What is the white foam on top of my wort?

[Finlandbrews]

I made my wort on Monday evening and let it cooled overnight then I transfered my wort into my fermenter Tuesday morning and put my airlock filled with a sanitizer/water solution. I suddenly got a big emergency that I couldnt pitch my yeast and I had to leave the place where I brewed that wort. Today I returned (about 100 hours later after my wort is in the fermenter) and had a look at my fermentation chamber where I have set 16 degrees celsius as my temp and I saw a 1/5 of an inch of a white pillow foam... Is it an infection? What is it?

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[Konadog]

Looks like it's already starting to ferment, wild yeast?

 

[Rockn_M]

If you didn't add any yeast looks like your getting wild yeast fermentation. I'd let it finish and see what you end up with. Might end up pretty good.

 

[Toga]

mouse jizzz.....


In all seriousness that is yeast! let it roll


On second thought add your yeast.

 

[MaxStout]

That might just be bubbles from outgassing, and the proteins in the wort made it look foamy. The wort probably picked up some air during the transfer to the fermenter. Pitch your yeast as you planned and see what happens. Don't give up on it yet.

 

[JimmyC-BYOB]

Looks like someone did clean their fermentor very well. Kidding.

Something is enjoying your wort. Could be a number of things. rockn_M and Toga are both right. Its's up to you. Either way, this batch is an unknown.
Couple of things, if you let it play out it will take longer than normal as your yeast are propagating from a much lower number. Second, even if you pitch you have a different flavor profile going on. It may be something special. Save some of the yeast at the end of fermentation just in case. I had that happen once and I was never able to recreate the flavor profile again.

 

[day_trippr]

That might just be bubbles from outgassing, and the proteins in the wort made it look foamy. The wort probably picked up some air during the transfer to the fermenter. Pitch your yeast as you planned and see what happens. Don't give up on it yet.

4 days later?
"I don't think so, Tim"

That batch has bugs...

Cheees!

 

[Finlandbrews]

That might just be bubbles from outgassing, and the proteins in the wort made it look foamy. The wort probably picked up some air during the transfer to the fermenter. Pitch your yeast as you planned and see what happens. Don't give up on it yet.

Let's see what will come out after the fermentation. Of course wild yeast or infection was my concern but good to know it could be something else. By the way I cleaned and sanitized well everything so there should not be any problem regarding that. I pitched US 05 yesterday. I stay positive.

 

[m00ps]

Its the devil taking possession of your wort. Because you touch yourself at night

 

[m00ps]

But seriously, there definitely is some sort of wild yeast, or bacteria, fermenting your beer. Go ahead and pitch your planned breweres(sacch) yeast, to help it attenuate since in my experience, not many wild yeasts/bacteria are capable of fully fermenting a beer

You need ot take a taste of it in 3-4 weeks. You should be able to tell if its starting to sour or has the wild brettanomyces character or not. If it does (and doesnt taste awful, in which case dump it), it will need several months to fully ferment

 

[BrewinBromanite]

Repeat to yourself: pitch yeast then put on the airlock...

[emoji238]. Hope for the best!

 

[Nico93]

i don't think there is much probability that is something else that wild yeast... you can sanitized everything but you "can't" sterilize, so wild yeast are always present in your wort but pitching a big ammount of brewer yeast, they are overwhelmed by brewer yeast.
so if you don't pitch brewer yeast they slowly start to eat you wort.
the next time you aren't able to pitch yeast you may prefer to took your wort near 32F in order to slow down wild yeast activity

 

[Finlandbrews]

i don't think there is much probability that is something else that wild yeast... you can sanitized everything but you "can't" sterilize, so wild yeast are always present in your wort but pitching a big ammount of brewer yeast, they are overwhelmed by brewer yeast.
so if you don't pitch brewer yeast they slowly start to eat you wort.
the next time you aren't able to pitch yeast you may prefer to took your wort near 32F in order to slow down wild yeast activity

Good point with puting the whole thing in 32F, I should have done that. But on the other hand why wouldn't the wild yeast do something good...

Btw, would the pitching rate of brewers yeast need to be higher to compensate/take over the wild yeast?

 

[Nico93]

yeah, wild yeast may do something good!
now i don't really know if a big pitch of brewer yeast can change something, i think that is to late, wild yeast had already started to propagate/ferment your wort....