What does wild yeast taste like?

[Psylocide]

It sounds as if an infection is probable (from your description of a film and bubbles, but could just be yeast rafts, post a pic), however... I'll add that my water absolutely sucks for lightly hopped pale beers.

My first couple blonde ales tasted, not right. Adjusted my water for a cream ale and made all the difference in the world. Before I was getting an overly grainy taste... almost like hay or straight husks.

Tweaked some things in Bru'n water and really turned it around.

 

[pdog44450]

Floating film with bubbles doesn't sound very good, that would be a fitting description for a pellicle. Can you take a picture of it?

Also, I've never heard of adding sugar to yeast prior to pitching. Rehydration is really all that is needed when using dry yeast (and even that isn't strictly necessary). All that sugar is going to do is shock the yeast.

The film is kind of hard to see in the photo. You can see around the edges of the bucket there is a lighter color: the film does not reach the outside. There are a ton of floating particles that I've never seen post fermentation so heavily, especially since I cold crashed.

Adding sugar to "prime" the yeast is shown in Palmer's book http://howtobrew.com/book/section-1/yeast/preparing-yeast-and-yeast-starters

 

[pdog44450]

It sounds as if an infection is probable (from your description of a film and bubbles, but could just be yeast rafts, post a pic), however... I'll add that my water absolutely sucks for lightly hopped pale beers.

My first couple blonde ales tasted, not right. Adjusted my water for a cream ale and made all the difference in the world. Before I was getting an overly grainy taste... almost like hay or straight husks.

Tweaked some things in Bru'n water and really turned it around.

I've seen yeast rafts before but this just seems different to me. I tweaked my water in Bru'n. I can post the before and after if you'd like. I believe my mash ph was 5.4-5.5, but I'm currently away from my computer so I'm not positive.

 

[pdog44450]

100F isn't too bad, but higher than what I rehydrate US-05 at. I never go higher than 90F or so. adding boiled sugar water to the yeast, even after 20 minutes, seems to me would still be too warm, bordering on too hot. That could be part of the problem. Pitching after 30 minutes, the yeast hydrate could still be more than 10 degrees above the temp of the wort, shocking the yeast & possibly powering their sheer numbers.

I cover and cool the sugar water in the freezer immediately after boiling, then by the time that is cooled the rehydrated yeast has been cooled significantly. I pitch when the sugar water and yeast are the same temp. By the time I mix in the sugar water and wait, the rehydrated yeast and wort are about equal in temperature. I make sure not to have + or - 5 degree difference between wort and yeast before I pitch.

 

[pdog44450]

Here's a closer up pic for everyone

 

[unionrdr]

Looks like something may just barely be getting started.

 

[pdog44450]

So can I assume that it's just a coincidence that something went wrong with both my pale ales and that it's not me sucking at brewing?

The buckets were stacked in the store I bought them in so maybe they got microscratches? It was the first time I had ever used this bucket too so this seems like the obvious suspect.

But then that gets me thinking, how can a HBS ergonomically get shipped buckets without having them stacked? It seems like they'd almost have to. Unstacked buckets would take up a lot of space.

 

[johngault007]

Unless mother nature hates your pale ales, it has to be something within the process. I recommend you take a recap of all of the suggestions and systematically make changes according to them. It may take a couple batches or more. I've never had issues with buckets stacked at the LHBS or my house, so I doubt you would have that kind of bad luck on two batches of a specific style.