What is this?

I opened my primary to take a gravity reading on my American wheat and this is what I found. Any idea what this is?

I've done 6-7 batches and I've never seen this before. This was brewed on August 12 and is pretty much at it final gravity.

 

That would be an infection. Most definitely.

I'm guessing it's the work of bacteria, maybe lactobacillus but I really don't know. Let it go and if it grows filmy bubbles then lacto is what it is. That will make it sour.

If it grows fluffy hairy balls all over, it's probably wild yeast, maybe brett. That will make it taste funky, but not sour.

Any way you slice it, it's not gonna be the beer you were hoping for. Me, I'd run out and get some roeselare and some canned tart cherries and sour it up and push it into a cabinet for a year.

Cheers.

 

What if I transferred to secondary right now from underneath. Would it be decent?

 

I opened my primary to take a gravity reading on my American wheat and this is what I found. Any idea what this is?

I've done 6-7 batches and I've never seen this before. This was brewed on August 12 and is pretty much at it final gravity.

If this is an infection can I rack from underneath to secondary and be ok?

 

Don't know. Probably not (the effect you see on the top is the reaction to oxygen, but the bacteria is probably found through the beer). If you taste it and it tastes good now, you could get it really cold and that would stop the growth of what you see there.

If you bottle, you probably have a problem.

 

I racked to a glass carboy so I can keep a better eye on it. Whatever was there clung immediately to the auto siphon. In secondary now it looks like regular wheat beer. We'll see how it looks in the morning.

 

Sometimes you just gotta let a bad batch go.....

 

Eh... I'd let it ride. Doesn't look so good, but if you've got the space for it, see how it turns out. Could be the new taste sensation for all we know. Or it could taste like sewer water smells. (had to add that, since I've never tasted sewer water)

 

Oh... One more thing... Soak your primary in bleach water so it reduces the risk of anything hanging around for your next batch.

 

Oh yeah Squeeky. As soon as the batch was in secondary the primary got a thorough scrubbing and now has 6.5 gallons of bleachy goodness soaking in it. Hopefully this is my first and last confrontation with whatever this is.

 

I hate to say it but it's going to come back in a day or two. I had that problem with my past two batches. It made the one taste like band-aids. Yum. Sorry homie. Welcome to the club of disappointment.

 

That's a lacto infection. Do you mill your grains in the same room you brew in? On the bright side, you might have a decent sour beer.

 

Make sure to bleach your auto siphon and tubing, or just buy a new one and new tubing. It can be difficult to sanitize tubing once it's had lacto run thru it. Since tubing is so soft, it tends to pick up scratches, pits, etc.

You can always keep the siphon and tubing around for sour beers so you don't have to pitch it. Just mark it so you don't contaminate clean beer.

 

So many of you have mentioned using bleach water on everything. What ratio/measurement do i use? How much bleach for how much water? How long should i let everything sit?

 

What was the result?

 

So I toiled for two days on what to do with this but I ended up bottling it last Monday (9/10). I had one last Friday (9/14) and one today (9/18). Both were under carbonated (as expected) but both tasted like wheat beer without any hint of sour or any other off flavor. I'm looking forward to having one fully carbonated.

 

It would probably be a good idea to bottle pasteurize once you reach full carbonation, if you weren't planning to already.

 

I agree. That's why I've had two so far. Completely forgot about doing a plastic soda bottle for a "carbonation meter" so I've had to sample. Or that's what I tell myself.