Pellicles

Looks similar to my grain-soured brown:

 

Here's one that was unintentional and only a fellow wild yeast would think it's good looking. Yeast was harvested from The Bruery for a Belgian Blonde. After three days I opened fermenter to add sugar and saw this. It grew for three more days then disappeared completely. The beer finished normally, I DH'ed with Citra, and it tasted great.

I never really understood how all this happened, but saved the yeast which is now referred to as my house Wild Thang strain.

 

I had an infection sweep my brewery at the end of year one from this conical. I did 2 blondes to see if I had gotten rid of it, and ended up with 2 gallons of left over wort that I hit with a starter of Orval. The conical did not get infection free so I pitched the 2 gallons of Orval blonde into the conical with it alongside some local honey and got this. The bigger bubble is directly above the spigot on the bottom of the conical where all the honey was collected and fermenting. The cruddy looking stick at the top of the pic is my probe thermometer that I used to monitor the temp.

 

Been using 2014 ECY Bug Farm to primary ferment this wild ale in a better bottle @ 74F for 5 weeks now.

A little tough to see through the better bottle / condensation, but here you go....

 

6 Brett Saison




Brett C starter

 

Nasty.

 

Not sure if this counts, but it's lacto for 5 days under a heat lamp on my mash.

 

My pellicle is bigger than yours.

 

Belgian Lambic being fermented with the most recent ECY Bug Farm (4 strains of brett, 1 strain of wild sacc., lacto from kefir, and pedio!)

 

So I did a saison about five weeks ago and this thing is growing pretty steadily. It's my first time using bugs so I don't really know what to expect. I'm pretty much just waiting for this thing to go away before i keg/bottle, right?

 

@koopa you pitch ECY at primary?

 

Not @koopa , I did use ECY01 around the same time he did I think. I think he did some split batches. I used it at primary, and hasn't tossed anything else with it as of yet. I do have some Bruery SITR, and Oude Tart I harvested up, but haven't decided if I want to use them, or wait for another beer and blend.

Mines got a pellicle on it, but not near as big as his so far.

 

Yes indeed! The pics of the Belgian Lambic in my last reply are ECY pitched in primary 5 weeks ago. 20 gallon batch fermenting in 4 Better Bottles. Only 1 fermenter (the one in those pictures) has a pellicle like that, so I guess it must have picked up some oxygen exposure at some point. 1 other fermenter has a few tiny white spots and the other 2 have no pellicle at all.
All 4 of these Better Bottles were fermented @ 68F for the first week and then have been at room temperature since then (a fairly constant 72F in my brewing space this time of year).

I've also got 2 more Better Bottles filled with a Belgian Saison base beer, but fermented with only ECY from the get go that are about 3 months old. One formed a pellicle (see picture in my first post in this thread) because of that orange carboy cap I was using on it. I replaced it with a stopper and the pellicle stopped developing. The other has no pellicle at all.

 

so will these things drop off when they're done?

 

Yeah eventually the pellicle will collapse due to it's own weight. If you are in a hurry, I don't believe you actually have to wait for that to happen before bottling / kegging. Just try not to transfer the pellicle itself over into your bottling bucket / keg. Also be aware that 5 weeks typically isn't much time for funk development and is practically no time for sour development.

 

thanks. in theory i'm fine with waiting as long as possible, but i'm moving this week so i'd like to have that kegged up by then. if not, i can figure something out.

 

Pop the bung stopper, sanitize a piece of saran wrap, lay over opening, re-insert stopper, move carboy into milk crate, cover with old shirt, secure in vehicle, move it, get it into place at new home, remove stopper, remove saran wrap, re-insert stopper, proceed as normal. I had to move 2 sours when I bought my house May 2013.