Not your typical infection thread...

Long story short, I have a 5 gallon batch of wort that I basically forgot about for the past 7-8 months. No Yeast Was Ever Pitched. Don't ask why. Stumbled upon it today and I found this....

My intuition tells me to just rack as much as I can into another carboy, check the gravity to see if there are any sugars left to ferment and pitch some yeast if so.

I'm not about to taste or smell it since there hasn't been any fermentation to my knowledge and unidentified green 'mold' is a little scary.

EDIT: I just checked and I did notice that there seems to be a layer of trub in the bottom of the carboy. Would have to be from natural fermentation.

How in the devil do you forget five gallons of wort for eight months???



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Looks like it's reachin' for the cap.....

dump! why even take a chance? sounds like you left it in a sealed container meaning it had limited exposure to airborne wild yeasts but would have been a good environment for bacteria to multiply. I think its possible to get a botulism infection which can make you really sick. .

Haha. I have other hobbies that keep me pretty busy. It's easy to forget when tossed in a corner then surrounded by equipment that I haven't even looked at until today.

Without the alcohol the yeast creates, which keeps out most bacteria, this could be all kinds of bad.

I would rate it not safe.

meh. It might be fun to try. Trub will happen regardless as the break material that you missed in transferral would have fallen out of suspension. It is probably a sour now and may be good. I would rack from under the muppet hair mold and take a tiny taste to see what it is like. If it is still sweet, go ahead and pitch yeast, if it is beery and good go ahead and add a little yeast, package and drink fast. If it tastes like the dark side of a 8 month old mammoth corpse that not even maggots would touch, dump it. I think it is mold spores that are bad for you and they tend to be airborne if you disturb the mold. I wouldnt think it would kill you or make you sick, but I am not in any way a doctor or mold scientist.

Whatever you decide, Clean the heck out of anything that touches this or replace it to prevent re'infection'.

Edit: I have eaten bread with green moldy spots on it before and still live. If I am still a normal human being, I am not sure but most molds wont kill you.

I take it that 'muppet hair mold' isn't a technical term.

Does anyone have any input as to what exactly the growth may be?