be, ideas?
 
Is that second photo taken looking down at the surface? It's really hard to tell, but it looks like yeast to me.

Oh, and thanks chiteface - Go Pack!
 
I'm hoping that this is from the hops, I'm not jumping to conclusions, nor lack patience so I will wait and see what it does in time.
 
Still going with yeast rafts and hops. I couldn't quite tell from your post, but did you rack onto whole hops in the secondary, or just use them in the boil?
 
I added whole hops to the primary, after adding yeast. Removed during the transfer to the secondary. So there are no hops left in it now, but allowed them to drain for a bit during the transfer
 
You've got the right idea - just give it a few days and keep an eye on it, maybe have a sample. Chances are it's just fine.
 
The one thing I have heard is that adding the hops prior to attenuation can inhibit fermentation due to the oils in the hops. I will be interested to see how it finished. Do you have any gravity readings?
 
It's just yeast & cold break. And adding hops while fermenting in primary will loose much of the hop oils,as the coat the settling yeast & got to the bottom. Many of us dry hop in primary,but after FG is reached & it's settle out clear or slightly misty. You keep more of the hop aroma that way.
 
So what you're saying is wait the days to week after setting in the primary then add the hops once the fg is reached. Allowing the hops to steep for how long til racking into the secondary?
 
So what you're saying is wait the days to week after setting in the primary then add the hops once the fg is reached. Allowing the hops to steep for how long til racking into the secondary?

No, what he's saying is wait until the yeast drop out of primary for the most part and then dry hop right in primary for about a week. Then go straight to the bottling bucket or keg. No secondary is necessary.

I dry hop with pellets in primary and rack through a paint strainer bag to filter out the hops when racking. I get excellent results this way.

Also, the pictures you posted look completely normal. The chunks are yeast rafts.
 
I added whole hops to the primary, after adding yeast. Removed during the transfer to the secondary. So there are no hops left in it now, but allowed them to drain for a bit during the transfer

For future reference you shouldn't do that. The reason people dry hop in secondary (or after fermentation) primarily has to do with why you dry hop, for aroma. When beer is fermenting it's releasing a ton of gas and with that gas will go your fresh hop aromas you just added. Not entirely, but they'll be softer.
 
That's for all the tips! That way I have a better idea of what to do next time... I've made this batch 2x before this way and have had impressive results, however I've never seenthese yeast rafts in any of my batches before. Spooked me! I'll keep you all updated!
 
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