Contaminated chocolate stout advice

[Orkwort]

Hi folks, I've got a contaminated sweet chocolate stout on my hands, and I'm wondering what others would recommend doing with it at this point. I brewed it on the 14th of February this year, and added roasted cacao nibs and alcohol-soaked vanilla beans on the 26th. The white pellicle grew shortly after that so I blame one of those for the contamination, or maybe the hop bag I put them in. I've brewed 69 batches (dude), and this is the only one that's gone south so I think my sanitation is generally ok.

The beer has now been sitting for 6 weeks at around 13C/55F, and the gravity has not changed at all. It's a steady 1.016 - a bit higher than my usual stouts due to lactose in the recipe. It tastes ok. Not as sweet or chocolatey as I had hoped but drinkable enough, and it doesn't seem to be changing a great deal (yet).

Do you think it's safe to bottle? I don't know what's growing on it, but I don't want to end up with bottle bombs if it's something that can consume lactose in the long run. People often recommend leaving these things a year, but if the gravity is not changing is there any point?

Here is a photo taken through the Better Bottle if anyone wants to take a guess at what the white stuff is:

[snowcapt]

yep, thats a dumper alright.

[Orkwort]

yep, thats a dumper alright.

It may come to that but I'm not keen to dump it while it still tastes ok! Last resort.

[brewinhard]

Looks to me like an acetobacter or brett infection. Any taste/smell of vinegar notes at all? Might be hard to detect in such a dark chocolate stout at this early stage. I would not package it, as it will most likely contaminate all of your other brewing equipment as well for future uses.

[Stinkfist]

If you don't have the roomor equipment to let this sit for 8-12 months I would just dump it and start over

If you do have space and equipment I would just leave it and see what you get could be amazing!

[TheDarkSide]

That picture makes me want to go to your house and dump it for you. At first, I thought the picture was taken by a microscope.

I wonder what all that red stuff floating around is?

[Orkwort]

Looks to me like an acetobacter or brett infection. Any taste/smell of vinegar notes at all? Might be hard to detect in such a dark chocolate stout at this early stage.

Yeah, it's really hard to tell. I've been pulling out a sample every couple of weeks and don't believe the taste has changed much. It's gotten a bit more bitter since I added the cacao nibs but I don't detect any vinegar - not yet anyway.

I wonder what all that red stuff floating around is?

I think that's just small bits of roasted nibs that have escaped the hop bag. It's not a microscope but the picture is a real close-up.

I was hoping the fact that the gravity is stable would indicate something different, but it sounds like this is the usual wait and hope for the best scenario. I can't control the temperature without tying up my fermenting fridge but I do have the space to leave it be as is. Maybe that is the way to go.

Appreciate the feedback all.

[TheDarkSide]

Maybe you just invented a Sweet 'n' Sour Stout and it's the best beer you ever had. Good luck reproducing it.