Infection or not

I brewed a breakfast stout on Sunday. I added 2oz of ground coffee and bakers chocolate at flameout. Today I noticed what a pellicle. Could this be from the coffee or is it infected?

Contamination is certainly a possibility. Fortunately, it will most likely take a month or two before the beer starts tasting sour or nasty. So if you drink it up in the next month or so, you’ll most likely not even notice.

That seems awfully fast for a pellicle to develop. What kind of yeast did you pitch? What temp? Has it formed krauesen and shown signs of fermentation?

I used Nottingham yeast. I pitched at 65. It at that temp the whole time. No kaursen

Here’s a picture

That could be a pellicle but looks more like the start of fermentation to me. CO2 bubbling up. By tomorrow morning I bet it’s got a 1/2 inch or more of krauesen on it. Just try to keep the temp stable. I bet your beer is fine.

That looks like a normal fermentation to me. Sometimes the yeast will form a sort of bubbly skin on top. What you don’t want to see is something that looks like talc powder or cottage cheese. But you don’t have anything like that. You’re fine.

Thanks guys. I think it going to be ok. I guess time will tell

Just kegged this the other day. Tasted great so I think I’m good. Now just waiting for it to carb up.

I just brewed a stout with chocolate that had a very small krausen that looked like yours lots of bubbles, after 2 weeks if formed what looked like a thick layer of brown crust on top. I was freaking out but after closely looking at I determined it was a large yeast raft. I even tasted it and compared it to the krausen ring from the side of the bucket. My gravity was stable for over 1 week so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t infected, and it tasted fine.

Chocolate has some oil in it that can reduce the head on your finished beer. I wonder if it can also affect the amount of and look of Krausen?

It might. I’ve had dark beers ferment with no krausen before, looked a little like that picture. It’s weird.