I broke my barleywine. :( Wondering what this is?

Any idea what my barleywine caught? I'm not happy with myself and my process / equipment considering I invested so much time and energy into this stupid thing.

It was in secondary on oak cubes and vanilla for about 3 months, and I noticed it had a very thin white film on about 1/4 of it. It seemed to appear shortly after a gravity reading (using a turkey baster that was soaked in star-san inside and out) So I decided to rack from underneath into another carboy, to see if I could avoid any major infections, as figured I had caught it pretty early. I didn't want to bottle it yet though, in case of bottle bombs.

I went down today after another couple weeks in the tertiary and found this white stuff with spidery veins in it.

Any idea what this beast may be? I plan on soaking all my plastic in a strong bleach solution, but want to know if I should bother to dump this thing, or bottle it. I had planned on letting it bottle-age until Christmas 2014 before opening, but don't want to waste the bottles if there's no hope for it.

 

Definitely an infection of some sort. Looks lacto-ish to me.

Had you soaked the vanilla and oak in some spirit or sanitized in boiling water a bit before adding? If not, that could be a source for it.

Taste it, but I'm guessing you may be dumping it.

 

I actually boiled the oak cubes for 10 minutes, and I soaked the vanilla bean in vodka for 2 days. There was no trace of anything off for the first 3 months, until I had to take a gravity reading (OK, I'll be honest, I just wanted a taste, it had reached FG a long time before...part of the reason I'm mad at myself, couldn't leave well enough alone. )

If it's a laco-type infection, is it a dumper, or might it just add another dimension to the flavour maybe? Hopefully? Please????

 

a lacto infection will add another dimension of flavor but it's up to you to decide if you like it or not, it's not a given that it will be good or bad. if you moved this beer from fermentor to fermentor 3 times those were also very good opportunities for some wild bug/s to jump on in to the fermentor along with the beer.

 

Just monitor the gravity and taste the sample from time to time. You can then tell what it is doing. Might find it to be a decent beer.

You only need a mild bleach solution. A couple of ounces per gallon. Let it soak for a while. You can leave it there until you next need it. Rinse thoroughly with hot tap water (bleach causes a film, and is not completely removed with cold water).