Possible infection

[Plumpy]

My conkerwood has been in the secondary for 8 days and yesterday I noticed that new bubbles had started to appear around the edge, thought I had better take a look and found clusters of pea sized creamy/opaque bubbles surrounded by a skin like film, I would say this covered approx 5% of the surface area and was only found around the perimeter, smelt fine, so I bottled it, fg is 1015 was 1016 when I transferred to the secondary, tasted a bit and to be honest it didn’t taste awful but didn’t seem to taste as good as samples taken a week ago, but that could be in my head after seeing these new bubbles/film.

Does this sound like an infection?
If I have bottled in the early stages of an infection could this have salvaged the beer?
Are my bottles now likely to explode?
Should I look for a film appearing in the bottles?

Couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about where I had possibly gone wrong, normaly very good at sanitising etc and all equipment is fairly new.

Any thoughts.

Jason

 

[graysalchemy]

I would get it bottled. I have had some beers go like that and they taste fine from the bottom up but if you leave them to long then they turn. It is the season for infections plenty of bugs about.

Sometimes you can get an oily film from hops if you had lots of hops in the recipe but as it is a kit and the time of year I would air on the side of caution and bottle it.

:thumb:

 

[PD]

I'm sure it will be fine and your bottles will only explode if you over primed them.
All beers when they have finished fermenting have little bits of white foam and a few bubbles, its the yeasts finishing off their work. You will find out if its infected when you open a bottle .... but don't open it for a couple of weeks after bottling to check !
My Conkerwood tasted very raw after a couple of weeks, the mixture of tastes was hard on the tongue and have only now started to mellow. Its my first Conkerwood but it looks like an ale that needs a month or two in the bottle before supping.

 

[adomant]

could just be residual fermentation, there would be a problem if there was an off taste or smell (e.g. vinegar or sourness). You could put a sample in a trial jar and leave it out at room temperature to see if anything develops in it - if it is ok after a day or so then you should be ok, if it starts to bubble or develop an off taste then that might be a problem.

 

[graysalchemy]

The fact that it has a skin like film is the worry not the bubbles.

 

[screamlead]

I had exactly the same on two brews and bottled both - 87 bottles, it then also appered in the bottle too. They have both been bottled for about 2 months now some looked ok so fridged them some look the same as an infection. However i have drunk a few of them now and they seem fine - once i opened them the head/foam pushes what ever was on top straight out so then i pour into a glass and to be honest they both seem fine. :

 

[Plumpy]

Many thanks for your replies, they do give me some hope!! Beer is in the bottles, so fingers crossed and see how it develops.

Jason