Dump it?

[bobrap]

Tried doing an AG British bitter. Went to transfer to secondary and this is what I saw:

For some reason my phone wanted to do brown . Any ideas if it's not any good from the pix? Thanks

 

[Yooper]

It's definitely infected, and will get worse with time. If it's drinkable now, you can bottle it and drink it before it gets bad. It could be lactobacillus, but it's hard to guess a microbe from a photo.

Just keep an eye out for bottle bombs, because the bacteria will continue to ferment the beer after bottling, so drink them quick.

 

[RPh_Guy]

The film is called a pellicle.
A pellicle indicates that wild yeast and/or bacteria are present, and also oxygen.
We don't know what wild organism(s) may be present. It's probably not Lactobacillus since that rarely forms a pellicle.

The beer is not dangerous to drink.

If it smells & tested fine, I recommend packaging.
Skip the secondary vessel, for this and every other beer.
Clean your equipment thoroughly.

+1 Monitor for over-carbonation. Drink fast and/or refrigerate if it starts to over-carbonate.

 

[z-bob]

I bottled one like that a couple of months ago -- also an English Bitter. Mine actually looked worse than that; I left it alone for a few extra weeks before I bottled it to make sure it was done, then put it all up in plastic bottles. It turned out just fine. (don't think I have any left) I use those bottles for cider now JIC they are contaminated.

 

[davidabcd]

You people are far braver/smarter than I am.

I'm going to Rorschach test that image:
1. I see a dog's head right in the middle with the muzzle, slightly brown, facing left.
2. Looks like an ice flow.

 

[bobrap]

My plan was to keg it. So, taste, keg and hope for the best?

 

[mongoose33]

Friend of mine recently brewed a sour cherry wheat. Had it a month ago at his house, and it was delicious. I'm not a big wheat fan, but the cherry melded with it pretty well and created a beer of which I'd have had another.

We met for LHBC on Wednesday. He brought a growler he'd filled a couple weeks ago. When he opened it, GEYSER!

I had a taste and it was clearly infected. Very thin, almost no flavor of either the wheat or the cherries. A dumper.

It was my theory that the growler wasn't cleaned properly and that's what caused the infection. Unfortunately, he checked the keg it came from, and it's infected too. A dumper. So much for my theory.

So--when people say drink it fast, yes. And figure out where your cleaning or sanitizing or controlling outside infection agents is failing.

 

[IslandLizard]

My plan was to keg it. So, taste, keg and hope for the best?

Just dismantle and clean everything really well before reuse. Especially the rubber o-rings, dip tubes, PRV, etc. Soak the small parts in a pot with some boiling hot PBW. Use brushes and PBW or BKF inside the dip tubes. Then push hot PBW through the liquid tube.

Then rinse well and sanitize thoroughly.