Dry Hopped - have new white spots on top of beer

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Xaphoeous

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Good morning everyone,

I just made my first attempt at dry hopping a beer, the DFH 60 Minute IPA clone (extract with specialty grains). Everything has been going wonderfully, but when I transferred to secondary and added a cheesecloth bag of hops, I am now seeing some white spots on the top of the beer. Some of them look like yeast clumps as I've seen on all of my other beers, some look like bubble rafts, and others look like...I have no idea. I hate to worry and think it's infected, but I did NOT sanitize the cheesecloth first...just simply forgot until I had already dropped it into the beer. I know, stupid. Anyway, here are some pics. The links lead to huge, full-size high-res versions of these small ones.

IMGP0538small.JPG


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Pic 1
Pic 2
Thank you for any advice you can offer!
 
paraordnance said:
why would you add them in cheese cloth? :confused: I just dump my right in carboy and they settle to the bottom after a week

A lot of people do this. You don't have to worry about them when racking.
 
RDWHAHB

I was worried about the same thing when I first dry hopped; of course, I sanitized my bag. From what I understand, as long as your beer has completed fermentation, there is little in the beer that can create an infection. Also, from what it look like it, doesn't look too bad. If you go to the "Is This Infected" thread, you can see some really bad infections.
If you are really worried I would just rack now and bottle.
 
I think the best I can say is don't worry, just note if those turn into big hairy fridge monsters - that might be a bad sign.
Maybe the alcohol is enough to kill it if its bad, or maybe its just normal stuff in there.
Your pic doesn't look like anything bad, but it wasn't there before either.

You can search the infection threads, theres one with a lot of pictues and they look pretty crazy-bad.

but for next time - clean-boil-sanitize everything that touches your beer.
 
Well,since the yeast are still active (however slightly),it's possible they're reacting with the hops. I say this because others claim that the yeast can drag the hop oils out of suspension.
Ferment has to be completed before tossing the hops in,true. But I've often wondered that since some yeast has to still be active to carb up in the bottles. So some loss of hop oils is theoretically assumable. IMO,anyway.
 
Thanks for the info/advice, guys. I used the cheesecloth to make sure I didn't have to worry about the hops when racking.

I normally sanitize everything very well, so this was just a brainfart moment.

I haven't had a smell or taste of the brew since I put the hops in, but I'll do that tonight when I get home. Perhaps I'll try to use a turkey baster to "suck up" the stuff from the top of the beer before racking/bottling.

I typically don't even worry when I think I screwed something up because things always turn out just fine...this is just the first time I've actually seen something appear that wasn't there before!

Thank again!
 
I have exactly the same thing occurring in my current dry hop. How did this end up turning out? Thanks.
 
Forgot to mention that that pic is completely normal. just bits of bubbles & yeast. Even the hop sack looks good,no worries.
 
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