Brett Pellicle, I think...

[Brewskey]

I brewed a 1.051 OG brown porter back on 12/15/13 and fermented with S-04. Almost a month later(1/12/14) I checked the gravity and it was sitting at 1.021, BeerSmith estimated FG to be 1.014 so I gave it a swirl and moved it somewhere a little warmer. Checked gravity again on 1/23, it had only dropped 3 points to 1.018 and had the powdery looking bubbles that I assume are a pellicle.

Well, I went ahead and bottled it 6 days ago and there is a definite film on the surface of the bottled beers. I'm worried about bottle bombs so I'm going to crack one today to see how its coming along. Am I worrying too much? BTW, the sample on bottling day tasted really great and had no noticeable off flavors.

This is my first infection that I am aware of in 25+ batches. I guess its time to remove that old plastic bucket from my fermenter rotation!

 

[blizzard]

It is hard to tell from that photo, but I'm not convinced that is an infection. More likely it is just yeast rafts. Do you have any shots of the film in the bottles?

 

[Brewskey]

Thanks for the reply. What led me to believe that it is infection is the way the large bubble in the bottom right quarter of the picture, and other areas, have a powdery look to them. But, like you said this is a poor quality iPhone picture...

I'll try and see if I can get what is going on in the bottles to show up in a picture and post it here.

 

[blizzard]

After thinking on this more, 1.018 is a tad high to bottle, even without Brett. I think the best action now is to let it carbonate and pop bottles regularly to see when you get the level of carbonation that you want. Then, stick all the bottles in the fridge and try to consume quickly. Getting a new bucket is cheap insurance, but if it is an infection it could be from any of your fermenting or racking equipment.