Dry Hopping With Whole Hops...Mold!

[bigljd]

Interesting...so maybe this mold is a good thing

It would probably depend on what's actually infected your beer. If it's mold, it's probably not such a good thing, but it if you have a brett or lacto infection it could add a little bit of funk (sour) to the beer and it may not be a bad thing. The only way to know is to taste a little bit and see.
If it is brett or lacto, you may have to be a little careful if you are bottling the beer, as you could risk overcarbing and bottle bombs if it sits around for a long time.

 

[NYC]

An update: everything went better than expected

I just kegged it tonight and can tell it will be a good one. Thanks for the insights and votes of confidence!

Here is another photo of the lacto/brett/moon surface/?, and one of the final result.

 

[day_trippr]

The Aliens have landed and they're living in your beer...

Cheers!

 

[bwomp313]

You may have gotten an infection from some other step in your process. It sometimes takes a little while for these critters to get going and the pellicle may have started forming coincidentially at the same time that you added the dry hops. I'm under the impression that pellicles only form in the presence of oxygen so when you added the dry hops it may have spurred the pellicle formation.

 

[NYC]

Yeah man, aliens indeed!

That makes sense, I probably aerated the beer a bunch as I was racking to secondary with the cane...I'll definitely try to be more careful going forward, and now have a spray bottle with Star San that I've been liberally applying to everything in sight...

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I had something similar to that with a Pale Ale I brewed using whole flower Cascade hops that I picked at a local hop farm. I dry hopped it with an ounce of whole flower for about 10 days and by the 10th day it had a white film on the top. When I kegged it, I racked from underneath the film, leaving about an inch of beer in the carboy. The film stuck to the sides of the carboy as the beer was transferred. That keg tasted good for months.

 

[NYC]

Yeah, I'm not sure what caused it but it's interesting...after a few days in the keg the beer has gotten way more sour, not in a bad way at all, just different.

I think this is normal with bretts/lactos, right?