Brewed a wheat beer awhile back, looked and smelled awesome when I racked it to the secondary on some fruit (blackberrys, blueberrys, rasberrys) which had been soaked in vodka for a week. Got a little secondary fermentation and then the top cleared up real nice. Decided to rack it again to clear off the fruit before bottling. Cleaned and sanitized another secondary (starsan) and racked it. Couple days later I noticed that the entire top of the brew is covered in what I"m guessing is white mold. Not sure what to do with it now. I’ve read conflicting reports as to what to do and I haven’t been able to find any pictures that look like what I’ve got going on. I’ve been meaning to take a couple pictures and post up asking for help but just been crazy busy with all that’s been going on around here and haven’t had the time for a couple weeks, but it looks the same now as when I first noticed it.
Looks like a pellicle to me, not mold. That means that A) you probably introduced wild yeast (brettanomyces most likely) in with the fruit and B) you have a good amount of oxygen in the headspace of the beer.
That’s an awesome pellicle! I could stare at that for hours. Pietro’s right - let it age awhile and see what happens. Nothing to lose except time in a secondary fermenter.
Acetobacter definitely would not, it’s there to stay. In my experience, acetobacter makes more of a gelatinous slime on the surface. You really can’t identify an infection by the pellicle it forms, but brett or lacto sometimes looks like that.
Looks like a pellicle to me. My second ever 5 gallon batch developed a pellicle. The only thing I could trace it to (other than some freak airborne thing) was the bucket I used. It was the first (and only) time using the bucket. I bought it for a discount from my LHBS who said it was used only once for demonstration purposes. I got mixed responses from dump it to let it age 6-12 months. Since there was no way I was going to use the bucket again, I put it in a closet and forgot about it. About fifteen months later I tried some and the only way to describe it was nail polish remover. If you let it age, good luck. Personally, I would dump it and use that BMB as a planter or something.
If you have the space, hold onto it until the pellicle drops! You may have a winner there. If not, then the only thing wasted is some space in the cupboard.
The beer was racked once onto fruit, a second time into a tertiary container and no mention of purging or topping with CO2. I don’t think you can blame the vessel if it was exposed to oxygen.
It is a plastic Big Mouth Bubbler. With the lid screwed on good, they seem to be fairly air tight because when I’ve moved them all sealed up, you can see the air lock move a little.
[quote=“dannyboy58”]
The beer was racked once onto fruit, a second time into a tertiary container and no mention of purging or topping with CO2. I don’t think you can blame the vessel if it was exposed to oxygen.[/quote]
That is correct. Right now I do not have any good way to top or purge with CO2 and I really didn’t think it would be an issue to rack to a tertiary for a couple days to let things settle before bottling. Guess I was mistaken.
The pellicle I got was a bit different, it was slimey looking with clumps of white cheese. Maybe it would have eventually looked like yours. It was definitely acetobacter because the vinegar taste and odor was really strong. That was the last beer I racked to secondary for any extended time without pushing some CO2 into the vessel.
Yep, mine didn’t get that slimy film. I racked it and a few days later went to retrieve it to bottle the brew and…wtf is that! :shock:
I’ve been fighting a sinus infection the past few days so I’m not about to pop the airlock out and give it a sniff till I’m better. I want to say that I gave it a sniff when I first discovered it and it didn’t really smell like much of anything, thus my suspicion of mold.
The beer was racked once onto fruit, a second time into a tertiary container and no mention of purging or topping with CO2. I don’t think you can blame the vessel if it was exposed to oxygen.[/quote]
It’s almost certainly not mold. If I were to place a bet, that’s an awesome lacto pellicle - problably picked up from the fruit. Search the web for lacto pellicles and you’ll see some very similar ones, especially from folks making berliner weiss.
As some people suggested, it might be worth storing awhile until gravity is completely stable. That might be several weeks, as a wild or infected batch can take your gravity really low, close to 1.000. However, accidental sours typically are not very good, so you’d be lucky if it came out well.
Yup, if it tastes ok now, do everything as normal, keep it cold, and drink it fast before it gets too sour. Be careful of bottle bombs, so once carbed keep it as cold as possible. Bleach bomb everything afterwords and hope for the best.
