Is this a dumper?

[Hawkbox]

I brewed up a Sierra Nevada clone a couple weeks ago and when I looked this morning I saw some funky spiderweb pattern on the top of the liquid. I have no idea what I'm looking at so I thought I would get some feedback on whether this is contamination or something else.

My initial reaction is to try and pull what I can from below without disturbing it, but I'm not entirely confident on that.

 

[Nosybear]

Try that. It won't hurt you. Might taste like swamp water but it won't hurt. And dude, that's amazing! I've never seen anything like it!

 

[jeffpn]

If you touch the carboy, does the web connect to your finger?? Pretty cosmic!

 

[Hawkbox]

Well it didn't this morning, but I'm pretty disappointed. I had relatively high hopes for this one. I'm going to see if I can recover some of it but I was hoping I might be able to show this one off. Instead I'll be happy if it's drinkable at all.

 

[GFHomebrew]

So is it mould? You may get superhuman powers from drinking that beer! Dude that sucks grab a sample I would underneath the fungal layer and have a taste of it and see if it's going bad. If it's done I'd get that thing chilling ASAP to try and stem the spread of this alien thing you've got growing in your fermentor.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

read this
http://www.thestoutpalace.com/i’m-noticing-these-white-blotches-with-what-looks-like-a-spider-web/

 

[Hawkbox]

Damn. Well it was literally 2 days till I was going to keg it so I transferred what I could and co2'd the bejesus out of the keg. It was sitting there happily for 5 days after hopping it and suddenly it went rogue on me.

I guess I'll see if my careful transfer worked or if I have an object lesson. It was going to be a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone, so I'm going to call it my Swamp Thing Pale Ale going forward.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

yes you can drink the infected beer, worst case you'll get the runs but they usually don't taste bad enough to dump, but the lesson learned is don't open and taste your beer, don't even open it at all, people get excited and test and taste the wort but this isn't a good idea. all it will do is cause more problems

at the same time I would bleach every thing used after the beer is bottled or kegged, even the keg or bottles

 

[GFHomebrew]

See thats the beauty about fermenting in buckets with a tap/ spigot because no opening of ferm vessal needed just turn tap. I give tap a complimentary spray with phosphoric acid anyhow.

 

[J A]

I got the same thing on my last batch. I fermented in a bucket (which is the only time I have to worry about this sort of thing) and noticed it starting a few days after racking into a carboy. I topped up the headspace with CO2 to minimize the O2 that lets this stuff grow but by the time I got into the fridge for crashing it had a thin film over all.
I actually hooked up a clean plastic tube to my shop vac and sucked the film off the top before transferring to keg. It's really wonderful beer. The character is slightly different from what it's supposed to be but part of that is likely caused by wild yeasts or other organisms that got in with the mold. I'd never trust it in bottle conditioning but kegged and kept cold and killed at a party or gathering will do just fine.
Bottom line is that it's savable but it's hit or miss.

 

[Hawkbox]

Yeah, my project for this weekend is going to be bleaching all my shit rather than doing another brew. The burst carbonation on the keg hopefully helped me out but c'est la vie.

 

[Hawkbox]

So that's pretty good, hit it with 45PSI for 24 hours or so and it's entirely drinkable.

Give it a few more days to condition and everything should be ok. I think I dodged a bullet.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

looks about right after force carbing, it will settle some and clear if you let it chill for a week but who wants to wait for good beer right?

 

[Hawkbox]

Exactly. I was going to use this as some bottled ones at the local homebrew group but I think I will take a success instead.

Appreciate the help keeping me grounded on this.