infected?

Good evening,

Brewed a robust porter (WLP002) back in April and put it in a secondary in May and finally had time to bottle the beer. A racked it to bottling bucket and noticed a film on the secondary carboy. I contacted whitelabs to get some feedback and they said it could be 'microbial contamination' but couldn't make a accurate depiction of what it was. They said to try bottling it if I wanted.

The beer smelled like a strong porter with no vinegar smell. I will give it a try in about 2.5 weeks and see how it turns out. The beer itself had no funny stuff in it like strings/globs/swirlies.. just clean beer.

What do you guys think?

Thanks
Eric C

 

Any additions like cacao powder?

 

Negative; no additions

 

Hi Yooper,

Actually when I racked it to secondary; it only had about 2 inches to the airlock (attached picture); so no head room. I think that yellow thing at the top was one of the hulls that got through the grain bag before I started the boiling the wort. It transferred over =\

The picture I had on the first post was when I was racking it to the bottling bucket; it was already half way drained out.

 

Why does it look like your beer is carbonated in the full secondary? What are all those bubbles and specs? Also how did it taste?

David

 

Hey David,

When I racked the porter to secondary; i read the FG at 1.010. I was under that assumption that the gas bubbles was just CO2 being released after I racked it to secondary. It wasn't bubbling before I racked it and it appears to reactivate when I racked it to secondary. To some threads/info online; it appears normal for this to happy. The odd party is that it still keep creating CO2 for a long time =\

Specs? It's a robust porter. I didn't get a OG but I suspect it was 1.066 from brewtoad compilation of my recipe. I haven't tasted the primed bottles yet. I still need another 1w2days for the 2 week average good time to taste test.

 

Oh ok, I see, yes that's normal. I thought maybe you still had effervescence after months in secondary. Sorry when I said specs, I meant the bubbles on the sides of the carboy. I wasn't sure if they were bubbles or something else.

Did you take a gravity reading at the time you bottled? CO2 is a byproduct of fermentation. 1.010 is pretty dry but if it was still producing CO2, it may still have been fermenting. But it also could have just been releasing existing CO2 and not producing more, which is what I would assume.

Also, you can taste your beer whenever you'd like and don't have to wait for it to be carbed in a bottle. It wont hurt you, I taste mine whenever I take samples for gravity so I can see how its progressing. If you have a beer that you think might be infected, just taste it and if you think its bad you can dump it or otherwise bottle it as planned.

David