dregs/pellicle in gose/Berliner

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by minderbender, Jun 20, 2014.

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  1. minderbender

    minderbender Initiate (0) Jan 18, 2009 New York

    I brewed a gose in mid-February, pitching Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus and US-05. At around the same time I brewed a Berliner weisse, pitching the same microbes plus brett. I racked each beer to secondary a few weeks after brewing, and then I bottled them in early June. (So the beers sat in secondary for about 3 months.) The recipes were pretty standard, each contained pilsner malt and a hefty amount of wheat, and a minimal amount of hops. I added coriander and sea salt to the gose.

    For the first few days after bottling, the beers appeared quite clear, with a little sediment at the bottom of the bottle. However, it got fairly warm this week, and when I looked at the beer a few days ago, I noticed a lot of clumps floating in the beers. These clumps are roughly spherical and about the size of sesame seeds, and there are dozens of them in each bottle (more in the gose than in the Berliner, but still plenty in the Berliner). They tend to sink to the bottom, but they easily float up when agitated, and a lot of them cling to the sides of the bottle. I also noticed a layer of material at the surface of the beer, which I suppose would be called a pellicle. (This is also in both beers, not just the Berliner, so I don't think it's brett-related.)

    Now I'm not panicking or anything, especially since I see that @OldSock observed pellicles in his bottles of gose. I'm just curious what people's experiences have been. Is it pretty much inevitable that there will be a fair amount of dregs in these kinds of beers, due to the microbes? Will they pour fairly clear if I refrigerate them for several days before opening? Will the "pellicles" (if that is what they are) drop out eventually? Again, I'm not really worried, I'm just amazed at the amount of visible microbes (if that is what they are - but what else could they be?) in the beer.
     
  2. OldSock

    OldSock Maven (1,418) Apr 3, 2005 District of Columbia

    Most of my sours end up really clear and the bottle pellciles will eventually drop out. I generally don’t want to drink sour beers refrigerator-cold, so I likely wouldn’t see chill haze even if it exists. Never had an issue with excessive sediment in sours either, but you’ll always have some. I honestly don’t look at the bottles that closely the first few weeks, never noticed the little clumps though (doubt it’s anything to worry about).
     
    jbakajust1 likes this.
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