wild yeast? phantom ferment?

[theredone]

morning all, made some wort last night. fairly straight forward recipe, golden promise with bit of munich and bit of flaked oats. 60 min hops and then a shitload in for 80 degree 20 min whirlpool. cooled down to 40degrees at that point and put into sanitised fermzilla and put it in brew fridge overnight while it comes down to pitching temp.
this morning upon inspection there is about 10mm of finely formed bubbles ontop and there seems to be bubbles rising through wort. IE it looks like it is fermenting.... though i have not pitched yeast.... i suspect maybe there is some wild yeast gotten in there somehow, maybe in the whirlpool/hopstand part? i dont know really... the smell is not dissimilar to the smell of a starter, just that carbonating sort of smell for lack of better words?

should i dump this and start again? should i pitch anyways and see what happens? im leaning towards dumping it as there is still about 40 bucks of dry hops left to go in here and i dont want to have to waist them as well...

cheers

red

edit: chilling method is immersion chiller that came with brewzilla, this was put in with 15mins to go in boil and pump turned on as well so shouldnt be any nasties left from there?

 

[Roosterboy]

Well without seeing it , it sounds like you have a contamination problem. What I would do is use your chiller as a herms unit and run your wort through it , while the chiller is sitting in a pot of boiling water. Then cool again quickly and add yeast.

 

[theredone]

i had taken a hydrometer sample last night, this has NOT shown any signs of life which would make me think this was caused in the fermentor. makes me think this must be an infection. the fermentor got a pbw and starsan bath so im a bit perplexed as to how but im just going to dump this one, have a quick ceremony, say some kind words, and move on...

 

[shacked]

Has there been any change in gravity?

Has your wort dropped in pH? (perhaps just tastes a little sourish in the absence of a pH meter)

Seems pretty quick for wild yeast but could be.

As a sweeping generalisation: If you have yeast then gravity would be falling. If you have bacteria then gravity may not be falling but some sort of acid would be produced.

 

[Schikitar]

I'd let it sail and see where it takes you, in the name of science!

 

[theredone]

took hydro but too much bubbles on top to really tell, if it has dropped its not much at all. the foam is a slimy/stringy feel to it though. dont think i want to risk a snot beer coming into the busy Christmas months. RIP.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

It is risky to wait so long before pitching yeast. A good yeast pitch rate can prevent other organisms to get going. No pitch rate leaves the party open for any kind of organisms to party big time etc. Best to chill all the way down to ferment temp and get the yeast in first without delay.

 

[Schikitar]

Well one thing is for sure, you're going to need to nuke your Fermzilla from orbit before you put another brew near it!

 

[Danscraftbeer]

It does seem extreme to get an unknown fermentation so fast. Then again it is summer and lots more stuff blowing around in the wind if your kettle was open while chilling. Same for beer as with food handling, the danger zone for bio contamination is between 4c to 60c. The most dangerous temps being body temps etc~ 37c so it could explain a bit. You were probably better to decant into the fermenter at 80c and left sealed as a more pasteurized environment but its not a good practice either when there is headspace.
2c. Cover and protect wort well when chilling, or try No Chill brewing with cubes.

 

[huez]

If you got it down to 40c, why didn't you keep going to 20c? Or at least 25c, quicker to get it down to temp in the fridge. I doubt lacto has taken hold in a highly hopped wort, and you won't see a vigorous ferment with it either. I'd say something got in it whilst chilling. I'd ride it out and see what happens!

 

[theredone]

It is risky to wait so long before pitching yeast. A good yeast pitch rate can prevent other organisms to get going. No pitch rate leaves the party open for any kind of organisms to party big time etc. Best to chill all the way down to ferment temp and get the yeast in first without delay.

yeah id love to but with brisbane ground water being around the 25+ mark i have no hope of that

i dumped it and made another batch. fermenter had a good hour and bit soak in pbw, loosened the bfly valve assy to get under the seal as well, then a good hour of sanitizer. same recipe, same process, no signs of life this morning so i went ahead and pitched.

that being said..... theres something still a bit strange. i mentioned "snot" before... its more like a very hot runny honey. this is the case for the rebrew as well. im wondering if this is just the golden promise (a malt ive never used before). maybe it should be used more as a specialty malt instead of a base? not sure. it tastes fine, smells fine, ill report back how it goes. there was also a heap of proteins and/or matter clumping and floating around in there, ill try and get a picture up later.

 

[MHB]

Don't blame the GP, its a lovely malt.
You can use 100% base malt (any base malt) its much more likely that too much specialty malt would cause problems than the reverse.
Put up your grain bill, and basic process (mash temp/s time, boil time... kettle fining) if you want better feedback on what might be going on.

 

[theredone]

50ltr batch, it was 10kg GP, 1.4 flaked oats, .6 munich. 42ltr mash @67 for 75 min, 25ltr sparge. used the mangrove jack whirlflocks for the first time though, they ask for 1 tablet per 19ltrs so i dropped 2 in.

 

[MHB]

Odds on its a wild yeast infection that caused the first one to kick off. You would be safer to no chill than to use the cooling regime you have in place.
On the snotty side of things, unlikely that that is from an infection, that sort of thing takes longer to show up (see ropey) fair chance doing a Glucan Rest say around 20 minutes at 45oC give or take will help if its cause.
Mark

 

[theredone]

might have to fork out for a counterflow chiller, still dont think it will get down to pitching temps with brisbane weather (in summer) though, i suspect might get me alot closer though.