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What's Floating On Top Of My Secondary

jimmyc

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Brewed my first Irish Red Ale.  Specialty grain/extract.  Followed my standard sanitary process of cleaning followed by StarSan.  Sixty minute boil then left in primary glass for 7 days, racked to secondary and has settled out nicely, however, I now have white clumps floating on top.  At first I thought this might be left over StarStan in the carboy but now am getting curious.  Beer appears clear and no off smells.  It's ready to bottle but am afraid of creating grenades.  If I rock the carboy it dissipates but then returns an hour or two later. 

Thoughts? 
 
Transferring to a secondary often leads to secondary? fermentation. Lack of oxidation may have stalled the primary fermentation and moving it may cause a secondary fermentation?  As long as you were sanitary I would not worry to much. If you have a "off order" than maybe you let something creep in? There are some molds or mildews that sometimes grow but I can't think of there name at the moment.

I rarely transfer to a secondary anymore. I allow three weeks or so in the primary and then keg (bottle). I just bottled a Cream Ale for a competition that was in the primary for 4 weeks. The batch tasted great!
 
I usually see a pickup in activity for a couple days after transfering to the secondary.  Some of it is likey just CO2 comming out from the agitation but maybe it also wakes up the yeasties a bit and get them working again.  I wouldn't worry about it.
 
This just happened to me recently.  10 years of brewing and I have never had activity in my secondary until 4 weeks ago with an IPA.  Its been 4 weeks and I still have bubbles every minute.

Is your airlock bubbling?

 
Thank you for the advice.  The more I look at it, and after texting a photo to a friend the votes seem to all support its a lagging fermentation.  Original gravity was 1.068 and was still above 1.020 when I racked to the secondary.  Even though it's cleared nicely and settled out, it must still be hanging on.  I'll give it another week, check the gravity before I bottle.  It smells normal/good so I will wait it out.  Again, thank you for the advice.
 
If you've got clumps that are just swimming about then I doubt it's anything other than yeast.

Whenever I've had mold it had tendrils. 

Nasty web like arms stretching out to cover the brew and form a cap over the top.

You should be OK.
 
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