Suspicious stuff in the krausen line, can anyone identify this?

[jookos]

Hi,

I'm wondering whether anyone is able to identify what is wrong in this picture, and what sort of outcome I should expect (from lethal or funky to most likely ok).

I'm brewing what was supposed to be an APA (but due to the excessive use of carafa III is turning out as something else..) for which I reused a starter of wyeast's american ale [basically kept some of it after pitcihng, and added fresh wort.. let it grow and pitched]. After a week or so, gravity had dropped from 1.053 to an astonishing 1.007, with a thinnish krausen still present. The krausen had a muddy consistency (not soapy-foamy at all), so you actually had to punch a hole in it ('break' through it) to draw a sample. It didn't look moldy or anything, so I wasn't worried even though the attentuation is quite extreme for this strain.

After another week I was ready to dry hop, and was greeted by what you see in the pic. The beer itself doesn't have anything floating in it, but the krausen line looks very suspicious. The beer itself didn't have any obvious off-flavors, although beer at this point usually doesn't taste that fresh or nice anyway, so it's hard to tell.

Has anyone come across this before, and how did the batch turn out? I would guess that it is mold, but as there's nothing floating around in the beer itself, and there's that black lining, I'm wondering whether this could be something more sinister.

Thanks for any help / suggestions you can give!

 

[discooby]

Umm… are you fermenting in your kettle? Not that it matters but are you fermenting it in your kettle without a lid?

From what you are describing, is it fat? I mean, did you fry a turkey in the pot, leave some oil in it and then… ferment in it?

 

[homebeerbrewer]

I'm guessing it's a conical fermenter. I'm also guessing that your beer will be fine, but the only way to know for sure is to bottle it, and send it all to me for analysis and/or disposal. ;-)

 

[Darwin18]

It's hard to tell from the picture. It almost looks like mold, but again, hard to tell from the image. Taste your beer. If it tastes okay, then you're fine.

 

[dragonbreath11]

Sanitize a spoon or your finger and taste it. If it doesn't smell/taste like mold or vinegar but like yeast most likely its fine.

 

[dlm3]

From what you've said, you're at almost 87% apparent attenuation, which is quite high. Unless you added a very large amount of corn sugar or the like to the wort, I would guess that you've got some sort of wild yeast and/or infection moving things along. That said, I'd still proceed and see what the end results are like. They say nothing that can grow in beer can kill you. (Disclaimer: My only basis for this claim is that I am still alive.)

 

[bierhaus15]

Looks like a the beginnings of a lacto or some other infection. The oily slick on the surface is indicative of something wrong. When you take a sample or disturb the surface, does it break up into little pieces?

 

[jookos]

Ok, thanks for all your comments! I decided to give it a chance and transferred it to a new tank (afaik no turkey fat in that one either , with a bunch of pellets for dry hopping. After chilling a sample, it actually didn't taste bad at all (no sourness, vinegar or mold; just hoppy bitter and yeast), so at least at this point the bad stuff doesn't seem to have taken over it completely.

The oily slick (which I hadn't really paid any attention to) behaved pretty much like a very thin grease or oil slick, having some surface tension that kept it coherent and through which you could puncture a hole (but it didn't break up in pieces though.. that much at least). I guess that's what made the krausen so strange. I'll give it some time and see how it develops. Now with the dryhopping, I guess mold or whatever will be more visible as it has solids floating around to grow on.

The attenuation does almost guarantee (?) that there's something else besides wyeast in there (the bill was barley/wheat grains only, with some caramel even). The fermentation temperature was quite low; starting at 15-16C (59-61F), then slowly raised to ~19C (66F) after the first few days. But I would assume that that would only decrease the attenuation, if anything.

 

[uncleben113]

This looks like what happened to one of my batches. I figured it was mold but I also had that oily later on top and some waxy looking globs on top too. I scraped it out, bottled it and it was absolutely delicious for about a month. After that it turned into super carbonated bandaid beer.

So if this is the same thing that I had, drink it fast. But if you're anything like myself, that won't be an issue

Cheers and good luck!

Edit: the globs were a cloudy gel-like substance, not waxy

 

[pabloj13]

From what you've said, you're at almost 87% apparent attenuation, which is quite high. Unless you added a very large amount of corn sugar or the like to the wort, I would guess that you've got some sort of wild yeast and/or infection moving things along. That said, I'd still proceed and see what the end results are like. They say nothing that can grow in beer can kill you. (Disclaimer: My only basis for this claim is that I am still alive.)

That's not out of the ordinary for 1056 though.

 

[jookos]

Just an update for anyone who might run into this thread: the beer turned out fine, although following uncleben's advise (and my thirst), I did drink it within a month or so.

I'm assuming it was a lacto infection that was mild enough no to ruin the beer. The starter was probably the source - I had saved some of it, and it was showing the same signs. Feeling gutsy, I brewed a small batch using it. It, however, turned out super sour, like hop-flavored vinegar.

 

[bigbeergeek]

Thanks for the update

 

[pcollins]

Just an update for anyone who might run into this thread: the beer turned out fine, although following uncleben's advise (and my thirst), I did drink it within a month or so.

I'm assuming it was a lacto infection that was mild enough no to ruin the beer. The starter was probably the source - I had saved some of it, and it was showing the same signs. Feeling gutsy, I brewed a small batch using it. It, however, turned out super sour, like hop-flavored vinegar.

Thanks for this little addendum. So many threads like this don't get "finished up" but this is perfect extra information.