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Yesterday I noticed some mould floating on top of the wort of my Sparkling Ale clone, I made it a week ago - disaster I know .
Is this more likely to be caused by me not sanitizing properly (fairly confident I did), or because I pitched a yeast starter, which I attempted to culture from a Coopers SA, that may have been dead. I had a fairly limited window to prepare this batch so I decided to pitch the starter about 24 hours after I made it, even though there was no sign it was working.
The OG of the wort I estimated to be around 1069, and as my hydrometer on reads as high as 1040 I had no idea if it was fermetning or not.
Last edited by flosso on Monday Dec 05, 2005 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Damn. Sounds as tho your starter may not have been quite ready to pitch & you've picked up an infection either from the starter or from not sanitizing properly..
I'd wait a few more days & take a gravity reading.. & taste it. if the gravity is falling & it tastes ok i'd wait til it finishes & bottle it (if it still tastes ok) & drink it real quick
Well the SG has gone down below 1040 so presumably the yeast is working now - I guess the mould has come because the yeast took a while to become active.
There is a fairly distinctive smell that goes with it at the moment, kind of like off apple juice. I figure this can't be a good smell. I might try and scoop the mould off the stop and see if things don't improve in the next couple of days.
Wow, is it definetly mould
I have made a coopers sparkling ale and have wonder what type of
yeast it was.it seemed like a mix of two yeasts.The smell when fermenting
was similar to a lager yeast.It was still brewing at lower temp's.I have not
bottled it yet so I will let the results known.
Cheer/s
I'm pretty sure it's mould - small green floaty with a whote outline, don't think it's hops. I'd take a pic and post it but I'm not feeling 100% and could probably do without sticking my head near a potentially dodgy wort at the moment
. 
