Yet another name that infection

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Ok ok. So I know there's a million of these but seeking someone with sour beers advice. I have/had a nice cream stout waiting for an empty keg which finally got empty yesterday. So today upon opening the fermenter low and behold what do I see but this



Anybody got any clues if this is a known infection or is this mold of some kind I'd rather not ingest. Anybody got and recommendations. As I'm not sure now that I want to put this into my kegging setup.


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[badlee]

I lean,in my non-expert status,towards saying yes you have picked up some form of Brett-ish looking pellicle.
How long was it in the Fv before you discovered the state of it?
If you don not need to do anything with it in a hurry,let it ride a while and then taste it.
It could turn out to be the best bad surprise you have had.
OR I could be mistakn and your wife dumped the vaccum cleaner in your beer for snoring too loud.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

While the wife aspect is certainly possible. The beer has been two months in primary until I discovered it today. I took FG reading about 6weeks ago and it was still ok then.


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[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Do infections in beer stay active at lager yeast temps? I have that beer and an Octoberfest in my chest freezer and subsequently the Oktoberfest lager is showing the same symptoms. Not sure where this infection came from but has already cost me 10gallons of beer so I think it's time to overlyanally clean everything beer related and hope to rid myself of this undesired result. Was really looking forward to both beers and now while they MAY turn out good they're definitely not was I was hoping for.

*edit.
They are currently at 14C temperature.

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[smokinghole]

Did you taste it? That's the first step to identifying what it might be. Straight up mold rarely grows on the surface of beer especially if it had positive CO2. You're safe to taste it as very little (well nothing really) pathogenic will grow in beer, the ethanol prevents pathogenic growth, also the pH is all wrong for something to grow in that will make you sick.

Does it taste sour, or bretty? My eyes aren't great microscopes and without a microscope with gram stains and or differential growth media we can only make educated guesses as to what produced your pellicle via photograph.

 

[mnick12]

I had a few infected clean beer before I started brewing sours, they had the same sort of spotty looking pellicle as yours, if left in a fermenting for a more than a month. Whatever it was it gave an awful medicinal plastic like taste to every beer it tainted. I eventually pinned it down to old plastic equipment ( racking cane, hoses, etc), and have not had a problem since.

I would say do as other suggested and give it a taste. Another thing just because there is a pelliclle doesn't means its brett, there are plenty of oxidative yeasts that form films- Just something to keep in mind.

 

[smokinghole]

Yes ^^^. There are yeasts such as candida and others that can survive in a beer and cause off flavors. Plus there are just wild type saccharomyces that can behave less than desired as well.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

It tastes like a cream stout that had something off. Not vinegar or bandaid it's not tart or very sour in sour patch kid sense. I'm not really sure how to describe it. I've never really had any sours that I can recall to relate taste with. It just tastes like the cream stout with something in the background I can't put my finger on. It doesn't taste bad just not what I wanted it to be.


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[GilSwillBasementBrews]

And yes I believe I've narrowed the culprit down to the autosiphon as I discovered a small split in the outer sleeve and believe that is where I got my infection from.


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[Homercidal]

I just wanted to congratulate you on posting some amazingly sharp and clear pictures of your fermentation. You rarely see that level of quality in an "Is My Beer Ruined?" thread.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Yes I've read quite a few myself and wanted to provide as much detail as possible since as pointed out earlier nobody else can smell or taste it so I figured at least I can provide a nice close up. Surprisingly took then with my iPhone camera!!!


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[badlee]

Well then, I reckon take another reading to see if there is something chewing away at the residual sugars.
And,if it is not "bad" and as you say,just not what you are looking for,let it dit a while and keep us in the loop as to how it shapes up.
As to the question of Brett at 14c, yes it will be active,just quite slow.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

I did and it is chewing through residual sugars. Gravity was 1.012 and last check was now down to 1.008. Going to let it ride a while longer and see where it ends up.


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