Is there mold in my brew?

[cbrei2310]

A friend and myself have been brewing beers for a month or 2 now, and ave started our third brew about 2 weeks ago. We let the brew sit for 1 week and saw no activity from the airlock, did some research and found that that means nothing, but when rehydrating the yeast, it got to 120*F and we found that that likely killed the yeast, so we purchased liquid yeast from a local brew store and added it.

When we added this we saw 2 white chunks floating on top of the beer, wondered about it and figured it might be the dead yeast and left it. Anyway, a few days after we peeked in there again and saw the 2 white chunks and a darker chunk, we sterilized a spoon and scooped one out. It was rather slimy and disgusting. Before we go a dump it away we want to be sure it is mold.

We bought a brewers best milk stout kit and the only thing we are wondering is if this might be due to the lactose in the kit.


Is this more likely mold, than a byproduct of the lactose?

 

[shawnbou]

Lactose doesn't result in any byproducts that could be mistaken for mold, so it's not that.

You should take a gravity reading to see if the beer fermented. One week is enough time for a normal fermentation, and your white spots could be yeast rafts, which are common at the end of fermentation. You are correct that no airlock activity does not mean fermentation didn't happen.

120°F is hot enough to be harmful to yeast, but not kill them outright. 109°F is a temperature recommended by many yeast vendors for rehydrating their yeast. 140°F is the temperature usually quoted as killing yeast completely. So I don't think you killed all the yeast unless your rehydrating water was hotter than 120°F.

On the other hand, if you did kill all the yeast, you basically let that wort sit unprotected for a week, so all manner of nasties could have gotten in.

A gravity reading (and comparing that to your OG reading, if you took one) is the only way to know for sure.

 

[Revvy]

We really can't help you unless you show us a picture....

 

[cbrei2310]

Awe gonna take a picture for you all but I took a hydrometer reading and there has been no change. A pretty horrible smell and taste as well. Gonna dump and try again.

 

[bchurch]

Awe gonna take a picture for you all but I took a hydrometer reading and there has been no change. A pretty horrible smell and taste as well. Gonna dump and try again.

You should wait it out and see what happens, time helps a lot.

 

[cbrei2310]

Okay. I'll. Skim the mold off. There has been no change in gravity though. Why could that be?

 

[bchurch]

Okay. I'll. Skim the mold off. There has been no change in gravity though. Why could that be?

What is it at?

 

[twistr25]

Picture still would be useful so you could learn what that was. You may just need to re-aerate a little if you didn't do so before you pitched the liquid yeast.

 

[shawnbou]

Okay. I'll. Skim the mold off. There has been no change in gravity though. Why could that be?

No change in gravity could mean 1 of 2 things. Either:

• It finished fermenting, or
• It never started fermenting.

Obviously one of those is very good, and one is very bad. Can't know which you're facing without more data though.

What is your gravity at now? And did you take an OG reading?

I'm an advocate for never dumping beer, especially early on. There are a lot of things that can happen that seem disgusting to a beginning brewer, but are actually very normal. As has been stated above, time helps a lot.

Some pictures would still help. Take some and post 'em so we can help you out.

 

[cbrei2310]

Thanks for all the help guys. OG was 1.061. The second adding 2 weeks later after pitching yeast twice was 0.061. We decided to dump and start from scratch. The flavor when tasted was very off and kinda sour. The wort we tasted was from the bottom of the bucket. We have aRussian ImperialStout going now. Brewed yesterday. Already fermenting.

Wen brewing the previous attempt we had a boil over and had to try and act fast so we tried to siphons some wort from the pot into a second pot to keep boil overs down. This melted the siphon a small bit and it got bent toward the end. We are going with that that is what did the damage. We have since purchased a 20qt stainless steel brew pot and it has made a huge difference. Keeps the temperature well for us while steeping. Our only problem ow is cooling, can still take us 3 or 4 hours to cool to the point that we can pitch the yeast.

 

[twistr25]

First off where you tasted the wort was why it was funky, anything sitting next to yeast cake will likely not taste as good.

I've had to let my wort sit overnight to cool before pitching, not a big deal. As long as it's sanitary, won't hurt a thing. It'll be better to wait than to pitch to hot