Guess My Infection

[jmguerry12]

So on August 9, 2018 I brewed the Pliny The Elder clone from MoreBeer. I had some issues during the brewing like a pump breaking from the mount, broken Speidel seal that I didn’t have a replacement for.

The worst issue of the day was the recipe called for full hops. I made the mistake of dumping them into the boil which made getting them out horrible. I ended up using a strainer which was sanitized to get as many of the flowers out I could.

I attempted to use my counter flow chiller and the left over flowers clogged it. So I ended up pumping 140 degree wort into my sanitized Speidel. Long story short...my wort fermented and got down to 1.010. I went to put the dry hops in and saw the following pictures. I’m really bummed but let me know some things I can do different please and thank you

 

[day_trippr]

I don't see an infection...

Cheers!

 

[jmguerry12]

Day really?! Please say it’s so!!! I’ve never seen that on top before...then again I’ve never brewed a recipe with so much hops

 

[OnePlate]

How does it smell/taste? Have you checked the gravity?

 

[jmguerry12]

Smells like freshly fermented wort nothing off, gravity is at 1.011 and I haven’t tasted it

 

[OnePlate]

I don't see a pellicle or mold, and if it smells fine I'd give it little taste.

 

[jmguerry12]

Cool so is the stuff on top just part of the left over krausen/hop matter

 

[Vale71]

It's a saccharomyces infection. It's a very common infection, afflicting 100% of all beers...

 

[OnePlate]

Cool so is the stuff on top just part of the left over krausen/hop matter

To me, it just looks like hops matter floating on CO2 bubbles trapped under/in it. I can even make out whole intact hops cones in a couple spots. If it smells ok, taste it. If it tastes ok, keg it!

 

[RPh_Guy]

So on August 9, 2018 I brewed the Pliny The Elder clone

I'm thinking you meant 2019 since there are still bubbles, and a year in primary is a little long for an IPA.

Thanks for those photos! That's a great example of yeast rafts. What yeast did you use?

There's nothing indicating contamination.

 

[jmguerry12]

Haha thanks guys! Yea 2019 my bad lol. I used the White Labs WLP001 California Ale

 

[Vale71]

No wonder you got those huge rafts, that yeast strains flocs and then floats to the surface like there is no tomorrow. In my conical it shot to the surface so fast that as I tried to perform my usual dumping of trub after 24h all that would come out of the drain valve was 100% unfermented wort, no sign whatsoever of yeast or trub. Thankfully I know to open the valve veeery slowly or I would have lost precious wort.

 

[OnePlate]

Wow, I had no idea California Ale yeast flocc'ed that hard. I've never used it. That's crazy!

 

[fofusak]

I recently used a Kveik and it seemed exactly like that after an hour.
I thought too it was an infection. I had never seen anything like that before.
I can happily say it just looks weird, but you can move the wort and that strange krausen-like thing will drop, it's just yeast. The beer is very tasty so be happy, your brew shall be fine!

 

[jmguerry12]

Yea I was definitely bummed at first! There is a ton of hop matter floating in the wort. I’m definitely gonna rack to secondary and cold crash at least a week after dry hopping is done.

 

[day_trippr]

Do yourself a huge favor and do not use a "secondary" vessel, there's no need for it and using one carries more risk than value (the O2 exposure alone is a deal breaker for most). If you want to dry hop, do it in the primary.

Also, you really don't need an entire week to drop everything you see to the bottom of your fermentor. 2-3 days ought to do it, and if you don't have a way to keep O2 out of the fermentor during the crash the longer it sits there the greater the impact...

Cheers!

 

[SpottedDogBrewing]

Beer!