Infected fermentation?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s my latest batch, a rye IPA fermenting in Craft A Brew’s Catalyst. (From Google Drive, so not visible here - have to click on the link) https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPigBWKYUFA6Ne8W6zhjl3DhmeI19sdS6Nctzq-
When I first checked on it this AM, those bubbles in the center were one large white bubble that popped when I inserted my sanitized baster to draw the sample. That freaked me out - but I typically used white plastic buckets and I never looked at the beer in the bottling bucket, so I don’t know if this is something I would have seen had I looked. Tested 2X in 3 days & fermentation seems complete, steady at 1.090. Temperature of beer is 72.5º, which seems to be a couple degrees warmer than the room, generally - sampling around with a digital laser thermometer. (For the curious, this is in the basement where it is largely dark save for laundry, etc.)
The taste test: is fairly bitter but tastes like beer. It’s been a half-hour and the bitterness from a few sips still lingers. Can’t detect any off odors. This doesn’t look as awful as the infection pix I see online. So I can’t tell if this is an infection issue or just a solid bitterness. So: bottle, or pitch? Thoughts?

PS: Being the first time I ever actually watched fermentation during the process, everything has looked normal to this point. Seven days initial fermentation, 9 days of dry hops (mesh bag), 9 more days maturation. Star San sanitation throughout.

Sorry, the pic doesn’t work for me.  I say taste it.

Please see last paragraph.

Got it.  Sounds fine to me.

Thanks, sir.

The URL for the photo didn’t work- perhaps it was truncated. In any case, I have a couple of guesses based on experiences I have had.

  1. You may have a “pancake”, which is a thin layer of gooey and sticky krausen that holds itself together because it is anchored to the sides of the fermenter. This happens with some yeasts. You can punch a hole in it when you take a sample, but it fills in again later. If you agitate the vessel so the pancake breaks up and separates from the sides it will sink. If you do a cold crash it will all sink regardless of agitation.
  2. The bitter taste you are getting may be from yeast still in suspension. I get this a lot from tasting gravity samples of “green” beer. Once you give the yeast time to drop out (and cold crashing helps a lot) this harshness may go away. If you don’t have any really nasty off-flavors then it will probably be just fine in the end.

Thanks, Richard. I usually go overboard on sanitation. Your “pancake” explanation seems to make sense; I did punch a hole in it when I took a gravity sample, and it has filled back in. No fancy yeast, tho - just good ol’ Safale US-05 dry ale yeast, rehydrated. I’ve also learned that a few weeks of bottle conditioning works wonders. I think I’m going to bottle. Fwiw, here’s another try at the photo link: https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPigBWKYUFA6Ne8W6zhjl3DhmeI19sdS6Nctzq-
and, using the Insert Image icon above:

Photo link still didn’t work.

Call me semi-tech challenged - never tried to export a pic from Google Photos. I think this works: https://photos.app.goo.gl/GwfhdwxavbDUwBG36

Yep, that one works.  Looks fine.

Looks pretty normal, but the only way to know for sure is to rack it and taste it!  Cheers.

Done!

Thanks all for the input. Tasted early, after 9 days in the bottle. Promising but still a little green. My limited experience has been that a few weeks in the bottle does magical things, so I’m cautiously hopeful on this one.