Leaf-like debris in primary?

[jtwilliams31]

I'm a little curious about some debris that's floating on top of my amber ale that's been in primary for about a week and a half. I used Willamette hop pellets with 2-row as a base and crystal 30/black malt as specialty malts. I'm not really all that concerned, just sort of curious as to where the debris comes from - it sort of looks like leaf pieces, which is weird since I didn't use whole hops. Could it perhaps be grain hulls?

 

[grampamark]

It could be grain hulls. Is there anything about your process that would let pieces that big get into your kettle? It doesn’t take much of a filter to keep that stuff in the mash tun and if you BIAB the bag would contain any stray bits.

While nothing appears infected, those pieces could be some crud that was stuck in a valve and got loosened up enough to get into the kettle or from the kettle to the fermenter.

 

[jtwilliams31]

I don't really think so - I do a sort of modified BIAB setup where I mash grains with brewing liquor at mash temp for recipe time length, then put my bag into a 5 gal bucket, pour my mash into that, add my 170 degree sparge water to get the desired pre-boil volume, then raise the bag to drain the contents. I did squeeze the grain bag a bit after taking out, so perhaps this squeezed some larger pieces through? It tastes fine - not overly astringent or grainy or anything.

I only do 2.5-3 gallon batches so I don't really need a traditional larger setup.

 

[camonick]

Pellet hops are just highly compressed shredded whole hop cones. Could very likely be larger pieces of that. I sometimes see those in my kettle even though I use a medium mesh hop bag during the boil.

 

[jtwilliams31]

Pellet hops are just highly compressed shredded whole hop cones. Could very likely be larger pieces of that. I sometimes see those in my kettle even though I use a medium mesh hop bag during the boil.

I do add my hops directly to the boil without a bag - in this case I believe 1 oz for a 2.5 gallon batch - and EVERYTHING goes directly into the fermenter. I just wasn't sure if hop pellets would produce leaf-like pieces or not.

 

[camonick]

Sometime take just one of those little pellets and rehydrate it and see what it looks like. I think you’ll be fine.
Sláinte

 

[jtwilliams31]

Sometime take just one of those little pellets and rehydrate it and see what it looks like. I think you’ll be fine.
Sláinte

I did rehydrate a few hop pellets and it looks exactly like the debris! Thanks for the insights.