Post your infection

Thanks guys, being a novice I have to say I was concerned. Didn't want to end up with non-controllable- exploding diaheria!

Dirtheadz said:

I know this post is 90 pages. I sat threw all of them looking to see if my vanilla porter resembled any of them. I did add 4 oz. of semi sweet bakers chocolate at the end of my brew (figured this is the oil sheen). Infected??? This is my second batch

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Got the same thing using cocoa powder on one of my stouts. You're in the clear.

OK 1st off.. I know I am good.. My krausen looks like a nice even 3/8" foam with light brown specks over it.. Kind of like the snow embankment beside a highway.. the airlock is just bubbling away.

Now that said, it would seem to be hard, if not almost impossible to get infected at this stage.. is that correct? Any "grossness" at this stage is probably just the krausen collapsing. At least as far as the primary is concerned.

CDGoin said:

OK 1st off.. I know I am good.. My krausen looks like a nice even 3/8" foam with light brown specks over it.. Kind of like the snow embankment beside a highway.. the airlock is just bubbling away.

Now that said, it would seem to be hard, if not almost impossible to get infected at this stage.. is that correct? Any "grossness" at this stage is probably just the krausen collapsing. At least as far as teh primary is concerned.

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Yes and no.. Yes, the active fermentation is good. But just because it's all well, doesn't mean that the yeast and some uglies aren't working in there together.

Generally, an infection is easy to spot.. White film/clumps. Sour taste, gravity dropping lower than expected, and then continuing to drop as it goes on longer. Vinegar tasting.. all of that can come on fast or slow!

98% of the time. If you were sanitary, it's all fine. You've got active fermentation, and for all reasons to believe, you will make beer.

What else can make it sour..? Noticed a twang of sourness to my Milk Stout, that said its very young (2 weeks). I think that one went well after I screwed up everything else.

My second batch was going good until yesterday, a nice clean Krausen, then a little dirt on top form the yeast.

Then today, when the temps got up into ale territory due to a heat wave here.. (Its an Oktoberfest that was doing well at 55 degrees) is now in the 62 range down from the 67 range.. But the yeast are ACTIVE.. its like looking at a hurricane, the current flows are all over the place, and to add to that a thick dark goo is starting to cover the Krausen.

The vent is really popping right now (every second or less) and has a sour smell to it..

Could I just be seeing real active yeast activity due to the heat and once its back down into the 50s it will be fine..? Or is this batch just going to be another "eh.. its Beer" batch..

Whats it like when bacteria start to take over..? I am on day 8 of fermentation.. so it should be getting close to peaking I would think. So this large amount of activity concerns me.

So here is a case study of sorts...

I made a really strong 8 gallon recipe and primaried it into my 7.9 gallon plastic fermentor bucket. So, I decided to correct what really is an overstrength after 7 days by splitting this volume into 2 sanitized glass 5 gallon carboys and then added 1 gallon of sterilized water to top off each 5 gallon carboy. I require this volume to account for the angels' share which will result from my oak bourbon barrel aging in a few months. I transferred to these secondaries on top of some star san foam - I don't fear the foam.

Fast forward one hour. I observed that the two carboys each took on characteristics of their own. Carboy A took on some really voluminous bubbles. Carboy B developed no such bubbles.

Fast forward 24 hours. Carboy A had enormous lacing on the inside of the carboy and continued bubbling away. Carboy B had a dense krausen, very lovely.

I postulate that Carboy A will not form a krausen because it captured no krausen during the transfer. The big bubbles likely were star san that was fed by CO2 bubbles, nothing more (i.e. not an infection). This is validated by Carboy B which did suck in some krausen during the transfer from the primary.

A question rather than an infection... I accidentally dropped a sheet of clean paper towel (the ones like paper napkins) to my brew pot right before I dumped in my immersion chiller. It was only like 2-3 seconds, but I picked it up. (The wort was still at a near boil temp.)

My fermentation started beautifully after 12 hours. Now it is going at a good rate, after 36 hours. When I sniff the airlock, the stuff in the fermentor smells nice and I do not get any foul odors.

Do you think I messed up with the napkin incident?

tarikapak said:

A question rather than an infection... I accidentally dropped a sheet of clean paper towel (the ones like paper napkins) to my brew pot right before I dumped in my immersion chiller. It was only like 2-3 seconds, but I picked it up. (The wort was still at a near boil temp.)

My fermentation started beautifully after 12 hours. Now it is going at a good rate, after 36 hours. When I sniff the airlock, the stuff in the fermentor smells nice and I do not get any foul odors.

Do you think I messed up with the napkin incident?

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You should be putting your I.mersion chiller into the boil with 10-15 minutes left on the boil. That's the biggest mistake I see and if that was the case anything the napkin left would be boiled.

Well, it (chiller) sat in the boiling wort for 5 minutes or so. I hope it was enough

We'll see what happens. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

5 minutes should be enough.. the thing boiling water and iodine have in common.. sterilization is almost immediate on contact. As for the napkin I wouldn't worry about it.

I surfed the first 15 or so pages of this thread and must say IT GAVE ME THE WILLIES, THE HEEBEEJEEBEES, & a reminded me of why I'm glad I rarely use a secondary as through the first portion of this thread again and again the post was, 'look what happened in my secondary'.

For the record I've had 1 known infected batch and 1 experimental batch where I open fermented that I suspect was infected. Sadly the infected batch, big bandaid/medicinal flavor, was a 10+% american barleywine that was going to be so fine! I was able to drink most of it while it was young and far from it's peak but that beat having to pour out the foul liquid of satan that it became a year later.

Hello all,


Working on my first brew and had a question. Looking over these pictures i cant tell if my foam looks normal or not. I know i could improve on my sanitation for my second batch but everything was cleaned and sanitized.

As well the bucket hasnt been opened since pitching yeast last friday evening. I'm most concerned with the black on the foam, more need some reassurance. There is no smell at all that i can tell, it's sealed really tight and the airlock has been going since saturday.

Thanks

Its fine have no fear!! Looks great.

Krausen starts as a nice white foam.. then gets black specky stuff on top (Yeast ejaculation), which will turn into heavy yeast goo on top of that and then it decays and falls into the fermenter. Thats' at least been my experience.

So have to say your probably just fine..

Okay thanks guys.


Thats exacly what its starting to look like. Glad to know its normal, and now i know what to expect so i dont post again

CDGoin said:

My second batch was going good until yesterday, a nice clean Krausen, then a little dirt on top form the yeast.

Then today, when the temps got up into ale territory due to a heat wave here.. (Its an Oktoberfest that was doing well at 55 degrees) is now in the 62 range down from the 67 range.. But the yeast are ACTIVE.. its like looking at a hurricane, the current flows are all over the place, and to add to that a thick dark goo is starting to cover the Krausen.

The vent is really popping right now (every second or less) and has a sour smell to it..

Could I just be seeing real active yeast activity due to the heat and once its back down into the 50s it will be fine..? Or is this batch just going to be another "eh.. its Beer" batch..

Whats it like when bacteria start to take over..? I am on day 8 of fermentation.. so it should be getting close to peaking I would think. So this large amount of activity concerns me.

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It's fine. Relax, and let it roll.

Yep.. thats what I figured.

Once it cooled down.. the fermenting slowed down a bit.. but still very active.

The heavier stuff on top fell through the white Krausen, and the Krausen returned to its nice white foamy look with a little crap on top.. Getting close to taking a sample just to see where the SG is.

Can y'all tell me how my first 2 brews look? The first is an Octoberfest and the 2nd is a Honey Weizen. I brewed them around New Years and this is the first time I peaked. Gonna be bottling on Sunday. Thanks!!

jonboygentry said:

Can y'all tell me how my first 2 brews look? The first is an Octoberfest and the 2nd is a Honey Weizen. I brewed them around New Years and this is the first time I peaked. Gonna be bottling on Sunday. Thanks!!

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They look exactly how they are supposed to. The real test is how they will taste.

They look good to me.. looks like the beginning of fermentation.. CO2 bubbles from the yeast and some yeast..

So far I havent had a infection, but from what I am seeing of the pictures and talking to friends..

If you have an infection it will look more like a thin white film with spider web like threads running across the top with possibly LARGE (3/4" or larger) bubbles growing from the film. Like someone is blowing bubbles with your beer and no the kind in the picture above, or the kind you expect to see in a beer with a nice head. It also looks like it would have very little or no head.

So far my limited experience has been it goes from the bubbling you see in your pictures, to a nice white and foamy head (The Krausen if you will - which is just a nice head of CO2 bubbles from the yeast), then as it gets older and the yeast get more active they will get ejected from the beer and get thrown on top of the Krausen causing it to develop black spots on top, and then slowly build up yeast colonys on top of the Krausen, which can start making it look ugly. Then from there is can waver from a clean Krausen to an ugly one depending on how busy the yeast are, what gets to heavy on top and falls through.

I'm a newbie myself, but deliberately did 2 styles (Lager and Stout) to see the differences and my experiences with both have been fairly consistent (and both were infection free as far as I could tell) . Starts with some small surface bubbling, bubbling gets more active and tightens up to give you a nice head (Krausen), then the head gets brown/black spots, then small yeast rafts develop on top, and these rafts can get quiet gooey and gross looking. Then towards the end it all falls through the beer to the bottom leaving some floaters and a ring on the top. Does taht sound about right to the long time brewers here ?

Anyway, the Oktoberfest I am doing is using a lager yeast and is fermenting at fairly low tempuratures (50s-60). It took 2 days to just get fermentation to start and is now on day 9 and still fermenting very well.

By day 6 it had the pretty white Krausen. Then I had the room where it was sitting get a little warm (up to 64) and the yeast got all sorts of busy and made a huge mess of my pretty Krausen. It freaked me out a little as it was ejecting yeast at a monumental rate. Then as I mentioned above the temps dropped back, the yeast chilled out a bit and the Krausen got back its nice white cap. Took a sample last night and it was fantastic.. and it's still going.

The stout had a warmer fermentation and used an Ale yeast. It finished a LOT faster - 6 days start to finish. Fermentation started within 8 hours, and the Krausen was pretty on day 2, by day 3 it got ugly.. and stayed that way. It was finished day 5 and fermentation was virtually over, On day 6 the Krausen dropped through down to the yeast cake, leaving the top clean with some yeast rafts floating around.

Hope that helps some noobs like myself in visualizing what you can expect to see. Different styles at different temps I am sure will cause different fermentation rates, and different yeast ejaculate.

My next batch I will try to take pictures of the stages as I seem to be having fairly good luck with sanitation and have a nice clear fermenter to see whats going on.

I've read at least half of this thread (yes, around 45-50 pages) and I think I have a bona fide infection...

This is an attempt to clone Bell's two-hearted ale (not only because I like it, but because I *know* it, so I can use it to see how good (or bad) my process is). The below pic was taken on day 2 in the secondary. I left the beer in the primary for 7 days and racked to secondary for dry hopping despite it not appearing particularly clear (using Wyeast 1056).

Whatever this stuff is clinging to the bag of hops, methinks it ain't s'sposed to be there:

It may or may not be.. doesn't look terrible. How long has it been there..? Has it grown..?

Could just be something that was on the bag. If its just that piece sanitize a tube and suck it off the top and see if it grows back.

How close to bottling are you? I would just go with it

As has been told to me many a time in my month doing this.. RDWHAHB.. It is what it is, and what it will be and since your in the secondary, its obviously Beer now.

BTW most images of real infections I have seen, have covered the whole top of the brew. Not just a spot.. Usually a spot of something is a yeast cake, some gunk that dried on the inside of the fermenter that came loose, a foreign item that came in when adding stuff to the secondary, etc.

This is what I think now when trying to envision an infection..




I have seen some pics of Lacto and a few others that were flatter, and had big flat growths, etc.. but all seemed to have that same sheen to the water.

Lots that were just foreign junk..

Hey everyone,

See below with the photo of my batch almost 2 weeks in. I think everything is fine but just was concerned with the greenish color on the top. I think it's only hops. Does everything look ok?

Thanks

Matthew

CDGoin said:

It may or may not be.. doesn't look terrible. How long has it been there..? Has it grown..?

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Nope, it hasn't grown. I just noticed it this morning and it seems to be holding steady.

CDGoin said:

Could just be something that was on the bag. If its just that piece sanitize a tube and suck it off the top and see if it grows back.

How close to bottling are you? I would just go with it

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Makes sense. Also, thanks for the hand-holding. I'm pretty new at this and probably worrying a bit too much (ahem... like most of the other newbs on here, I've noticed ).

I just racked to the secondary to do the dry hop for one week thing so bottling will most likely occur this coming Sunday.

I would RDWHAHB but neither of my two batches are ready (though my first one, an ESB, was bottled last Sunday), so I guess I'll settle for a Victory Hop Devil for now

Thanks for the help, btw. I really appreciate it.

MagicSmoker said:

Makes sense. Also, thanks for the hand-holding. I'm pretty new at this and probably worrying a bit too much (ahem... like most of the other newbs on here, I've noticed )..

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I have no idea what your talking about


Trust me I only have you beat by a few weeks.. I just ahve been lucky to get two nice batches that have been normal.. AND I had (Have?) a habit of worrying too much myself.

Do you by chance have a spout on the bottom to take a sample..?

I find my hydrometer test samples seem to calm me down while I wait for my brew to finish

mgriggsbrewing said:

Hey everyone,

See below with the photo of my batch almost 2 weeks in. I think everything is fine but just was concerned with the greenish color on the top. I think it's only hops. Does everything look ok?

Thanks

Matthew

View attachment 94781

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Looks OK to me..
That said, yours looks a bit on the full side.

Looks like you possibly just didn't have room for the Krausen to grow.. so its trying to escape through the vent.

BTW.. seen a couple threads about bad things happening to plugged blowout tubes.. I realize yours is a air vent.. but in either case I would make sure it doesn't get plugged up.

What is that a Gallon batch..?

I used a blow off tube for the first 2 days and then put the airlock on. It's a one gallon batch. I was just a little worried with the greenish color on the top. Maybe I'm just a little nervous

if its greenish on top of a Krausen.. dont worry just yeast that ejected to the top of the Krausen. Hard to tell from pics.

CDGoin said:

if its greenish on top of a Krausen.. dont worry just yeast that ejected to the top of the Krausen. Hard to tell from pics.

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Or probably the hop pellet residue.