Mold in my fermentation bucket!!

[AABassMaster]

On Friday I brewed a stout and during the boil I added 4 oz of ground espresso beans because I thought it would taste good. Everything went swimmingly. I thoroughly cleaned the fermentation bucket and the airlock, but forgot to clean the lid of the bucket. It had been sitting around since the last homebrew I made a month ago. I opened up the bucket last night and the entire top of the wort was a half inch thick layer of mold.

My question is: Is there any chance that putting the espresso in during the boil somehow caused the mold, or was it definitely some mold hanging around on the lid or maybe in the bucket that I missed? I'm going to try this again tonight, and I have THOROUGHLY cleaned everything twice. I'm just wondering if maybe there is something in the espresso that could have caused the mold.

Thanks in advance.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Mold caused the mold.

You prolly had some spores on the lid and they grew, and grew.

FWIW, you could have skimmed the mold off and kept the beer as there are no-known pathogens that survive beer. But, I would have chunked it just on principle.

 

[stjackson]

I am by no means an expert, but I can't imagine that the espresso beans caused the mold. If you put them in during the boil, then they should have been sanitized.

I'm going with the lid on this one. Did you already dump it? Everything I've read on here says don't dump it until you are totally sure (usually by tasting) that the beer is no good. You could have tried racking that from underneath the mold to another (cleaner) vessel and possibly gotten a decent beer out of it.

 

[JVD_X]

Are you sure its mold and not krausen?

 

[Skaggz]

Are you sure its mold and not krausen?

This

A lot of times the top of the krausen foam can be almost completely covered by yeast. It looks a little like mold.

 

[broadbill]

I would be surprised if there was that much mold, so soon after brewing. My vote is also for krausen foam that hasn't fallen yet.

 

[AABassMaster]

It was definitely mold. It wasn't foamy, it was in semi-solid chunks, and it looked exactly like the white mold I've seen on stuff in my fridge before, and it had a little green on it also. I probably should've waited until I posted on here and tried to save it, but I already dumped it. Oh well, next time I will siphon it into another cleaner bucket and try to save a few gallons of it. Live and learn.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

It was definitely mold. It wasn't foamy, it was in semi-solid chunks, and it looked exactly like the white mold I've seen on stuff in my fridge before, and it had a little green on it also.

Any chance hope sludge made it into the fermenter?

I am still thinking Krausen but, have also dealt with mold on very long primaries.

 

[AABassMaster]

Hop sludge might have made it. I wish I hadn't dumped it now. That would have been an awesome beer!!!

 

[phatuna]

NEVER dump! geeeez

 

[ChshreCat]

Usually mode that I've seen on beer is in perfect little round colonies and often turns green/blue. Krausen is often a creamy white (can vary by recipe) and can have flecks of green in it from hop particles. It can cover the entire top of the beer, or just as little clumps of yeast later in the process.

 

[AABassMaster]

If only I had waited 1 day!!! AAARRRGGGHHH

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

If only I had waited 1 day!!! AAARRRGGGHHH

Meh.

I'd have dumped it too. And I know better. I had a black mold grow on the sidewalls of a batch once. It made great fodder for the composter.

 

[cruckin78]

I would have scrapped also.....Even though there are no known pathogens that can survive beer.....There some bacteria's that can give you the SAS (Screaming Apache ****s). I've never experienced personally, I'm anal as hell about sanitizing. But I have got a good laugh from a buddy that had a bout of SAS. Good Call on tossing it.