What the hell's floating in my beer?

Okay, I checked on the Wheat Ale that I have in the secondary, and there are little "things" floating in it. The best I can describe is that they look like little, tiny seeds floating in the beer. What the hell? I've never seen this before. Can anyone tell me what this is? Is it some kind of infection? Is it normal?

I took some photos, but they really didn't turn out. Here they are, for what it's worth.

 

I call that the 'sesame seeds.' Many of my beers had it, and they were problem free. I think it's just little clumps of yeast.

 

It can be yeast or trub or both combined. If your beer does not have any objectionable smell or taste, don't worry about it. I have seen them from time to time too in my beer.

Dr Malt

 

I pulled off the cap and sniffed it, and it smells okay.

I've just never seen this before, so of course I shifted immediately to "panic" mode.

Thanks for the reassurances!

 

It's yeast. Don't worry about it.

RDWHAHB. . .

and for what its worth. . .having stainless conicals (so I can't see this kind of crap), has lowered my stress level 10 fold. Just don't look at it.

Cheers.

 

its ruined.

please continue to condition, then bottle and ship to me for proper disposal

 

I always have these seed looking things, I thought they were hop seeds or something, No worries whatever thay are.

 

Oh, good! A bad beer disposal service! What's the address for that?

 

Wow! I just noticed the same thing in my Oatmeal stout that I racked into secondary yesterday and had come on here to ask the same question!

 

Yeah, in so many of the cases we have seen here and from my own experience, the majority (and I mean like over 95% of the cases rough guess) there isn't an infection but just some funkly by product of fermentation. Tbh, it is a pretty ugly process. The final product is nice though. :fro:

Additionally, there is nothing you can do in the event of an infection really (in terms of 'saving' it) and the advice I always give is to ride out the fermentation, bottle/keg it and then after the required conditioning time, taste. Then and only then can you really know if it is screwed up. Even repeat recipes can proceed differently from batch to batch.

 

OMG its an invasion of pod people and those are their seeds!

*puts on tinfoil hat*


its interesting how different yeasts, under different conditions, do really weird stuff to our beer eh?

 

It's really funny reading these threads, since they basically all say the exact same thing. To qualify what I've said, so I don't sound like a rear end in a top hat, I panicked over the exact same thing when it happened to my second batch. Malkore, I was thinking the same thing--yeast is really, really weird.

 

Did you use whole-leaf hops?

I've had that same condition exactly four times. I have also used whole leaf hops 6 times. Twice though, I used whole leaf hops, but didn't have the problem. Those were also the two times I selected a seedless variety of hops.

So.... ummm... my guess is that it's seeds...

 

Actually, they were pellet hops, so I'm inclined to agree with those that say it's the yeast clumping together.

 

I've had the same thing also. Between that and the clusters of CO2 bubbles that sometimes form on the top of my secondary, I have had many infection "scares". I am finally learning to RDWHAHB, but it's hard not to worry about something you put so much time and effort into.

 

Whats the best way not to get the yeast clumps in my bottles? im about to rack to my secondary, would gealtin help this? or filter it somehow?

 

Rack carefully. I've got an autosiphon with a little tip that does a decent job of not letting clumps through.

Even if it DOES get through, don't worry, the vast majority of it will settle out in the secondary.

When I made my first brew, I was panicking over the hop sludge... The beer turned out very smooth and free of junk.

 

Whats the casue of this? and how can it be prevented? i know it will be fine, just looks nicer without it

 

It's a reaction to the colour of that shirt!

 

That happens every time I use White Labs Trappist Ale yeast. You can put some kind of straining filter around your racking cane when you secondary (or bottle), maybe a hop or grain steeping bag or something similar...I'll use some coarse screen printing mesh...but you probably don't have any of that...

 

Yep, that's yeast. You see the same thing when your yeast is getting ready to kick into high gear in the primary.

When you rack to the secondary, the yeast often isn't quite done with the beer. Racking rouses the yeast, so you get a small, secondary fermentation. That is just the yeast finishing its job (or its supper, however you want to look at it).

If you are really that concerned about preventing the phenomenon, then rouse your yeast a couple times in the primary before racking, so that everything finishes up in the primary. However, what you see is part of the function of a secondary, so I would not do anything else to prevent it.

Who said that brewing was supposed to be pretty, anyhow?


TL

 

Hey Phan,

I've had the same thing from some strains of ale yeast I've used before. What seems to happen there is that as some CO2 bubbles rise from the yeast bed, they take a little lump of yeast with them to the top as seen in your pic.

The batches I had that did that -well I fermented and bottled to completion and the beer was perfectly okay, meeting the expectations of the recipe.

 

Old old old thread, but I just noticed some floaty looking substance and a couple of these "seeds" in only one of my bottles. Kind of weird, but as long as it isn't objectionable it's ok? I don't wanna waste a drop!

 

Oh, it's in the bottle? It's concentrated cyanide.

Or...it's still yeast. Everyone flocculates differently. Drink...when ready.

 

This is my first post on this forum. I made an Irish Stout, racked it into the secondary, and now after two weeks, I noticed it has these little floating pieces in it. I was about to panic until I found this forum. And I love the idea of using a hop steeping bag when bottling to weed out the little devils.

This is only my second beer, so I am a newbie. I am currently on my 5th wine, a Cab that's looking crystal clear right now. Bottling probably around the 30th for that.

Sue

 

I ran into a similar problem with my cream ale. Which I racked until crystal clear and then the floating things popped up after I bottled it. Also, this has happened whenever I added extra hops to my lagers during secondary. Usually, if people complain, I kindly remind them that they have a built in filter called a liver.