This is a weird one. I brewed up my third batch, a honey wheat and bottled it about a month ago. Tonight I enjoyed a couple and before rinsing out the bottle I noticed that there are some strange, very dark patches on the yeast cake left in the bottle. It almost looks like mold, but not exactly. The beer tastes fine and show absolutely no sign of infection while in the primary. I followed the same procedure for sanitizing my bottles that I had with my first two batches, and I had great results with them. Any ideas?
Strange Looking Yeast Cake in Bottles. . .
- Thread starter stdwdh16
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Skaggz
Well-Known Member
I don't think that mold would be able to grow on bottom of the bottles. Algae maybe, but I seriously doubt that is the case here. Possible that you have gotten some of the trub siphoned into the bottling bucket and it has settled to the bottom of the bottles. How clear is your beer when poured into a glass?
Could also be dead yeast, but most likely not.
Could also be dead yeast, but most likely not.
The beer is moderately clear, but nothing like commercial beers. I attributed the slight cloudiness to the yeast (WB-06). The beer tastes fine and the bottles show no other signs of contamination (ie the tell-tale white ring around the neck), so I'm gonna chalk it up to trub. I know some trub made its way into the bottling bucket, but I didn't think it would affect the appearance of the yeast in the bottles.
Could well be dead yeast or something non-hamfull like that. I once bought some beer at a small brewery, which had dark patches on the bottle sediment. The man at the breweryshop said something weird like 'Don't worry about it, it's just non-harmfull yeastpoop'. xD
There's sediment/yeast cake in ALL bottle conditioned, unfiltered, living beers, even many commercial ones (that's how we can harvest, let's say Hoegaarden or Pacman yeast) so it's normal.
Now the size, the color and the look are all going to be determined by various factors, type of yeast, proteins in the grain bill, any adjuncts, primary/secondary length, amount of time in the fridge,and may even vary from batch to batch. There's just too many variables. Bottom line if the beer looks okay, smells ok, and tastes ok, then it is okay. Regardless of how the sediment layer looks.
Relax.
Now the size, the color and the look are all going to be determined by various factors, type of yeast, proteins in the grain bill, any adjuncts, primary/secondary length, amount of time in the fridge,and may even vary from batch to batch. There's just too many variables. Bottom line if the beer looks okay, smells ok, and tastes ok, then it is okay. Regardless of how the sediment layer looks.
Relax.
Thanks Revvy. I was just curious as to the potential for my beer to be infected and manifest itself in this way. Though my yeast cakes in my other bottles haven't looked like this, all have come out well. Good info about the yeast cakes looking differently based on the ingredients, process, etc.
