White bubbles floating, is this ruined?

[fsjoker]

I got the True Brew Oktoberfest kit, spent 9 days on the primary then transferred to carboy for secondary. It has been in carboy for 6 days and today I noticed these white circles of bubbles floating on top. They do not look like mold, they are pure white and seem to be made up of just bubbles. Is this CO2 floating to the top or maybe yeast? I'm attaching some pictures, the red spots on top is a reflection of the light on my fan. I'm new at this, I know patience is important when brewing beer, just hope I did not infect my first batch!

 

[IXVolt]

Is this a lager? If so, my oktoberfest's (lager) ferment really slowly for a while. If they are actual bubbles, I would expect them to be CO2.

 

[WyomingBrewer]

Kinda hard to say from what I am seeing. Maybe rack the beer from under it and leave it behind when you bottle. Taste and see is my best answer.....

 

[TheZymurgist]

Most likely, it's CO2, but it's too hard to tell from those pictures. Search the word "pellicle." That's what an infection looks like.

 

[fsjoker]

Thanks for the word "pellicle", really helped in seeing what an infection looks like! Mine is white bubbles, i'll try and take better pictures when i get home today, its kind of hard with the glass reflection.

 

[headbanger]

Looks fine to me.

 

[gdbrewer]

Thanks for the word "pellicle", really helped in seeing what an infection looks like! Mine is white bubbles, i'll try and take better pictures when i get home today, its kind of hard with the glass reflection.

Have you seen this infection thread? Tons of pics of infections.

 

[fsjoker]

As of yesterday the little circles became a lot bigger and can actually see how they are formed out of bubbles, I'm guessing some of the yeast woke up and started up again. On this Oktoberfest should I wait 2 or 3 weeks in the secondary before I bottle?

 

[twistr25]

Did you take a gravity reading before moving to secondary? I believe a lot of those kits actually come with ale yeast, so after 20 plus days you should be good to send it to bottles, but an extra week certainly won't hurt it. Unless those bubbles start getting bigger....

 

[fsjoker]

Prior to placing in primary it started at 1.055, when transfered to secondary was 1.023 this reading was from 9 days ago and have not done another one. My only problem is that I've tried to keep the temp as low as possible but its been in the secondary at about 68F.

 

[Trail]

I've seen bubbles like that and the beer was OK. You most likely have a very slow, weak fermentation - did you underpitch? how old was the yeast, and what temperature was it stored at - which will pick up once it's reproduced enough to throw a real krausen.

Edit: from your post which appeared as I was writing this one, it seems your fermentation's probably over halfway done... which means that racking to secondary was not a good idea, as you left behind a LOT of yeast. Leave it alone for a long time and it'll eventually get down to your target gravity.

 

[twistr25]

+1 ^^^ That's why I asked, you likely did not get all the way down to FG. Common mistake based on terrible kit directions you likely had. Make sure on future batches you reach FG in primary before doing anything else with the beer. This is a perfect example of why to just leave it in the primary for the full 2 - 3 weeks. It will clear plenty well in the primary, only use the secondary for fruit or other additions or long term aging.

 

[brokebucket]

get some buckets. You will rest easier not being able to see the show.

 

[Clonefan94]

I get those little guys pretty regular on my brews when I use a secondary (if they really are just clumps of CO2 bubbles. They still freak me out because you have to look pretty close to tell they realy are just bubbles and not something else. I've just gotten to a point where I now wrap a towel around the carboy and don't bother looking until the scheduled time is up. My latest was a vanilla porter and it was freakin' me out the whole time wanting to look. I waited my two weeks and opened it up, sure enough I thought I had an infection at first glance, but nope, just those clumps of tiny bubbles.

I've noticed they get especially pronounced when there are significant atmospheric changes. Especially when a low pressure system moves in. There's more CO2 trapped in that beer than you think.