Moldy... after bottling?

[cmedley]

Hi all,
I read through a ton of the 'to throw out or not to throw out' posts and didn't quite see the same problem that I have encountered.
A buddy and I are on our 3rd batch, and haven't had any problems and I think we are very careful about our sanitation.... at least until now.

A little over a month ago we brewed a pumpkin ale, everything fermented nicely, racked it over after about a week. We got busy and didn't have time to move on to bottling for about 2 more weeks, no problem everything looked fine, tasted great, SG where predicted, temps were steady in the mid 70's.
Bottled nearly 2 weeks ago now, and went to check on them, and noticed most, but not all bottles have white, looks like mold, growing on the surface.

I'm guessing this is due to something being in the bottles since it didn't show up before, but, like I said, we are very careful about cleanliness. Bottles were soaked in a sanitizer, scrubbed with a bottle brush, and finally rinsed with starsan before being filled.
I wouldn't think the conditions would support something growing in there, if conditioning was happening properly: no O2, alcohol content, etc.?

Are the affected bottles toast? Safe to drink?

Thanks in advance!
I hope it OK, the taste tests along the way were great!

 

[Tubba]

Please take a picture, that's the only way to know for sure. Do you mean that it's something white on the surface of the beer? Sounds like lactobacillus to me...

 

[DannyD]

+1 on the pics. But I have seen that small white bubbles sometimes forms when I bottle condition and it look like something floating ontop?

 

[passedpawn]

Maybe lacto; if so....

Safe to drink: hope so, I've got a sour beer with a little pellicle like that in every bottle and I'm drinking them. Your beer will probably get sour.

Toast? Your call. I've never had a sour pumpkin beer, and I'm having trouble at this moment imagining one. Might be alright. If you don't like sour beers, though, you will be disappointed.

 

[cmedley]

Thanks for the replies, I'll get a picture of them after work.

 

[cmedley]

Here are a couple pics of what I'm seeing in probably 85% of the bottles from this batch.

 

[DannyD]

oops!!!!!!!!!!.......what happens if you "swirl" it a bit? does it float back up?

 

[squirrelly]

You said this happened to 80% of your beers? I doubt it is mold or anything else remotely toxic for that matter. From the pictures it actually looks like sediment that settled in the neck of the bottles. How old is this batch? Did you bottle condition?

If it is indeed an infected batch you might want to figure out in what part of your process did you pick up the infection. If it's only 85% of the bottles it might be bottles, caps, or even your bottling lines. I think just to be safe I'd change the tubing on the racking cane.

 

[Tubba]

Look in the Post Your Infection thread. I'm 99% sure that's lactobacillus. It's not harmfull (it's the stuff that's in yoghurt), but it will make your beer sour. If you have the guts, try a sip.

 

[passedpawn]

My lacto forms a film across the entire surface, then sticks to the bottle at the edges. Mine looks nothing like that. Very odd... almost looks like yeast rafts.

 

[Tubba]

Looks a bit too white to be yeast. But that could be the camera.

 

[cmedley]

@ DannyD When I turn the bottle or swirl it sticks to the sides for just a second, as soon as I right the bottle perfectly vertical it floats right back to the surface.

@ Squirrelly It is bottle conditioning, brewed 8/4, primary for a week, secondary for two weeks, primed and bottled on 8/29. My wife noticed this on 9/11. I had looked at them just 2 days prior and all looked normal then.
I have no idea where in the process we could have picked up an infection, I'm assuming it happened at the bottling stage simply because it hasn't happened (at least yet) to all of the bottles.

@Tubba I think my buddy and I will brave the infection and give it a try soon. (just need to coordinate time off, he just had a kiddo last week). Also it is very white... at least looking through the colored glass of the bottles.

Thank for the great responses and helping out a couple rookies!

 

[Germelli1]

One more suggestion!

Throw them ALL in the fridge if that is possible! The cold will cold slow down the infection/souring as well as keep pressure in the bottles low in the event it is a bacterial infection. Lacto/brett/pedo/etc will continue to carbonate so be weary of bottle bombs down the road!

 

[cmedley]

Thank you all for the replies and suggestions!
We really appreciated them all.

I did put them in the fridge right after the previous comments came in, it seemed to help as the floating things didn't grow anymore, and after a little shaking, all but a few bottle had them disappear all together.

So, finally we got time to get together and try out this creation... we made some very sour brew. So I am guessing that the stuff was lacto from some of the discussions on the forum.
There were a few bottles that were infection free and we have yet to crack into one of those to see if/ how those may be different.... one of these days.

Thanks again,

We can't wait to get to brewing another batch!

 

[paulster2626]

Real men would drink them all. At once. And then when you sober up, clean the bejezzus out of everything.