dr_bollinger
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2016
- Messages
- 27
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- 6
I'm a noob when it comes to pitching dregs, and I'm worried that my experiment may have gone awry.
On the morning of my brew day, I made a vitality starter using the dregs of two bottles of Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza (dated 3 months ago), and then pitched the starter with no other sacc into 6 gallons of wort with a gravity of 11.5 brix. I thought that the sacc in the dregs would be enough... but I was wrong.
72 hours later, there was no sign of fermentation and small mold rafts had appeared (none bigger than the diameter of a pencil, see the image below). I'm pretty sure that the rafts were mold because they would not disperse or dissolve and one of them had a tiny blue spot. The gravity of the wort had dropped to 11 brix and the wort smelled kind of like creamed corn, so the bugs/sacc in the dregs were likely active to some degree, just not enough.
I immediately took remedial action by removing the top half gallon of the wort (along with all of the rafts) and pitching 2 packets of US-05. Fermentation is visibly underway 12 hours later.
I'm guessing that the beer will taste fine and will be safe to drink because there was so little mold, which I removed. That said, safety is paramount and I'd rather dump the beer now to free up the carboy if the beer is ultimately going to be risky or taste bad.
Should I dump the beer now and be done with it? Is it too risky? Am I being a total wuss?
On the morning of my brew day, I made a vitality starter using the dregs of two bottles of Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza (dated 3 months ago), and then pitched the starter with no other sacc into 6 gallons of wort with a gravity of 11.5 brix. I thought that the sacc in the dregs would be enough... but I was wrong.
72 hours later, there was no sign of fermentation and small mold rafts had appeared (none bigger than the diameter of a pencil, see the image below). I'm pretty sure that the rafts were mold because they would not disperse or dissolve and one of them had a tiny blue spot. The gravity of the wort had dropped to 11 brix and the wort smelled kind of like creamed corn, so the bugs/sacc in the dregs were likely active to some degree, just not enough.
I immediately took remedial action by removing the top half gallon of the wort (along with all of the rafts) and pitching 2 packets of US-05. Fermentation is visibly underway 12 hours later.
I'm guessing that the beer will taste fine and will be safe to drink because there was so little mold, which I removed. That said, safety is paramount and I'd rather dump the beer now to free up the carboy if the beer is ultimately going to be risky or taste bad.
Should I dump the beer now and be done with it? Is it too risky? Am I being a total wuss?
