Is this beer infected?

So yesterday I made 5 gallons of very high gravity beer. I pitched the yeast and put it all in the cooler to ferment at around 65 degrees. This morning, nothing. I just got home from work and checked on my brew and found what looks to be a large culture of mold growing on the top…Here’s a link to a snapshot I took wtih my phone: http://s1095.photobucket.com/albums/i47 … t=brew.jpg

Is this an infection? I will admit I wasn’t paranoid about sanitation, but I was pretty careful about sanitation. HELP!!!

Its a little hard to tell from the picture, but looks like hop particles to me. Did you use pellet hops? They can rise to the surface as fermentation kicks off. RDWHAHB.

Oh, and you say very high gravity. How high? How much yeast did you pitch? Did you make a starter? The slow start could be a sign of not enough yeast. Its nothing to panic over though. Good job on temp of 65 though.

Umm… Well, before I added some freshly boiled water, the gravity was about 1.120, then I added about a gallon and a half of boiled water (I’d forgotten to add any irish moss so I boiled about a 1.5 teaspoons of that and added it.)

I’m using an American Ale yeast and I did make a starter that I stepped up. I’m more concerned about what looks like clouds of mold sitting on top… I know it’s a bit hard to see… have to see if I can get a better pic with my camera.

Umm… Well, before I added some freshly boiled water, the gravity was about 1.120, then I added about a gallon and a half of boiled water (I’d forgotten to add any irish moss so I boiled about a 1.5 teaspoons of that and added it.)

I’m using an American Ale yeast and I did make a starter that I stepped up. I’m more concerned about what looks like clouds of mold sitting on top… I know it’s a bit hard to see… have to see if I can get a better pic with my camera.

Here’s another snapshot, which shows what looks like mold: http://s1095.photobucket.com/albums/i47 … 121920.jpg

Disregard… I panicked. It appears to be just foam with maybe Irish moss particles or other stuff floating on top. It’s chugging away quite nicely… I’ve got a blowoff hose going to a pitcher of water and every few seconds I hear a “burp” of CO2 escaping from the blowoff tube into the water.