Moldy Starter

[flanneltrees804]

I made up a lambic starter and put half of it outside to wild ferment. It was about a quart of wort and it was out there for 12 hours. That was a week ago and it has since fermented pretty well but I got home yesterday and there was mold growing on top of the beer. Should I just rack out from under the mold and not worry about it? Do I need to dumb the whole thing? Should I feed the mold to my cat and see what happens?

 

[mendesm]

Yes, on the cat thing!

 

[flanneltrees804]

The cat missed out. I made the starter in a wide mouthed glass jar so I just scooped all the mold off the top and put the foil back on. I'll let it go a few more days and see what happens. I want to see if I can get the mold to stop growing, then rack it into another vessel trying to leave the top 1/2" behind.

If anyone has any better ideas please let me know. Thanks.

 

[mendesm]

I made a 5 gallon batch and let it cool overnight. Being who I am, I let the fermenter cool (covered) and it was not until a week later that I added the yeast to it. When I opened it up to pitch, there were a few spots of mold growing on top of the wort. I used a clean and sanitized spoon to carefully remove the 3 or 4 spots where mold was growing on top of the wort and then pitched the yeast. The brew turned out just fine.

You should be ok too.

 

[flanneltrees804]

So I skimmed it last night and this morning I woke up to this... I think my mold problem is solved and I've got the makings of some great sour beer. I think it's going in another room though, I've watched to much x-files to be comfortable sleeping around this thing.

 

[mendesm]

I think it's going in another room though, I've watched to much x-files to be comfortable sleeping around this thing.

View attachment 67435

Great visual!