About 5-6 days ago I bottled a batch of beer and used the fizzy drops for the combination. I happened to inspect a bottle today and at the top of the bottle I can see something. It is hard to discribe but it’s almost like a mucus consistency but I did not open a bottle to get a good look. Could this be mold!? I was very careful and always sterilize everything. I will upload a picture but it’s hard to see from the picture what I’m talking about . Thanks for any and all responses
It is difficult to make out much in the picture. It looks like what you are seeing is beer that has just been mixed up by the yeast which was just given some new sugar to work on. The activity of the yeast may have suspended some of the proteins from the fermentor. The yeast is also floating through the bottle looking like filaments.
Keep your beer at about 70° to 74°F for conditioning. Don’t look at another bottle for at least two weeks. Then you could chill one for a couple days to sample.
What style beer is it? Some wheat beers are more likely to give you some cloudiness and may leave some protein on the bottle.
I agree with flars. Give it some more time and try one. Not much you can do at this point anyway and you will know after opening one.
It is a philian IPA, I think I’m going to open one tonight it’s been a week since bottling day I just have to know what it looks like I’ll post a picture later!
One week is awful early… is this a five gallon batch, or one gallon? If it’s one, I’d highly recommend waiting.
Also, what kind of fizz drops did you use? If it’s the kind in the gel-cap (like a pill), I’ve heard the cap takes a while to fully dissolve. That might be what you’re seeing…
It is a one gallon batch I always thought the time frame for bottling was one to two weeks? I used the solid fizz drops not the gel capsule ones.
Two weeks is minimum, in my experience. Granted, I tend to bottle condition a bit cooler (low to mid sixties), but I’ve never had decent carbonation any sooner than three weeks. And have always been happier with the carbonation a couple of weeks after that. If you do try one early (I totally don’t blame you, curiosity is a pain), you may hear a hiss when you open the cap and see light carbonation… just know that the carbonation will be different further down the line. It’s easier when you have forty or fifty bottles to experiment by opening them early, but with a small batch, I’d hate to see you use up a significant chunk of your experiment too early.