White floating "dust"

Porter (Brewers Best Kit) has been in the secondary for about two weeks now - I was going to hold it until mid-October then bottle it in time for Thansgiving. Checked it this morning, and there seems to be a bit of white powdery looking floaters on top. Looks almost like the dust from cutting PVC pipe...if that makes any sence....Also a few yeast globs that are refusing to fall, but they don't worry me.

Brew day went fine - and I thought sanitation was fine - only difference being that I switched to StarSan vs. the powder, so I guess ther could be some kind of "learning curve"...

Here's my plan - let it sit another week or two and see if the "powder" seems to be increasing or staying the same. If it seems unchanged, I'll bottle and sample it, if it seems to be increasing or starts looking "hairy" I'll pitch it.

Does that seem fair? What could this "powder" be?

Most likely just yeast. Do you have a pic?

I'll try to get a picture at lunch...

probably just Krausen remnants. I wouldn't worry unless it gets larger in a day or two. If it's mold it should grow rather quickly.

And peddio or lactiballis usually form a white film that covers the entire surface.

Here's a picture I took at lunch...hopefully it is clear enough - kind of hard to get a photo through the Better Bottle and not have the light play games with it or so my reflection. Brewing is a hobby of mine, clearly photography isn't.



As you can see the floaters are really kind of "powder" like and not a film. Nor do the have an "oil slick" type apperance. Instead they look like little balls of "dust" floating around on top. As I mentioned before I do have a few globs of floculated yeast floating around too. This batch used Nothingham yeast...if that makes any difference.

Any idea what this might be?

Either way, I'm going to bottle this and see how it turns out.

I'd say it is a small tropical storm forming. Keep watching to make sure that the eye does not become more concentrated. If so, you've got a hurricane on your hands

I have no idea what it is, but it looks just fine to me. If you would have used a pail, you wouldn't have to look at it!

I'm thinking it just looks like a lot of yeast rafts...yeast kicked up from the trub and buoyed up by CO2. Did you swirl the bucket at any time? I'm thinking if you did, that a) might account for the large amount of rafts and b) the weird swirled pattern they took.

I'm still betting it's ok.

It's hurricane porter!

Revvy said:

Did you swirl the bucket at any time?

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Not intentionally, but now that you mention it I did slide the cabinet it was sitting on over a few inches to make some room in the basement.

phatuna said:

I'd say it is a small tropical storm forming.

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I actually thought that is looked like a galaxy special effects from a crappy sci-fi film. Maybe I'll go with go with Intergalactic Hurricane Porter...now if only I could make cool labels.

Thanks for the replies...my fears have been put to rest and I shall now RDWHAHB...well, I'm still at work - so for now just the RDW part.

It doesn't take much movement to get liquid in a round container to swirl around. And it doesn't take much to also to release a bunch of co2 to lift yeast from the bottom.

Revvy said:

It's hurricane porter!

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I'm writing that one down. :rockin: