Funk in the ferm

[BrewStooge]

Hey all, it's about time I joind the fun and made a "is it infected" post. Unfortunatly I don't have a pic right at the moment but I'll give it a go. One of my more recent batches seems to have developed this disturbing thin white film on the top of it somewhere along the line. It's a rye beer, nothing to fancy though, the only "odd" thing is that I used a gallon of water from the well up north in the boil (thinking that the iron flavor might compliment the rye somehow).

I'd originally hoped it might be some sort of mineral film, but after moving it to a secondary it reappeared a couple days later so it seems more likely organic. Smells normal and last I checked it tasted pretty much normal too. Anyone have a simlar experiance? Is it something that can be racked under/skimmed off, or is this one possibly borked?

 

[scinerd3000]

wait until you get fuzz or some odd taste before you worry about it. A picture will help but i wouldnt worry. Besides, if you did infect the beer with the water you used theres not much you can do at this point anyway. Ride it out

 

[BrewStooge]

Fair enough, actually with the brew shop in the basement I'd be surprised if there wasn't some type of spore floating around at any given time. It's not one can really call a finished level at large, though the brewery is pretty well completed. Since I'm not exactly sure if it's animal/mineral/vegetable or some mutated combo of the three I guess one has to call it a fluke and brew on. Speaking of which... happy brew day to me

 

[BrewStooge]

So I let it ride, got it bottled, and confirmed the funkyness. Foul sour aftertaste that lingers even until the next day and some serious gushers going. Decided to let this one go, but rather than just opening and dumping them out, I tried a bit of a test. Since the bottles are all the flip-top style I had them all standing upright in a basin and cracked each in turn giving it a few seconds to foam out. The odd thing is that aproximatly 1/3 of them didn't foam at all. Now the bottling method was the same as ever, putting the priming sugar solution in the bucket and racking into it so there shouldn't be any variation in the actual carbonation between them. What I'm wondering here is could it be that somehow these few bottles either escaped or orvercame the infection somehow? I'm at a loss for how that could be since it got good and mixed in the last racking. As it stands though those that didn't gush out I gave a (at least temporary) reprieve to out of curiosity. Any thoughts on it?