I separated my 3 gallons of saison and added some dregs from 3 different bottles. The beatification and orval don't show any signs of anything yet. But the jolly pumpkin has t this chalky white bubbly layer on top. The bubbles are big. Some ping pong ball sized. What's going on?
JP dregs are great stuff. its probably the brett working on the remaining sugars. i've done brett only beers and they produce the big ping pong size bubbles you describe, whereas bacteria coats the tops of my beer in a fuzzy white surface. let it chew away and maybe give your beer a smell in a month. you'll probably start picking up that brett aroma, might even smell a bit like whatever JP dreg you pitched in.
My carboy with JP dredges has the same thing going on. I reckon it is just the Brett Pellicle. No problems.
That is the Brett pellicle. Not seeing that inside the Orval and the Beatification doesn't mean that it isn't working. Pellicles form in the presence of oxygen, so not seeing the pellicle form might just mean that the racking released enough CO2 to purge your other vessels of O2. How long ago did you add the dregs to the carboys?
I use Orval dregs pretty often and never see any real activity at all, but then it's a pure brett strain(yeast) whereas JP uses a variety of bugs(bacteria plus yeast). Let the bottle with Orval sit long enough and you'll get the flavor you want but you'll probably never see any funkiness growing.
Interesting, I've got a Saison and ESB on Orval w/ fairly substantial pellicles as well as a Blonde base beer I did on straight Orval dreg starter then added to another 4 gals of regular blonde (same base beer) that had a huge pellicle.
