Is this an infection? Irish red ale

[jph2275]

Hello HBT,

Went to keg my 3 1/2 week old Irish red ale. I noticed this white film starting to develop on the top of it. I am not sure if it is an infection or if I'm being paranoid?

It has gone 3 weeks without this appearing, then the other day I opened it up to smell it. Re sanitized my stopper and airlock with star san. That was 1/2 a week ago.

Did I infect my beer? Looks/kind of reminds me of the way a film grows on top of the water of my swamp coolers ...

Help!

 

[jph2275]

Another

 

[jph2275]

Far off

 

[jph2275]

Just kegged it ...

When the siphon pierced the surface it did not appear that it was piercing a solid surface on the top, so to speak.

Tastes good?

 

[ericbw]

Far off

What yeast?

 

[jph2275]

White labs irish ale 004

 

[ericbw]

White labs irish ale 004

I think that yeast just makes a film on top. I had it with 2 batches of stout last year.

 

[LovesIPA]

Looks perfectly fine to me. You'll know it when you have an infection.

 

[unionrdr]

I'd say a pellicle was def forming. Seen it before on one batch. Just racked from underneith it & it was fine. This is a pretty early stage when you caught it. Def not from hop oils,for instance. Hop oils are like oil on water in a wet parkin lot or road. this is thicker,more like a pellicle forming. I've not experienced this from a particular yeast...but it could be possible I suppose.

 

[jph2275]

I really appreciate the input fellas, the beer sure tasted ok. I guess time will tell. I was reviewing some infection threads and was pretty

I just brewed an oktoberfest last night (I know, I know, it will have to be a November or December-fest) and used all the same equipment with the exception of a new auto-siphon. Hopefully it is not in my setup somewhere ..

 

[jph2275]

I'd say a pellicle was def forming. Seen it before on one batch. Just racked from underneith it & it was fine. This is a pretty early stage when you caught it. Def not from hop oils,for instance. Hop oils are like oil on water in a wet parkin lot or road. this is thicker,more like a pellicle forming. I've not experienced this from a particular yeast...but it could be possible I suppose.

Oh crap ... the more I researched brett pellicles the more I see what you'e saying ...


How does this happen Isn't this what some brewers want for sour-brewing? How do I get it on accident?

There was no growth in there at all for three weeks. At the 3 week mark I got busy bodied one day and removed the stopper and airlock to smell it. I cleaned the air lock with soap and used a bottle of water/star-san that had been sitting in my closet for three months to sanitize it. I noticed it had some suckback ...


The water in the star-san mix was from the sink ... Is it possible my star-san water from the suckback contaminated and spread this to my irish red? I kegged yesterday at roughly 3 1/2 weeks so it would have had 3 days to start growing on the surface of my wort ...

If this is the case than i've also exposed it to a mature apfelwein and falconers flight ...

****

Thoughts?

 

[unionrdr]

After three weeks & exposing it to outside air,I'd say that could be the start of it. the longer it was open,the more likely to get an infection. This is how shizz happens. Cleaning with soap isn't a good move either. Some nasties wouldn't get killed by the weak anti-bactierials in dish soap. I saw an episode of 20/20 once where they proved many anti-bacterial soaps weren't very anti-bacterial at all. Cleaning with PBW & santizing with Starsan would've been better. So after the Starsan being 3 months old & washing the soapy stuff in could've done it if the Starsan was like 3-3.5 PH or higher.