Signs of trouble?

[AndrewK79]

Very new to homebrewing. Haven't even produced anything drinkable, yet, but I've already started a few batches.

I went to move my latest batch from the primary to the secondary fermenter after letting it go for about 10 days and saw this floating on the top.

This batch was made with some leftovers from my previous batch (an oatmeal stout). I don't recall seeing anything like that with the oatmeal stout, though. I kept the grains mostly the same, but threw in a bunch of brown sugar with the other leftover fermentables (rookie mistake?).

Just looking to see if anyone can tell me if this is normal, possibly something with the ingredients, or a sign of possible infection.

Appreciate any insight anyone may have.

 

[seph]

Did you taste it?

It looks like beer to me.

 

[PLOVE]

Looks fine. You might consider a better vaurlof during wort collection, but otherwise just looks like trub and yeast. It's also not unusual for yeast to be floating on top of your beer after fermentation has been completed. This is one of the reason that folks cold crash. Won't hurt anything, but might make for a cloudy pour until things settle down.

Adding Brownsuga is fine. Not sure how much flavor you'll get pre vs. post fermentation, but certainly isn't a problem.

How'd it taste?
P

 

[flars]

Looks like krausen that hasn't fallen. Just a suggestion since you are just starting out. Don't open the fermentor for two weeks. Take your first hydrometer reading then. Plan on leaving the beer in the primary for three weeks.
You might be rushing the yeast a little bit.

 

[hunter_le five]

Looks normal to me.

 

[AndrewK79]

Thanks for the quick follow-up. Glad to know everything's normal.

I did give it a taste after I posted. It tasted okay. No off-taste, but it didn't seem like anything spectacular. Guess I'll just keep chugging along and see what comes out.

 

[charliehorse]

A quick point of order: when you start out brewing, if you don't have a firm understanding of what the yeast is doing, seeing the klassen can freak you out. It's ugly and nasty to the inexperienced brewer. Once you've had a few beers made, you'll realize that not only is this completely normal, but the fermentation process is beautiful and one of the reasons that people started settling into permanent dwelling thousands of years ago.

With all of that, if you say to yourself, "OK, I accept that it's Klassen. But where does it come from." Remember that your wort is more than just sugar and water. There are a bunch of proteins in there as well (remember your hot and cold breaks?), not to mention the hulls of the dead yeast cells. When your little friends are chowing down on the sugar, they break it down into alcohol and Carbon Dioxide. That gas causes the proteins and dead yeast cells to foam up. Once it's settled down, all that stuff settles to the bottom. We call that trub.

In the immortal words of Charlie P. -- Relax. don't worry. Have a Home Brew.