[DW]

What are some signs of infection? Everyone advices that we anally watch over our wort so that infection won't set in.   But what would be a sign that your beer was infected?  I just put a light lager in the secondary to begin the lagering phase.  I noticed some little target like looking films on top of the fermented beer.  It literally looked like a perfect round target.  I felt it with my hand and it was very cohesive.  Not sure if this means my beer is infected.  It took forever (about one week) for the fermentation to begin.  I had to check the gravity several times to see if anything was happening.  Any thoughts?

[ajk]

I've had beers get infected before, but it has never been visible.  I've always detected it by smelling or tasting the off character (most commonly sour or band-aidy).

[industrialpunk]

I recently had a wild yeast infection. The ferment took 72 hours to kick off. Never skipping a starter again. The ferment was very cloudy, never cleared up which was my first indication of something wrong. Final gravity was about 1.002 and tasted like solvent.

[jeremy0209]

Yep...I had a Celebration clone that finished 6 points lower than predicted because it was infected.  Looked great, but smelled and tasted awful.  My first post, by the way. 

[reverseapachemaster]

If you are putting your hand on your beer, that might be a sign it's about to be infected.

[kylekohlmorgen]

What are some signs of infection? Everyone advices that we anally watch over our wort so that infection won't set in.   But what would be a sign that your beer was infected?  I just put a light lager in the secondary to begin the lagering phase.  I noticed some little target like looking films on top of the fermented beer.  It literally looked like a perfect round target.  I felt it with my hand and it was very cohesive.  Not sure if this means my beer is infected.  It took forever (about one week) for the fermentation to begin.  I had to check the gravity several times to see if anything was happening.  Any thoughts?

It might be a surface mold - I would pull it off (carefully, with a sanitized spoon) and see what happens.

Did it attenuate to where you wanted? How did the FG sample taste?

[Jimmy K]

Actually, watching over your wort won't do anything. Proper sanitation is the only way to prevent infection. 
 
A picture would help, but if it felt semi-solid that's probably not good. If it's done fermenting you could rack the beer from under it and hope it was all on the surface.

[bluesman]

Infected beer can be cloudy, sour tasting, phenolic in nature (flavor/aroma), floating debris, etc...

It can be one or more of these issues. Post a pic if you can. That may help.

[euge]

You can't always go by smell during primary initially. Normally, infections take time to manifest themselves.

[cfleisher]

I'd pull a sample with a thief and taste it. The only way you're going to know for sure.