Opinion on infection..?

[BrewChem]

Hey... I think I have an infected Hefe but not entirely convinced. Ive been brewing all grain for several years and have only had one batch that was a no-brainer dump but this one, I'm not sure.

I brewed a typical Hefe 5 gal recipe with 60/40 wheat/barley, oxygenated with O2 and used WLP300 from a 1liter starter.

Primary fermentation was held at 65F in a fermentation chamber and it took off within the first 8 hours (blow-off tubes are my friend...!). Everything calmed down after about 4 days as the gravity had gone from 1.056 to 1.018... so far, so good..

I maintained 65F and could still hear the 'bloop-bloop' sound of bubbles from the blowoff tube inside the chamber... ok... the yeast are cleaning up... let it ride...

After 10 days, I could still hear bubbles and took a gravity... 1.015... and noticed that there were still a head on the beer in the carboy but the bubbles didn't 'look normal'.... they were large and the film of the bubbles look more like an opaque skin. I tried to get a photo but couldn't get the resolution to show what I'm talking about.

I turned off the chiller and let it free-rise to about 70 and took gravity readings every 3-4 days. Over the last two weeks, it continues to fall and is at 1.011.

The gravity samples taste like banana and clove (as they should) but leaves a sour/tart/tingly feeling on your tongue in the aftertaste.

I'm leaning toward flushing it but wanted a second or eighth opinion .... whaddya think..?

 

[Double_D]

Yeah, a picture would help. A lot. I'd suggest taking fewer samples during fermentation. Every time you do, you just give yourself another chance to introduce something unwanted to your precious hefe with wlp 300 (a favorite of mine).

Best guess, and without a picture, it's normal.

 

[BrewChem]

I've decided that it is 'off' somehow.... so I'm going to do what any decent homebrewer would do... improvise..! Gonna transfer to a spare carboy, add a few pounds of raspberrys, a pack of lambic blend, stash it in a warm closet and forget about it for a year..![emoji106]

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

...but the bubbles didn't 'look normal'.... they were large and the film of the bubbles look more like an opaque skin.

This sounds similar to fermentations I've had that included a lot of wheat. I just figured it was the large amount of proteins in the wort.

I think if it looks like regular foam/krausen but bigger than usual with big bubbles then you're OK.

But you're in trouble if it looks like thishttps://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...Z3PAhXl7oMKHeoSB-oQMwgcKAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8