Nervous or start of infection?

[dweber77]

Hey all,

So I am on beer number 5 and it has been amazing and easy thus far. With this Christmas ale I got creative and added some extra items. I moved to secondary yesterday and added cinnamon sticks and a vanilla bean.

This morning I noticed this oily film and small specs in it and am worried I might have the beginnings of an infection. The rational side of me keeps saying it is just particulates and oil from the cinnamon sticks, but another part is a bit worried.

I have a feeling you will say it's fine. But I just want a second opinion almost as if my life were on the line and the first doctor sounded like a quack.

I made this on an imgur album so I could just leave them all together. The floating blobs are leftover bits of dried cheery and a vanilla bean so those are normal. But it's the whitish film and particles I am concerned about.

Sorry or the potato cam (iphone) pics but the wife's camera died yesterday.

Thanks for taking a look and your feedback.

http://imgur.com/a/SYqse

 

[unionrdr]

Looks like grain hop pellet leftovers mixed with what's left after the krausen dropped to me. Infections start as a scummy looking white film that can then look like broken ice pack in the next stage.

 

[RM-MN]

It certainly doesn't look like any of the pictures I've seen of infections. I think you are good.

 

[dweber77]

Thanks.

First set of really expensive ingredients and the last thing I need is an infection, hence my nervousness.

I am not surprised if it was residual hops that came through the raking cane. The raking cane kept getting clogged on transfer from one of my primary fermentation ingredients. Lesson learned to skim it out first.

 

[Clonefan94]

I did my first vanilla bean addition back in September, for a vanilla porter. I had soaked the beans in just enough vodka to cover them, and then racked on top of them to secondary. I got the same look you did there and was sure I had the start of an infection. I let it sit for two weeks though and it never got any worse. Vanilla beans seem kind of oily, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just from them. I'm pretty sure if it were an infection, I'd have seen some change in the way it looked, getting more filmy/gunky/fuzzy etc, in that two weeks time.

I think your fine, because as I said, it looked just like mind and mine looked that same way.

 

[Homercidal]

An oily sheen is not uncommon with certain ingredients, even with excess hops and late additions.

I don't see anything that looks like an infection. And I'll have to add that I don't think you will see much sign of an infection so early in the process. Most of the infections I've seen so far have had a spidery, or veined appearance with a few persistent large bubbles.

Now if you were really, actually concerned, you might want to sanitize a thief and carefully draw a sample to taste. But I'd say you have nothing to worry about, based on your image.

 

[dweber77]

Thanks all!

Got home tonight and took a look and it's not growing in size at all and just has that oily sheen. Most of what appeared as white dots on the surface seem to have sunk down to the bottom.

Just means I will have to do a little filtering when I rack to my bottling bucket.I figured I would have to anyway since some of the rehydrated cherries made it through to secondary.

I feel much better now and it's nice to see the air lock still bubbling a little in secondary. Though this is going to be a whopper. Started at 1.110 OG and after primary was down to 1.020.

 

[unionrdr]

Cherry barleywine anyone?!:cross:

 

[dweber77]

Nice guess, but not quite. It's a winter warmer with cherries cinnamon and vanilla.