Help. Am I infected?

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starleyss17

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Im still fairly new, have done about 20-30 gallons in 1 gallon batches, I’ve done this beer before, but I’ve never seen this in the beer. I racked to secondary and added med toast French oak that I’ve had soaking in bourbon for two weeks. I added it last weekend after I racked it off the trub. Now it looks like clumps of something floating about an inch from the top. At the top it looks oily with some white.

Am I infected?
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Those look like krausen which is breaking up and slowly settling. The pic is of a batch of Blonde Ale which has been in primary about 2 weeks. There are similar looking “clumps” around the edges.
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I racked it into a secondary after the first two weeks in primary when I added the oak. The clumps do look similar, just an inch or so beneath the surface.
 
So what would you do if it is infected?

Unless it just tasted like the filthiest rot you can think of, I'd still bottle or keg it at the appropriate time and see what the final product tastes like.

I don't think you can fix infected. Many accidentally infected brews don't taste good. But why give up on it?

Yours doesn't look infected. I just bottled yesterday and I had funny looking clumps floating on and a inch below the surface. Probably should have investigated them, but they sort of looked like yeast clumped up on hops or maybe a piece of malt clumped with yeast that must have got into the FV.

I did use a different type yeast that I've not used before.
 
Hard to see from your photos; but the first one just appears to be yeast dropping down from the remains of the krausen, which is normal. The second photo, while blurry, seems to show some white on the surface with lines radiating out. That is known as a pellicle, and does indicate some sort of infection. If there are also largish bubbles lingering on the surface, that appear slimy, this is also an almost-sure indication of an infection.

Is your beer ruined? This is a question we see very often. Can it be saved, into something drinkable? This is subjective. If you package it now, and (assuming final gravity has been reached, and you are bottling) keep those packages in a temperature-controlled environment (relatively cool, also where they won't cause any damage if they explode, consider a rubbermaid tub with a lid), you might have something drinkable. Then again, you may not. Many of us experienced homebrewers have stories of our first brews that turned out moderately drinkable, but also with what we call "bottle bombs"; which are just what the name implies. Many infections continue to ferment whatever sugars they can find in a bottle, creating more co2, that may (or may not) cause the bottle to explode. I've had a few of those, as have many of us.

The important thing, here, is to discover WHY you may have ended up with an infected batch. Sanitation is not only key, but essential. Everything that touches your beer post-boil must be sanitized; not necessarily sterile, but you need to make every effort to keep anything nasty OUT of the finished product. Did you open the fermenter a few times during fermentation? Skimp on sanitizing anything used to transfer the wort to the fermenter? There's no shame here, just know many of us have done the same thing. Read, read, read, READ! And I cannot stress this enough; sanitation is VERY important, as is PATIENCE. The one ingredient that is never listed in a beer recipe, but SHOULD be. DO NOT open the fermenter (as tempting as it may be) until at least a week after pitching yeast. Give those yeasties a chance to do their job.

And, if this batch should turn out horrible? Learn from your mistakes and try again! This site has a wealth of information on almost all aspects of homebrewing, and all of us love to help new brewers succeed.
 
If I have a infected batch, it’s dumped then everything that came in con5act with it gets a chlorine soak for a day. Some brewers like to use Bret on infected beers but not me, or our taste preference
 
I admire these one gallon brewers. I can drink one gallon in a good night with friends. Definitively easy in two nights at weekend.
:bigmug:

I use to do that too. However as I've aged, I can't drink so much without doing the knee crawling thing. And my circle of friends and gotten smaller as we die off. So getting rid of 5 gallons of beer is a challenge.

1 - 2½ gallon brews make more sense for those in my circumstances. It also lets me brew more often and play with various things that might change the qualities of the beer.
 
I used oak cubes once, pre-soaked in Rum for a week. They still infected my batch.
Probably alcohol didn't soak the cubes through, so the living microbes creeped out from inside the cubes into my wort.
 

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