Film yeast infection?

[John F]

I made a chocolate porter last week, and it's just about ready to go into barrel for conditioning. I've noticed what appears to be a film on the surface of the beer (with bits of obvious yeast head as well). It doesn't smell or taste bad.

When I drained it from the boiler to the fv after cooling, it didn't get the big head of foam I ususally get when I'm doing this. It also had oily streaks on the surface (possibly from the pound of dark chocolate I added). I fermented it with Nottingham yeast and all went as normal, though I would say the fermentation was not as enthusiastic as if I was using S04 or US05. OG was 1060, down to 1014 now. I thought that maybe the film was something to do with the oils in the chocolate (which, incidentally was 72% cocoa solids).

Would it be safe to add a few Campden tablets to the barrel to kill off any potential nasties? Any advice would be much appreciated.

[6470zzy]

I believe that all you are seeing is a slick of oil from all the chocolate that you put into the brew. Relax and rest easy

[John F]

Thanks Ozzy. I don't know why, but I always expect something to go wrong! So far nothing has, but I know it's coming!

[John F]

However... would it be safe to bung a few campden tablets in the barrel, just in case?

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Just leave it alone. There's nothing wrong with it.

[dave-o]

That'll be from the oil in the chocolate.

You will probably have problems with head formation and retention due to the oil as well.

In future, i would advise using pure cocoa powder instead. Green and Black's organic cocoa powder is good stuff. Chocolate is just cocoa powder, sugar, milk solids and vegetable oil, and neither of the last two are going to be useful for your beer anyway.

[John F]

ok!

[John F]

Barrelled this yesterday. Went OK, but the bottom 5 litres of the FV was just brown sludge - I'm guessing this was a mixture of yeast, trub and chocolate. The manifold dropped off in the boiler (unbeknownst to me), so I ended up having to bail through a sieve when it inevitably blocked. Obviously brought too many solids (that should have been filtered by the hop bed) over.Rather disappointing - will chalk it up to experience!