BeerBorg

Sad day here today. I was gettin ready to bottle my "Full Sail Ale"w/ Nelson Sauvin hops.When I took the lid off to look inside,I was greeted with patches of whitish gray chalky like SH*T all over the top of the beer. !@#$%^&*(. I had used my Old Yeller fermenter,An old yellow LBK with an airlock. The lid gasket had warped from use or age,so I did not use it.I had the lid tightened as well as I could,but I'm assuming a bug got in somehow,or maybe my sanitation procedures need upgraded. Dump another one. Earlier this year I brewed the Diablo IPA ,and dry-hopped it.I sanitized the hop bag,but when I opened the lid at bottling time the hopsack had swollen up and mold was growing in patches on the brew. Also I lost a Mr. Beer Hard cider batch due to Mold growing on the brew.It's kinda disheartening to have to keep dumping these batches. Oh well,just gonna maybe be more carefull with my sanitation.

Three strikes your out!!!
Sorry to her of all the batches... Sanitation is the most important. Without it, everything else doesn't matter.
How are you sanitizing, what are you using, what is the proceedure? With some details, we can help you through this.

I only use a 6.5 gal pail, I wash and rinse well, spray Star San completly coving the inside AND the rim, the lid and the gasket area. I cover, let sit, shake, and then put away... when I go to use it, I dump it, spray again, let it sit, shake, sit, dump and use...

I've suffered the pain and embarrassment of infected beer as well. In the end I threw out my plastic auto-siphon, bottling wand and LBK. Replacing them was cheaper than replacing batches of beer. I have had one bad batch since, in a newer ale pail, which I managed to disinfect.

I would at least taste the beer before I threw it out. No matter what "nasties" may be growing in it they can't be harmful to you as the alcohol in the beer would keep those nasties away. I have white "crap" floating at the top of my beer at bottling time too. It's just some trub that decided to come up for some air I think. Nothing harmful to you or the beer. Could be the same thing with what may have appeared to be mold on your hop sack. The hop sack sinks and raises during the fermentation period and as it comes up off the bottom it brings some of the trub up with it. It looks nasty but it's really a beautiful thing.

Next time, before you dump you batch, give it a taste. If it tastes disgusting (the worst thing that could happen) then toss it. But if it tastes like flat beer then you're golden and you should bottle it.

RandyG wrote:When I took the lid off to look inside,I was greeted with patches of whitish gray chalky like SH*T all over the top of the beer. !@#$%^&*(.

This alone does not mean that you need to dump it, taste is the only way. I have a sour going right now that has grey SH*T rafts all over the top of it and it's starting taste great.

If you haven't dumped it yet, taste it. If it's vinegar then dump it or have a fish fry. If it just has some sour taste to it set it aside for awhile and see what comes of it. If you keep it I would put plastic wrap under the lid to help keep oxygen out.

Sorry for the loss or happy for your sour.

When I sanitize, I use "One step" provided in all Mr. Beer kits. I fill the LBK, or my B/D fermenter 1/4 full with a mix of the sanitizer and water. I usually let it sit for 5 or so minutes.Then I shake the heck out of it and swirl the mix all around the inside,and run some through the spigot into another container where the airlock pieces,spoon,lid,gasket etc. are. I then put the lid back together and assemble the airlock before I add the 1st gallon of water to the fermenter. Then I close it up until I pour the wort into it. Then I top it off with bottled water from the supermarket. Maybe I just freaked out at the sight of the goop residing on my beautiful creations. I did not dump this Full Sail Ale yet,and when I looked inside the aroma was amazingly delicious,so tomorrow,I'll taste it and determine whether it's a keeper or not. Thank you all for your prompt answers.They make me feel much better. I know when I come here I get good advice.

Sounds like good sanitation, just make sure everything is clean first.

Something that Chuck brought up. Left over krausen, floating trub, hop sack particles, can look different batch to batch and is not an indication that it's infected.
I wish long ago I'd started a "Sh*t floating in my beer picture documentary".

Might just be yeast islands too...

In the Hop Sack Incident, the hop sack had swollen up badly and the patches of floaties had mold,like grows on bread on them. I didn't think I needed a shot of penicillin so I dumped it. Same on the cider. Breadlike mold with those green fuzzies.Don't know where they came from,but I was pissed.From now on,I'll sample it before Deep- Sixing it.

You don't need to just dump it because of visual anomalies. Nothing that can harm you will survive fermentation and live in the beer. Anything that can survive in the PH/Alcohols levels of beer is not harmful to humans.

So the rule is/should always be "taste it" and unless it tastes like vomit or garbage then bottle it and see what happens.

Patches of grey/white on top of the beer can very well just be yeast islands as someone said. Mold generally does not like the environment of beer. A lot of what people think is mold growing in their beer is not mold at all. If it can grow anywhere it is likely only on the surface and usually on something on the surface that isn't actually beer, IE floating yeast islands or hop bits or the top of your hop sack if you didn't weigh it down. Even if it's there is won't cause the beer to make you sick, and even if a spore got into the bottle, it won't survive anyways. The environment is "not right" for it.

If our ancestors threw out every batch of beer that looked funky, they would all have been sad pandas who got sick from water born illnesses that they would not have gotten from the beer no matter what it looked like. They fermented stuff - beer, wine, cheese, meat - everything - precisely because it was safer to eat/drink afterwards.

Must be the season as have last year's MrB summer seasonal that I thought would be ready to bottle. Got some funk going on but smells okay. Seeing as my kegerator wont be ready to use due to lack of CO2, I at least have some space now to do a cold crash on it and see if the funkies settle. Figures my first potentially nasty batch came from an easy, 20 minute canned HME where 15 minutes of the 20 was spent on the santizing....

What you describe sounds a little like pellicle. I've had a couple of batches with pellicle, and they turned out to be just fine.

Never -- NEVER!!! -- dump a batch without tasting it first. If it's infected, you'll know right away, and after you spit out your mouthful and brush your teeth five or six times, you can be forgiven for dumping an infected batch.

Even so, take heart. Most, if not all of us have had batches that just didn't work out, and I'm a member in good standing of that particular club.

Cleaning, sanitizing, and maintaining good equipment is key. Even so, we sometimes get a little lackadaisical, especially with the routine stuff. All it takes is a wonky batch to make us realize that each batch of beer we brew must be approached as an individual and unique entity. "Business as usual" may work for some things, but not for brewing beer.

Look at it as a lesson learned, and a step toward becoming an even better brewer.

Thank you Senor Sombrero, and to all of you other Super Brewers.You have calmed my nerves with all of your positive posts. You kept and old man from running screaming on a long run off a short pier. I will not dump another batch before tasting it. I didn't think it was a sanitation problem,although it may very well have been,but I do my best to keep things clean. I'm going to bottle 2 batches tomorrow,one of which is the batch in question.I hope it tastes ok b/c it has Nelson Sauvin hops in it,and I like those hops.Wish me luck......I'll let you all know how it turns out.Thanx again.

Randy, I get 3-4 brett C infections ever summer, and although I brew crazy things sanitation is not something I mess with. The thing about some types of beer infecting bugs like my Brett is that they float in the air and fall into things. Thing like your fermenter and/or pot when the lid is off and you are racking for example. So no matter how paranoid I am, there isn't really much I can do to avoid them. I would have to replace my houses duct work, AC, etc. to get rid of the Brett in my air.

So... I just decided to acquire a taste for Brett C beer and roll with it. You just learn to ignore the weird looking stuff with a hairy eyeball looking back at you from inside the fermenter, and bottle from under it.

I had lacto bacillus infect a wheat beer once. the fermenter had huge filmy grey snot bubbles. after conditioning it tasted like wheat beer mixed with yogurt. rather than dump it I added packs of orange powder and made it drinkable. the only time I would toss a batch is if it tasted and/or smelled like feces. I am not a fan of e coli.