Is my beer contamincated?

[somecallmetex]

I'm getting ready to bottle my beer tonight and I noticed that at the top of my secondary carboy there are a bunch of small white dots with tiny air bubbles around them. This is my first batch, so I don't know if this something normal like a little left over yeast or if it's something evil that signifies my beer went bad. (I plan on taking a taste when I start bottling to judge if it's okay)

A little more information, the beer itself looks clear, the air lock is not bubbling, and while I haven't taken the cap/airlock off I do know that the only smell in my beer closet is of apfelwein.

 

[COLObrewer]

Normal, yeast rafts, how long has it been fermenting?

 

[phatuna]

sounds like it's A-ok. you should take a hydrometer reading to make sure that you have dropped gravity to where you want to be.

 

[Revvy]

It's yeast rafts, bits of yeast buoyed up by rising co2...the surface of our beer is rarely perfectly clean, there's usually som yeasties floating on the top.

 

[somecallmetex]

Normal, yeast rafts, how long has it been fermenting?

It's been in the secondary for two and a half weeks. I didn't take a starting gravity reading (at the time I thought the purpose was to determine the exact amount of alcohol in the beer, which didn't concern me. I didn't find out until later that it was for more than that).

 

[COLObrewer]

Gravity readings do a number of things as you have found out, the final gravity reading (FG) taken before bottling will tell you if all your fermentables have been fermented so that your bottles won't blow up. Depending on your brew, it should be somewhere below 0.0200. If you used a kit, it should say what the FG target is.