Cotton looking mold on my sour

This is the second time I'm doing a no-boil, fast lacto sour. I had nearly 3 lbs of grain (with about 9% acid malt) for a 1 gallon batch. I did BIAB for 1 hour and put right into a fermenter. I let it cool down to about 100 °F and pitched 2 pills of Lactobacillus plantarum from Swanson Probiotics. It sits in a room without A/C, so the heat remains fairly high especially now with a heat wave in Southern California. Day 2 I added 2 more lacto pills.

Here is a pic from day 3, which looks fairly normal:

On day 4, I noticed a patch of cotton-looking growth at the top left of this picture (hard to notice):

pH dropped from 4.54 on day 1 to 3.57 on day 4. I tasted a little sample from day 4 and I can taste the sourness. The smell seems normal: there is no vomit, fecal smell, but rather earthiness.

Should I remove that cotton growth? Keep it and boil? Just let it go normally? Last year I did this same method (BIAB, no boil, lacto, saison yeast, dry hop) but with L. delbrueckii and had a great success. But with this cotton thing, I'm slightly concerned.

Topic mold lactobacillus sour homebrew

Category Mac


IMHO mould growth is not often fatal to brewing but you should remove the fungal mycelium, preferably before it spores, with (e.g.) a spoon and continue fermentation. Seems like a lot of air/head space above the brew in the bucket. Maybe worth using a smaller container to assist the build up of CO2 and make the protective "gas blanket" that CO2 provides.

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