I just opened up my fermentation chamber and it was full of mold. It is a 5 cu. ft chest freezer and I had a 5 gallon glass carboy full of stout. I also had a few bottled beers that I was storing in there. There was lots of black spots all over the glass bottles and carboy. There was also a lot of spots on the metal surface - especially the hump. I moved this stout to secondary about 2 weeks ago and put some bourbon soaked wood staves (medium american oak) to age with it. I also poured in the bourbon that I soaked the wood in (about 1 cup). I tied the staves up with string so I could yank them out when the time comes to bottle/keg. The string was looped around the neck of the carboy with one of those new (to me) silicone bung in the top. There was mold on the string. I look through the glass and I see a few particles of things floating near the top. It is hard to see past the dark beer but it also appears that there is something on the edge of the wood.
Is there any way of testing to see if I am screwed on this one? I have put a bunch of work in to this batch and was planning on bottling it in a few weeks. What does mold taste like? I'm afraid I might think I'm tasting mold when I'm just tasting a very young stout. The OG on this was 1.062 for what it matters.
Any ideas would be very helpful.
Is there any way of testing to see if I am screwed on this one? I have put a bunch of work in to this batch and was planning on bottling it in a few weeks. What does mold taste like? I'm afraid I might think I'm tasting mold when I'm just tasting a very young stout. The OG on this was 1.062 for what it matters.
Any ideas would be very helpful.