First contamination -- sourcE?

[Naked_Eskimo]

Got my first contamination this last brew...nice white pillows sitting on top of my wort long after the kreusen has fallen. Waiting to see how bad it gets to see whether I can salvage the brew or not.

Two possible reasons for the contam:

Decided to just pour all the wort into my carboy, without bothering to whirlpool and siphon off the wort, thus leaving break material behind. In doing so I -

#1. used a funnel with mesh grid inside to capture break material. Total cluster-truck. Grid blocked in first pour and so had to fish it out to get my wort to pour. So contam possibly came from hand, although I did dip it into a bucket of starsan as best I could.

#2. or.....when I put the pot down to fish the grid out, some of the wort ran down the outside of the pot (which is obviously "dirty"). I then resumed pouring again, and those trickles from the outside of the pot ran into the carboy.

Not sure which contributed...but learned an important lesson. Scrap the funnel grids and starsan the outside of the pot prior to upending into the funnel.

Ugh...was looking forward to my first Cascadian Dark Ale....which smelled awesome!

 

[AlbuquerqueJoe]

some contaminations are odorless, tasteless, and have no real effect on the brew. Hopefully you can bottle it up and it will still be awesome! Good luck.

 

[malkore]

Honestly, neither of those screams of huge infection risk. Guys have fished stuff out of the bottom of a primary bucket with bare hands...no issues.

And the outside of the kettle should be fairly sanitary since it just boiled for an hour.

 

[samc]

I'd say if you can list two possible sources, more than likely it was something entirely different. Neither of what you mentioned sounds that bad, what about your procedures after that point. Starter, yeast, temps, fermenter sanitation???

 

[Prime]

Tons of things that could have happened, but I agree with the above to just let it play out. It could still be alright to drink. I am currently doing that with one that might be borderline.