Last month I brewed up what I was calling the “work beer”

Just a simple little beer with 2 row, flaked oats and crystal with a pack of Montueka hops.

Normally a simple little beer like this gets brewed and drank with out much attention. But this one had a few issues.

The first thing funny with it was something that had already mentioned in it’s original post. The hops were full of junk. Yea I’ve had hop packs with the occasional leaf in it before, but this was beyond that. But I didnt get a picture of it, and didn’t really have anything to do with the second problem.

I had gotten some outdated liquid yeast from the shop to use. Done this several times before and no problems.

Now when I say out of date, I’m not talking a year or anything.. this was just a couple of weeks past date.

Because it’s just a low grav 3 gallon I did not do a starter, I just pitched the whole vial as usual.

After 2 days of not a bubble or that normal yeast krausen layer I removed the airlock to get a quick sample to see what was going on.

I was immediately met with the stench of something between wet siliage and dead nightcrawlers. Obviously something is not right there. The sample shows no drop in grav so I give it a slight stir and let it go till the next day.

Next day still nadda. So I pitch a packet of 05. The 3 day lag kinda worries me.. but still think it’s gonna be ok.

After about 2 days it should be up and rolling fairly well,, but it’s not.

Yes there is some fermenting action happening.. but very slow. And a inch thick layer of what looks like vasaline. Not your normal krausen. I again open the top and get the same dead nightcrawlers smell.

These pics don’t really show what it truely looks like. The pics look fairly normal, or close to normal.. but no way. It was a gross gloopy clump.

But it was doing “something”. So I let it go. After about 2 days the thing started to grow “legs” or something. Long stringy things hanging down from top to bottom.

This pic was when it just started, and this makes it look almost fine,, but got worse pretty damn fast. No real fermenting action, just growing stringy legs and was starting ooze an oil slick on top.

I did wait for about 3 weeks. But it smelled so bad and just kept lookin like it was ready to crawl out of the carboy.. I just dumped it.

I dont think it was a sanitation thing. It didnt act like a good ol infection.. I think the yeast was just dead, spoiled and decomposing. And I don’t think making a starter would have “helped”. Sure it would have saved this batch because I would have seen the yeast was junk, but it wouldn’t have saved that yeast.

What ever died in that vial must really been bad, if it almost killed of the 05 yeast as well.

Welp can’t win them all. The next batch in the same carboy is already under way. No problems.

Its a Soriachi Ace hopped so hoping to get some pickle action out of it.