Possible Infection?

[pyrosx]

I hope i'm just being paranoid - but I haven't seen crud around the high tide mark anything like that colour before. It's a hefeweizen, fermented with a 3638 smack pack.

I've decided to proceed as normal anyway (kegged, carbonating now) because:
- The whole ferment phase went as normal - good krausen etc.
- it looked completely normal otherwise - nothing nasty or weird on the surface of the beer in the fermenter
- it smelled fine... strong yeasty and co2-ey...
- this was the first time I used a smack pack, so no experience with yeasts other than the usual dry suspects
- I slightly over-cranked the NASA burner during the boil- the kettle ended up with a few scorched burn marks on the bottom.... so i'm hoping that the black crud is just carbon style stuff that floated in the fermenter, and got stuck to the yeast? This is my best guess....

the other option is it's just something wyeast 3638 does - i've not used it before, and in fact, not used -any- liquid yeast before - but this doesn't seem likely

Am I going to die when I taste this on friday? Or just :icon_vomit: ?

 

[manticle]

What does it smell and taste like?*

Looks like a krausen ring to me so I would vote paranoia but it's hard to tell from 1 photo.

* If you open a fermenter lid and take a big whiff, a whole lot of CO2 and volatile compounds can sometimes make you think wow that brew is lawn food. That's normal part of fermentation - to smell, take a hydrometer sample, let it settle, pour it into a glass without any sediment that forms and gently smell that. Fermenting beer often tastes horrible too - you just need to familiarise yourself with what horrible is meant to be there and what horrible does not.

No it won't kill you.

 

[pyrosx]

What does it smell and taste like?*

Smells... fine. Nothing I can pick.

Tastes like... well... warm, flat beer. Kinda gross. Not nothing obviously bad - cold, and carbonated should be a totally different story.

It's really just that colour that I haven't seen before - dark brown, almost black... but other than the colour, looks just like every other krausen ring i've cleaned out of fermenters before.

 

[manticle]

I reckon you're stressing over nothing. My ring is often black, brown and everything in between as is sometimes the krausen in the fermenter.

Yes I meant the bad joke.

Relax, don't worry and have a homebrew.

 

[pyrosx]

Ewww.

But cheers - that was my uneducated opinion too - I was mostly hoping for some confirmation. Looking forward to this one - i definitely smelled a hint of bubblegum when cleaning out the fermenter, hoping the bubbles will bring out those yum hefeweizen flavours!

 

[daemon]

Looks fine to me, 3638 is a monster of a yeast so I'm surprised the krausen ring is that small. Some of the brews where I've used 3638 it's crawled out of the fermenter, out the fridge and covered every surface it could find

 

[Nick JD]

Kinda gross.

Damn - I reckon the best glass of weizen I ever have is warm and flat out of the fermenter at FG...

I'm a sucka for the flava.

Just drinking a 1214 Weizen and have realised that Schneider use Chimay's yeast - and the secret to a great weizen is to use an Abbey yeast. WTF? The esters/phenolics don't fade.

And yeah - the **** on the edge with these banana yeasts is always rank. Doesn't matter if you make it 2 EBC coloured. Always like a coal miner's bath.

 

[pyrosx]

Damn - I reckon the best glass of weizen I ever have is warm and flat out of the fermenter at FG...

I'm a sucka for the flava.

Just drinking a 1214 Weizen and have realised that Schneider use Chimay's yeast - and the secret to a great weizen is to use an Abbey yeast. WTF? The esters/phenolics don't fade.

And yeah - the **** on the edge with these banana yeasts is always rank. Doesn't matter if you make it 2 EBC coloured. Always like a coal miner's bath.

I've been forcing myself to sip hydrometer samples - but realised the other day that the bottom of the damn thing was farking manky with god knows what - probably been contributing to the "i've recently thrown up" aftertaste that i've been getting... the flavours are fine and all... but yeah... blurgh. I've cleaned the **** out of it, but i think i'm just associating that crap with the fermenting beer flavours now

Thanks for the reassurance though - like i said, first time i've used anything more adventurous than US-05 or coopers yeast, and it was a bit scary looking.