Is my beer infected?

I have a batch of pale ale that's been sitting in primary for a little over a week now. I opened up the lid today to add some oak, and noticed some small bubbles on top (honestly it looks like someone spit in it) forming a thin layer over the beer. This wasn't in their yesterday when I took a peek inside. is this a sign of infection?

Yes

I wouldn't worry about it. Sounds totally normal, just give it time.

No? What did it look like yesterday? It is probably the krausen falling back into the beer. Picture please.

I'll try and post a picture later on today, but yesterday it looked like all the krausen had fallen already and today i have these little bubbles.

idigg said:

Yes

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If that means infection, then all my beers have infections! A saccharomyces infection... Your beer is fine I'm sure.

you can just send it over to me for inspection and drinking. thanks

spend some time googling pictures of infected beers. it's totally normal to have some CO2 coming out of suspension still and causing filmy bubbles on the surface, so don't worry too much about it, but a picture will definitely help.

It's called noobitus, the tendency to think your beer is infected, when what you are seeing is simply fallen krausen and or yeast rafts, because it is very, very, very difficult to ruin your beer, especially if it's your first batch. It's where you don't realize that fermentation is often ugly and stinky....and that's on it's normal days.

Relax, you're beer is not infected. Just like 99.9% of these threads.

Opening the lid up every day is going to increase the chance of infection

The two most important ingredients in any batch of beer are TIME and PATIENCE. As much as I dislike using glass carboys, I think I would actually recommend them for new brewers so they can see what's going on inside the fermenter. Seeing is good because its sorta cool to watch what happens in there over the first week of the ferment. Seeing is bad because some of the things you see will make you worry about infections

Personally, I like to seal up my fermenter (plastic buckets for ease of storage and cleaning) and I don't open it until I'm ready to move it to bottling or a secondary fermenter. I know from experience that the actual fermentation is going to be complete anywhere between 3 and 10 days depending on the recipe and yeast being used. I know that I'll reach my final gravity in that amount of time without having to actually check it. I also know that yeast will continue to work cleaning up the beer in a secondary fermenter, which I often let go for two to four more weeks. I never crack the lids on those either.

Everything that touches your beer after the boil must be properly sanitized. And it doesn't hurt to sanitize everything that touches your beer before the boil either. These will be the tasks that minimize your opportunities for infection. Resist the urge to open your primary fermenter. Once fermentation is complete, the chances of infection are lower, but not down to zero.

ok thanks guys, I'm much less concerned now, and I'll try and keep that lid on.

pics?

still not home, i'll try to post one later tonight