Post your infection

backwardsman said:

Noob here this is my second brew under my belt just looking to see if this is an infection because it looks different from my last. This was a caribou slobber kit. My fg was1.020 after I added priming sugar, which I now realize was a mistake. I sampled it nothing to stop from drinking it, but just interested in opinions if it is infected. Also this is a month after brew day

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Agreed, looks like the krausen is finishing it's fall. Did you add the priming sugar into that bucket?

Hello said:

Totally looks infected but I am curious, is this a secondary you have the beer in? If so, that's a lot of headspace.

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Yep, split the batch into two fermenters when racking to secondary to try different additions... The second fermenter eventually looked the same, just a few days behind the other.

So... what's with the headspace, just too much oxygen in there? If so, can you get around this by purging with CO2?

Griffin82 said:

Yep, split the batch into two fermenters when racking to secondary to try different additions... The second fermenter eventually looked the same, just a few days behind the other.

So... what's with the headspace, just too much oxygen in there? If so, can you get around this by purging with CO2?

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Having more headspace than is necessary is not a death sentence for your beer. Don't kick yourself for that too much and think you've found the answer right away with that. if you can avoid it if possible I'd always recommend putting your beer in the right size secondary fermenter, but just because you have 10" of air in your carboy doesn't mean you're going to get an infection in your beer. Your sanitary practices should always be on point and done extremely thoroughly. If you clean your carboy properly there is no reason you can't secondary for months. IMHO and IME.

secondly from what I've read, purging the air out of your carboy with co2 is a fairly common practice and a lot of people on here say it helps. Sorry about your batch man hope it still tastes good after its all said and done.

Cheers.

My first infected brew 😒

[ame]http://youtu.be/7RnXC_m_AEc[/ame]

I'm pretty sure I know what caused it. But I'm worried about my equipment that came in contact with this batch along the way: wort chiller, fermenter, beer thief, tubing, auto siphon, etc.

Any recommendations on how to handle it?

It looks like the entire yeast cake just floated to the top. Never saw a pellicle that looked like that?...

backwardsman said:

Noob here this is my second brew under my belt just looking to see if this is an infection because it looks different from my last. This was a caribou slobber kit. My fg was1.020 after I added priming sugar, which I now realize was a mistake. I sampled it nothing to stop from drinking it, but just interested in opinions if it is infected. Also this is a month after brew day

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you already added the priming sugar? Did you bottle already?

unionrdr said:

It looks like the entire yeast cake just floated to the top. Never saw a pellicle that looked like that?...

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If it was the yeast cake, that beer was not going to be any good. It smelled so bad I couldn't get my mouth close enough to taste it.

Hey guys, This is my second batch... All grain ESB. I was used WLP 002 and it's on day 23 of fermentation. I just happen to look at it last night and I noticed a small area in the back right of the carboy and I started to get worried about a infection. I was wondering if this looks like a infection or just normal build up on the top layer. It tasted great last week when I checked the gravity. I hope it's okay and it turns out to be a great second brew.

Any suggestions on checking the brew to see if it is infected?

Thanks! (PS... Sorry the pics aren't that great)

This is a disturbing yet informative thread. Great fo anyone who has no idea what to look for and freak out over the tiniest speck of "that doesnt look normal."

Did i get my 1st infection or im i just unused to krausen as i usually ferment in a bucket.

hophead_32, dx6x, both of your fermenters look like fermented beer to me.

skw said:

hophead_32, dx6x, both of your fermenters look like fermented beer to me.

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I'm hoping so.... I will keep a eye on it... Going to dry hop next Friday and bottle the following Friday

ragertom said:

you already added the priming sugar? Did you bottle already?

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I bottled right after picture. I added sugar to bottling bucket before I syphoned

My first mead. A slow fermentation (not enough to push a single bubble through the airlock that I've seen, and it's even sucked the water back in during weather shifts). I thought maybe it was just a slow and steady fermentation, but it's only dropped 1-2 points of SG in the last 4-5 days. Took a look at it, and this is what I saw. I'm worried it's a mycoderma infection, and that the yeast didn't take off well enough to really hold its own. There's a clear lair of trub at the bottom that seems to be growing, but I still have my doubts. Sorry for the crummy photos, I'll try to get some with better ambient lighting later tomorrow, but my existing thread in the mead forum hasn't really gotten any useful feedback since this developed. Infection, or just yeast? How can I be sure?

Dave37 said:

Having more headspace than is necessary is not a death sentence for your beer. Don't kick yourself for that too much and think you've found the answer right away with that. if you can avoid it if possible I'd always recommend putting your beer in the right size secondary fermenter, but just because you have 10" of air in your carboy doesn't mean you're going to get an infection in your beer. Your sanitary practices should always be on point and done extremely thoroughly. If you clean your carboy properly there is no reason you can't secondary for months. IMHO and IME. secondly from what I've read, purging the air out of your carboy with co2 is a fairly common practice and a lot of people on here say it helps. Sorry about your batch man hope it still tastes good after its all said and done. Cheers.

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Sounds good, thanks for the info. Finished product wasn't too bad at all! Think we traced it back to a piece of wood that was newly introduced on brew day... Lesson learned there.

Cheers!

GV00 said:

My first mead. A slow fermentation (not enough to push a single bubble through the airlock that I've seen, and it's even sucked the water back in during weather shifts). I thought maybe it was just a slow and steady fermentation, but it's only dropped 1-2 points of SG in the last 4-5 days. Took a look at it, and this is what I saw. I'm worried it's a mycoderma infection, and that the yeast didn't take off well enough to really hold its own. There's a clear lair of trub at the bottom that seems to be growing, but I still have my doubts. Sorry for the crummy photos, I'll try to get some with better ambient lighting later tomorrow, but my existing thread in the mead forum hasn't really gotten any useful feedback since this developed. Infection, or just yeast? How can I be sure?

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Hard to tell from these pics but it doesn't look like an infection to me.

My first post to this awesome forum.

I've been extract brewing for few years and been all grainer (BIAB) about a year now (no looking back!). This looks like the first infection I've ever had. Whole surface is covered in this strange looking rug with one nasty looking "crater" in it. It doesn't smell bad but I have yet to taste it. Should I bother to bottle it? Its a chocolate stout that I racked into secondary 3 weeks ago.



And one close-up for the science:

Maso said:

My first post to this awesome forum.

I've been extract brewing for few years and been all grainer (BIAB) about a year now (no looking back!). This looks like the first infection I've ever had. Whole surface is covered in this strange looking rug with one nasty looking "crater" in it. It doesn't smell bad but I have yet to taste it. Should I bother to bottle it? Its a chocolate stout that I racked into secondary 3 weeks ago.

And one close-up for the science:

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That thing is gnarly!! Nice. Sorry about your first infection. Welcome to the forum! Hope it still tastes good.

Cheers

Dave37 said:

That thing is gnarly!! Nice. Sorry about your first infection. Welcome to the forum! Hope it still tastes good.

Cheers

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Thanks for the welcome.

I just racked this gnarly stout carefully to another bucket and gave it a taste. Tasted just great! Time to bottle and hope they don't turn into bombs.

Uh and somehow I need to forget that this ever happened to this batch... hardest part I think.

With my recent experience with a lacto infection,racking out from under it into bottles worked. A few weeks at room temp & 2 weeks fridge time,& they're clear taste good. It seems the co2 rich environment in the bottles kills it. I used o2 barrier caps as well.

unionrdr said:

With my recent experience with a lacto infection,racking out from under it into bottles worked. A few weeks at room temp & 2 weeks fridge time,& they're clear taste good. It seems the co2 rich environment in the bottles kills it. I used o2 barrier caps as well.

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I racked from under the infection (or mold?) also. I think I had too much head space in the secondary. I don't usually rack to secondary but next time when I rack into secondary I'm thinking of adding some DME into the bucket > more co2. This should push all bad air out of the head space, hmm?

You don't need more DME. But what you do need is a carboy or better bottle thats no more than 6 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. In my BB,5 gallons fills it up to the angled top of the jug. Leaves less head space for dissolved co2 to fill. Less likely infection that way. I only use my secondary for oaking or the like though. So it only sees 7-8 days in secondary.

Sorry if being overly paranoid... Second brew, IPA, 7 days old, just added the dry hops.

OG 1.063
SG 1.014 (2 consecutive days)

Is it just the end of primary or a mega infection? I moved the bucket 10 mins before opening the lid..

No worries, bro.

Cheers!

The air lock just started bubbling again. Normal?

It's just off gassing dissolved co2. The pics look normal for a beer where the krausen has settled out. So that's krausen remnants & yeast rafts.

Thanks.

Would you say it was too early to dry hop?

Edited to say the air lock bubbles have stopped now.

As long as it was at FG you'll get good aroma in 5-7 days.

Well, brewed last Friday, cooled to 80 degrees.

A SMaSH and most of the cold break got into the fermentor

I pitched a fairly well bloomed packet of S-05 into 3.5 gallons

This is what it looks like now.

Smells like hoppy beer, but I've never had anything like this in my carboy

Good or Bad?

:cross:

Looks like a ton of yeast to me. What did you pitch?

Looks like cold break.

The chunks look more like coagulated protein to me. The only time I've seen that much is when I've used a fair amount of wheat or spelt in a batch, but if most of the cold break went in I could see it happening. What was the grain in the SMaSH?

Regardless of what it is, looks fine to me

Gonzo:
The yeast was one packet of Safale 05 Dry Ale yeast. Proofed in a cup of tepid water and left on it's own sitting, covered, on top of my furnace while I finished up - Total wait time was about 15-20 minutes. By then it was pretty active.

Lowtones:
The single grain was 5 pounds of Vienna Malt. The one thing I can add is that typically my whirfloc table goes in with 15 minutes left, as it did here. But during the chilling phase, I never saw the typical green cold break clumps I have seen with other batches.

The hops were 1/2 oz at 60 minutes and 1/4 oz at flameout.
Yeast nutrients went in with 15 minutes left
Oxygen pumped in after cooling for 90 seconds

This is a muntons bitter I bottled a week ago. As soon as I saw this I transferred it into secondary and it tasted and smelled fine so I decided to bottle.

Paranoid (again) that this doesn't look good. Was gonna bottle on Friday anyway. Does it look infected? If so, should I bottle from underneath today?

Cheers!

Ian,that looks like jrausen leftovers to me. Menion,that looks like the start of a lacto infection. Since the beer is bottled already,the co2 rich environment should keep things clean. Just clean the fermenter really well to get rid of the infection.

Maso said:

Thanks for the welcome.

I just racked this gnarly stout carefully to another bucket and gave it a taste. Tasted just great! Time to bottle and hope they don't turn into bombs.

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Update: Every damn bottle has the same infection now on the surface.
Total man hours wasted: 10h plus materials.

God damned

Positive about this is that now I have a good reason to make another batch, tweak it a little bit and enough empty bottles to bottle.

Ianflean said:

Paranoid (again) that this doesn't look good. Was gonna bottle on Friday anyway. Does it look infected? If so, should I bottle from underneath today?

Cheers!

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That's what my dry hopped beers always look like just before removing the sacks and cold crashing.

Thanks both,

I'll try to be less paranoid next brew! I guess getting the beginning of an infection on your first brew, sadly creates all sorts of mental demons.

You caught it pretty early,so after some time in the bottles they should be ok. Usually is for me.