Serious concern about my strawberry ale

[icantbejon]

So my local homebrew store owner suggested I try a different technique when making my strawberry ale. He said to get strawberries and add them in at the tale end of primary fermentation versus in the secondary so that when I racked to secondary it would help clarify. I did this and I have serious concerns. I am racking tonight and it looks like the strawberries molded over on top of my beer. The beer smells slightly off….but I haven't tasted it yet. I definitely got a reactivated fermentation in the primary when I put it in a let it sit for just over a week so the strawberry flavor would be present.

Has anyone gone through anything similar? Do I have 10 gls of moldy ****ty beer?

 

[jekeane]

Rack off it and see what happens. You may just be smelling the bad strawberries. It is possible to have problems with mold if the fruit is allowed to cap (sit on top of the fermenter) for to long. I would try and avoid jostling the fruit all that much.

 

[icantbejon]

Yeah, I tasted it and it wasn't skunky. I'm hoping that it was just the nasty leftover strawberries.