Is this bad?

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TexanTrail

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My friend sent me this picture of his first batch. An Irish Red Ale. Because of life and work, it's been in his primary fermenter since mid-June. Is the stuff on top bad (mold)?

IMG_6574[1].jpg
 
Thats not mold, but it certainly looks like a pellicle. Taste it, im guessing its sour by now. If its not unpalatable, you could elt it go for another month or two to condition before bottling. Note that accidental sours usually dont turn out as well as planned ones though. There's no way of telling what type of bugs got in there.

Im curious if he just left it since mid-june, howd it get infected? He obviously wasnt opening it up to check on constantly because he wouldnt have forgotten about it...
 
Thats not mold, but it certainly looks like a pellicle. Taste it, im guessing its sour by now. If its not unpalatable, you could elt it go for another month or two to condition before bottling. Note that accidental sours usually dont turn out as well as planned ones though. There's no way of telling what type of bugs got in there.

Im curious if he just left it since mid-june, howd it get infected? He obviously wasnt opening it up to check on constantly because he wouldnt have forgotten about it...

Not sure what happened. I told him yesterday, I didn't think it was mold, but I didn't know what it was. I also told him to taste it to see if it had "skunked". Waiting for him to come to the office this morning to see what happened.

Just for my curiosity, wouldn't letting it sit for another month or two ruin the beer? (If it's not already).
 
May not be good, but doesn't necessarily mean it's bad either.

Definitely going to be soured but may not have gotten to a malt vinegar point yet.

It being bad depends heavily on whether or not your friend likes soured/wild ale or not.
 
Usually you can leave a beer on the yeast cake for a number of months without issue of autolysis. If Im doing a sour, I usually rack to a secondary and add the wild bugs then for less headspace and stuff, but you can certainly just let it go in the original fermentor for a pretty long time

note that if you do rack it, then that siphoning equipment will no longer be usable with other clean beers
 
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