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Pretty sure its fine. Just want to make sure. Looks like fermebtation started back up again after i racked my wheat beer on to 2 lbs of raspberry puree. Never saw bubbles like this before. Never made a fruit beer before either so Just wanting to make sure.

image-4171519158.jpg
 
Did the bubbles continue to expand/evolve like that? If so, probably a Brett infection as SunyJim suggests. If just 1 big splash of those bubbles & now it's settled down, it could be a contained fermentation bomb when the yeast went to town with the raspberry sugars. (If you didn't use a blowoff tube and your airlock wasn't tight you could've had a foam geyser.)
 
OK, I can't post a pic 'cuz it's in the keg. I've got a Saison I brewed 6/23 & kegged 7/7. I took it to a beer event 3 days later (7/10) so I both force-carb'd & natural carb'd. The Saison has been tasty & on tap on-and-off since then. It's so carbonated in the keg I haven't had it on the CO2 lines for a month & it's still mostly pushing foam.

Last weekend it suddenly developed a metalic taste (I also get a bit of phenol band-aids). I keep drawing a glass & seems OK, then off, then OK, then ...

Thoughts?
 
ValhallaBrewer said:
Did the bubbles continue to expand/evolve like that? If so, probably a Brett infection as SunyJim suggests. If just 1 big splash of those bubbles & now it's settled down, it could be a contained fermentation bomb when the yeast went to town with the raspberry sugars. (If you didn't use a blowoff tube and your airlock wasn't tight you could've had a foam geyser.)
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are you responding to my post or about the Ocktoberfest? if mine there was never any real vigorous reactivity in fermentation. some slight bubbling of airlock but that is about it. after seeing the small bubbles i decided to swirl it a little and the bubbles did dissipate slightly. will check on it in the next few hours to see if the bubbles re form in the same way.
 
Is this Brett?? please tell me I am wrong! Because I don't know what i did wrong. I opened the fermenter only once in three weeks and when I went bottling today I found this. The beer is a saison fermented with "Belle Saison" yeast and it smells and tastes great. I bottled it anyway. Should I replace the bucket?

20130828_102404.jpg
 
fab80 said:
Is this Brett?? please tell me I am wrong! Because I don't know what i did wrong. I opened the fermenter only once in three weeks and when I went bottling today I found this. The beer is a saison fermented with "Belle Saison" yeast and it smells and tastes great. I bottled it anyway. Should I replace the bucket?
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Pretty sure you're all set man. Just some yeast rafts and bubbles chilling on the top of your brew. Looks and sounds good. Wait a couple weeks from today and enjoy.
 
fab80 said:
Is this Brett?? please tell me I am wrong! Because I don't know what i did wrong. I opened the fermenter only once in three weeks and when I went bottling today I found this. The beer is a saison fermented with "Belle Saison" yeast and it smells and tastes great. I bottled it anyway. Should I replace the bucket?
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I have to agree, no problem at all that I can see.

Don't forget those that have posted other pictures, brettanomyces, is not a disease. It is not some abomination that makes you need to throw out your gear, it is just wild yeast, yeasts like any other, just not the one you are after right now. Unlike a lot of other yeasts it eats the sugar that Brewers yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae leaves behind. So unless you are trying to make a Belgium Lambic, or some other sour beer you just need to keep everything covered, and clean enough that your brewers yeast grows and others don't take over.
Wild yeast like brettanomyces live on fruit, they blow live in the air, certainly more during harvest season with ripe fruit more than winter.
And as the lab guy from Wyeast about Brettanomyces... it can be cleaned as easily as any yeast, with a good cleaning, a soak in an oxyclean solution, and a spray down with a sanitizer like Starsan or iodophor which is just a normal cleaning for us experienced brewers.
Don't let people tell you that you can't use plastic, everyone in the world except for glass carboy obsessed North America uses plastic fermenters to make beer.
 
SunyJim said:
Brettanomyces Lambicus, starts like the meshy white spider web and develops into the puffy bubbles like this

It is quite slow to affect flavour, 3-6 months will add a 'cherry pie' flavour, haven't tasted it but that's the story anyways. Compare here
http://mash-lauter.blogspot.ca/
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That's exactly what happened to my Caribou Slobber (posted a few pages back with the initial pellical). It's still sitting in the secondary. I've checked on it about once a week and while it looks funky the smell is fine. If I taste it and it seems fine, do you think I'd be ok to bottle and drink it fairly quickly?
 
Mabus said:
That's exactly what happened to my Caribou Slobber (posted a few pages back with the initial pellical). It's still sitting in the secondary. I've checked on it about once a week and while it looks funky the smell is fine. If I taste it and it seems fine, do you think I'd be ok to bottle and drink it fairly quickly?
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I have a friend doing just that with an Oktoberfest, it was bottled out from under the Brett L, 2 weeks in bottles to carb, and he's drinking them. Said they taste fine. I suggested not letting them sit in bottles there is a good potential of bottle bombs as the Brett continues to eat other sugar remaining in the beer other than the priming sugar. Regardless it's not poison, just a different yeast and not harmful, so try and maybe yours will stay drinkable too.
 
CidCitrus said:
My first infection after about 50 batches. It's a hefeweizen so I think I'll ride it out. unfortunately it was a beer slated for my wedding with two batches after it on the same equipment so I hope it happened during transfer. Any idea what it is? Still smells like bananas.
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I would say this is BRETTANOMYCES LAMBICUS as well, probably started like the spider web like infections on here, a wavey patterned skin on top of the beer. I'm guessing those huge bubbles developed later, and by now because your post was close to a month ago, that you got a lot more of those big bubbles and less of the wavey skin look. 3-6 months from now it should be done, they say it's cherry pie flavour.
Having said that if you are ok with a sour beer, you may want to intentionally infect it with lactobaccillus which actually is the more sour flavour bacteria used to make lambics and things like actual sauerkraut and sour dough bread. That would complete it's transition to the dark side, and to an actual sour beer.
 
KCBigDog said:
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h416/GreatKazou/BlueberryWheat25AUG13.jpg

My first infection in 3 years of brewing. It was a standard american wheat with frozen blueberries added when I transferred to secondary. Brand new bucket, and my sanitation is at an OCD level so I assume it came from the frozen blueberries?

Not sure what to do, but might dump the whole thing and throw the bucket.

Thoughts?

If I do siphon it out of the bucket, is the bucket, siphon, and hose trash? What about a keg if I siphon to that?

Update:

I just built up the courage to taste it. I used my thief and pulled some from under the blueberries. It tasted pretty good, with no real sour flavor. My theory is that the bad stuff is on top of the blueberries.

Not sure if I should just keg it or cut my losses and dump the whole batch.

Waiting on thoughts from the experts in this forum.
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Did you completely soak the berries or just set them on top? You have to ensure that all fruits are completely soaked, or they can sour as the normally would outside the beer.

What ever plastic you used on that just go ahead and call it your sour gear, as you stand the chance of it happening again. Go as far to put it all into a container and separate it from your equipment. The keg will need a great scrubbing and cleaning.

Unless you ever end up with mold just ride it out, IMHO. Who knows... you may like the final product.
 
On top of my stout. Last I checked it was down to 1008 where an uninfected batch of this stout stops around 1020.
About three weeks ago it looked like cracked ice.
IMG_7193_zps249ff1d6.jpg

IMG_7195_zps53a55ad5.jpg

Too late to add coffee or some other flavour?
It's normally a very roasty stout, what if anything would you add?
 
JohanMk1 said:
On top of my stout. Last I checked it was down to 1008 where an uninfected batch of this stout stops around 1020.
About three weeks ago it looked like cracked ice.

Too late to add coffee or some other flavour?
It's normally a very roasty stout, what if anything would you add?
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That second pic is wild! Do you know what infection this is?
 
JohanMk1 said:
On top of my stout. Last I checked it was down to 1008 where an uninfected batch of this stout stops around 1020.
About three weeks ago it looked like cracked ice.
IMG_7193_zps249ff1d6.jpg

IMG_7195_zps53a55ad5.jpg

Too late to add coffee or some other flavour?
It's normally a very roasty stout, what if anything would you add?
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wow that is scary looking! :mug:
 
DisturbdChemist said:
Any one know what this is? Its on both my beers with dry yeast (s04 and s05). I never seen this is a liquid yeast plus it seems it wont go away. I hope it just stuck krausen. Any thoughts?
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Sure you didn't get drunk last night, check on your brew, and then puke into it? That looks fookin disgusting! Nice!
 
DisturbdChemist said:
Any one know what this is? Its on both my beers with dry yeast (s04 and s05). I never seen this is a liquid yeast plus it seems it wont go away. I hope it just stuck krausen. Any thoughts?
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That's normal yeast!! Close that bucket.
 
DisturbdChemist said:
Any one know what this is? Its on both my beers with dry yeast (s04 and s05). I never seen this is a liquid yeast plus it seems it wont go away. I hope it just stuck krausen. Any thoughts?

I just had the same thing happen in a porter where I used S-04, jelly-like blobs. I thought twice about tasting out of fear of what people describe as "satan's anus" on my tongue, but it was fine.
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Hard to tell, I'm looking at the right side. The beer was a pumpkin beer and looks a little cloudy from the pumpkin, only shot I could get was down the neck of the better bottle.
What do you guys think?
lunZEDy.jpg


Also if it is an infection, it's still okay to drink as long as it tastes okay, right?
 
Maybe an infection? Only done 8 batches but Havent really seen anything like it ..My last mr beer kit that I got a while back - figured might as well make it...Used US-05 for the first time...Had a decent krausen for 3 days then it dropped, but these guys are still there...they are a weird color, almost kind of milky...

IMG_20130909_211413_978.jpg
 
DArsenault said:
Hard to tell, I'm looking at the right side. The beer was a pumpkin beer and looks a little cloudy from the pumpkin, only shot I could get was down the neck of the better bottle.
What do you guys think?
lunZEDy.jpg


Also if it is an infection, it's still okay to drink as long as it tastes okay, right?
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If it tastes okay, drink it! I also don't really see anything wrong with your beer. If it is an infection, it'll spread around and you'll know for sure pretty soon, but I don't think you have anything to worry about.
 
Not sure if this is an infection or not. Was really hard to get a picture of it through the krausen up top. Its a pale ale. Been in the carboy for 5 days. Hoping it clears up.

ForumRunner_20130914_123524.jpg
 
brewnewb1 said:
Not sure if this is an infection or not. Was really hard to get a picture of it through the krausen up top. Its a pale ale. Been in the carboy for 5 days. Hoping it clears up.
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Looks fine. Give it 5 more days and check your gravity.
 
My American Amber has whitish flakes on the surface at 29 days and has over attenuated with (86.7% AA at 16 days).

The flakes are shown here, but dispersed when I inserted the autosiphon for a sample.

Does this also look infected to everyone else or is this some crazy yeast rafting phenomena?

 
Thanks, kombat. Maybe I was unnecessarily suspicious due to the over attenuation (1.007 instead of expected 1.012) and the intense clovey flavors at two weeks (from a repitch of WLP001!). Re-reading my prior post, it may not be clear so I'll reiterate that the flakey skin did cover the entire surface. Since my earlier post, I have observed the sample does taste slightly sour -- perhaps that is from yeast now in suspension.

Edit: tasting again, I'm convinced something went haywire, I just don't know what. My American amber has resulted in a slightly sour pseudo-Belgian.
 
From your description, it sounds like perhaps your yeast may have been stressed. Can you describe your yeast pitching protocol? Was it dry or liquid yeast? If dry, how did you rehydrate? If liquid, did you do a starter? How much did you pitch? And finally, what temperature did you ferment at?
 
kombat said:
From your description, it sounds like perhaps your yeast may have been stressed. Can you describe your yeast pitching protocol? Was it dry or liquid yeast? If dry, how did you rehydrate? If liquid, did you do a starter? How much did you pitch? And finally, what temperature did you ferment at?
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I think there's a good chance the yeast was stressed, actually. It was liquid (WLP001) and this batch was my first test of a brand new HI 190-M stir plate which locked up multiple times in the first three days. On two of those days, I came home from work to find it just sitting there idle with power -- who knows how long it had been that way. When I pitched, I thought it was probably less yeast than I was used to seeing but went with it anyway. I fermented at 62 but pitched at 68 due to my inability get the tap temp lower for the immersion chiller. I know I probably should have chilled it overnight, but I've not had much issues with a six degree drop for previous batches.

Ultimately, I couldn't get over the clovey flavors and dumped this batch since phenolics reputedly wouldn't dissipate. I've also sent the HI 190-M back and managed to find a Cole-Parmer 4815 in awesome condition for $67 (shipped) on eBay.
 
I had my first infected batch yesterday. I don't think I sanitized my herb infusers (stainless mesh balls about 3" in diameter) that I use for dry hopping well enough. I didn't think to take a picture but I'm certain it was infected. It had a thin skin of white stuff on top of it that I've never seen in a fermenter before. I tasted it and it was awful - nothing at all like beer. I tried to rack from underneath it but the whole thing was tainted. I dumped it.

What should I do with the equipment that touched it? I'm not too worried about the herb balls. I can boil those. What about the plastic bucket? Can I use it for again or should I replace it? What about the autosiphon?
 

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