Possible Infection??

[jacobyhale]

Just about to bottle my Stout, and after taking the lid off, I found some serious stuff floating on the top of my beer. It's been done fermenting for over a week, and it's not really soft like krausen, but more like hard protein rafts.

Here's a link to the pictures. For some reason I can't get pics to upload?!?
http://irony-brewery.blogspot.com/

 

[The Drizzle]

I don't have an answer for you, sorry.


But those are some neat %%!#&$%*!@# pics

 

[jacobyhale]

Sorry, but I need to bump this. Any ideas??

 

[SuperiorBrew]

Pic 1

Pic 2

 

[jacobyhale]

Thanks Superior. I don't know why I wasn't able to post them? I've posted pics before without issue.

 

[SuperiorBrew]

Some sites dont let you hot link, you would probably have to use a place like photobucket or web****s

 

[TheDom]

Well, have you gotten the balls up to taste it? Something I hear thrown around homebrew sites quite often is that there are no known pathogens that will inhabit beer.... Bottoms up?

 

[jacobyhale]

Yeah, I tasted and went ahead and bottled already. It tasted great! So, we'll see if something strange turns up in my bottles here in a couple of weeks. I wonder if it has anything to do with my fermentors being on a cold concrete basement floor. Yeast floating to the top where it's warmer?? I'm reaching here, just don't know. It really looked like the trub that I usually see on the bottom, just floating on top.

 

[ohiobrewtus]

I don't know man, but I've brewed a good deal of beer and I've never seen anything like that before.

Since you've already bottled it, let us know how it ends up.

 

[joshpooh]

I had a batch stored for long term in a cory keg that got infected and it looked similar to that. I know it was an infection because it was a 10 gallon batch half of which was bottled and the other half stored in that keg for dispensing at a later date. The bottled batch tasted just like that recipe always tasted and the kegged batch wow it was nasty. The keg it was stored in is a pin lock and my system is ball lock, so I had to transfer before dispensing. The point of this whole story for you is that I tasted it before transferring to the other keg and it tasted horrible. So I'm guessing if yours tasted fine you're ok.

 

[jacobyhale]

Well, here's pics of my Brown Nut that I uncovered and found the same thing. This beer is not even 2weeks old. Man, time to switch out all of my tubing and crap or what?? I dunno, I think I'm careful with sanitation?!?

Pic 1

Pic 2

 

[jiffybrew]

What is beer supposed to look like after all fermentation has settled and the yeast has had some time to clean up? I just bottled at batch and it had a thin white film. I went ahead and tasted it. It tasted just fine but the white stuff scares me. Hope you're beer turns out okay Jacob.

 

[budbo]

The two key things to look for for infection are a Hairy texture, and a foul smell.

The picture wasn't clear enough, but if it smelled and tasted alright go for it. If you get a case of the screaming sh**ts the next day, dump the rest.

 

[uglygoat]

looks like yeasties and cold break to me.

 

[2 4 tripping]

It looks like you are using a top cropper yeast. I think what you are seeing is the yeast cake.

Trip

 

[aekdbbop]

It looks like you are using a top cropper yeast. I think what you are seeing is the yeast cake.

Trip

+1

looks like yeasties to me...

 

[brewerdave]

Yeah, I agree with the posters above. It's your yeast. I have seen this once in one of my beers, and it was when I added too much irish moss in the boil. I think it may have made the yeast clump together like that, but I'm just guessing. It should be fine, mine was.

 

[jacobyhale]

Ah, Irish Moss.....First time ever using it, and both of these beers had probably an excess. I also thought it looked a lot like the trub usually left at the bottom of my primary after racking, but the floating was scaring me!

 

[stale]

I've had a few that have lookedd like that before sending on to secondary. After secondary while trying not to siphon this material it all cleared out and then kegged the end result. It was just fine. I agree with the previous posts that I believe this to be just a floating yeastie/protein gunk. No worries!