First Infection?

[J_Thadeus_Toad]

I was made a holiday spice beer and a pumpkin beer, both all-grain (brew day Sept 22) everything went as normal washed and sanitized everything, mashed brewed and put in the primary. i wanted to put the beer into secondary on the 20th of Oct, but was unable to due to being sick. i did not want to risk infection while i sick. did a little bit of reading, and figured it would be ok to skip secondary and just let it do its thing in the primary. On a side not they smelled amazing on the 20th. but did not have time to get it out of the primary. I went to keg it over the weekend (Nov 3) both of them had a slight vinyl kind of smell to it (not iodine) possible from sitting on the dead yeast to long? So I decided to put it in secondary for a few weeks to hope some of the smell would go away or lighten up. (at this point i figure they might be trashed anyways) but i just checked on it today and it looks like there is some sort of mold or something growing on the top of the holiday spice. (the pumpkin beer looks alright for now. please see the pictures below, and let me know if it looks like a infection or is it just something i have not seen before. May it just be residue from the starsan? any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Atonk]

Did you taste or smell it recently? I'd do that first - looks like it could be an infection; if it is you might be able to rack out from under it, or let it sit and sour if you like that style.

 

[Irishpenguin13]

How much space In that carboy is not occupied by beer? Im wondering if you have too much open space which gives way to better chance of bacteria growth, depending on your temps.

 

[J_Thadeus_Toad]

There is a bit of head space. I need to get a smaller carbon. There is probably about 6.5 inches of head space. I gave it a little shake and the stuff started to fall like a snow globe.

 

[J_Thadeus_Toad]

the temps have been in the low to mid 60's right around 63.

 

[Revvy]

Looks like EITHER Irish Moss, or ugly yeast clumps to me. I don't see anything indicative of an infection in those pics. The surface of our beer is rarely free of floating matter.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

The white parts do look like an infection to me. My guess is that by racking it to a second vessel after the yeast had completed fermenting the air space was not purged by the CO2 the yeast produce during fermentation. the large head space contained some bacteria that took root in your beer.

 

[JordanThomas]

Doesn't look like it's infected. But, taste it. That's the best indicator of whether something's gone wrong or not.

 

[Unibrow]

Doesn't look like it's infected. But, taste it. That's the best indicator of whether something's gone wrong or not.

what he said....

 

[J_Thadeus_Toad]

thanks for the advice, i think im going to let it do its thing for about a week, since im going out of town and a lot of sediemt is starting to gather at the bottom. then check on it and give it a taste. i also poured a little co2 in to hopefully help create a barrier for any oxygen, just incase the yeast is done.