Pellicle Photo Collection

Blend of 3-year, 2-year, and 1-year Lambics..blended 1 month ago

and Blackberry Lambic 4 months after fruit rack-off and slight re-feeding. One more round of fruit and ready for the bottle in time for New Years!

Here are my goodies.
Wild (accidently) saison

I have some uninvited guests in my latest batch of beer. Not experienced enough to know if they are good wild yeasts, bad wild yeasts, or something worse; but I'm looking for some advice as to what might be going on.



I have more photos and can take more if you all need more to work with.

The recipe was a What-If Summer Ale from Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing (that appears to have gotten a little too radical.)
Included grains of paradise and candied ginger at end of boil, used wort chiller, primary for two weeks in plastic food pail, and then two weeks in carboy secondary. Noticed this growth yesterday, but not a few days before (about 3) when I had last checked it.

What should I do? Thanks for the help.

Here's my lambic with ECY20. I think the air lock was allowing air in due to the head space expanding/contracting. I sealed it up today with a second gas dip tube. So now my 10gal corny is sealed and it should keep too much oxygen from getting into the beer.

Here's my Berliner Weisse, she has Wyeast 5335 Lacto and WLP 645 Brett C.

edmanster said:

It's in its infancy but here it is.. Pitched dregs from (local) squatters fifth element and orval

Click to expand...

4 months later

My five month old black sour. Sitting on Rosarle with dregs from 4 Jolly Pumpkin brews. Added the toasted dowel about 6 days ago and the film took off.

ECY Flemish update (9 months)

Flanders Red



8 lbs black currants, 3 lbs blueberries



Now it goes away for 8 months

Native302 said:

Flanders Red

8 lbs black currants, 3 lbs blueberries

Now it goes away for 8 months

Click to expand...

That sounds delicious. Just out of curiosity, where did you get the currants? I tried to get some for a stout last year and only found them online for crazy prices. I would love to do a sour blonde on currants

I grew them.

Ah that would make them easier to find

Six months in to a Flanders Red. Haven't opened the carboy at all so I'm figuring the oxygen has been pretty limited and prevented much of a pellicle forming, plenty of lacto bubbles though and the liquid looks pretty thick like pedio-ropiness.

my first sour, and first beer:

First post here, second "infected" beer. In May I've gone to Germany to have some (20 hours) tattoos done. Came back with loads of pain, so my started beer was just sitting in the bucket without airlock for 6 weeks.....then I discovered the pellicle on the top. I paniced, and bottled it the same day. Was one of the best homebrew according all of my friends. So I left a bottle, and brewed a new "base beer", just added that bottle, and now after 6 weeks I have this. What to do? Should I leave it in the PLASTIC bucket or should I put it in a GLASS carboy????? How long should I leave this? Can I just brew more "base beer" and bottle 2-3 gallon from the bucket, topping up with the new stuff???? Any help appreciated. A newby...

taylja06 said:

my first sour, and first beer:

Click to expand...

Really? Your first beer and you went with a sour? Good on ya! It usually takes people a long time to get the whole "patience" thing down but you jumped right in heh.

(looks gross by the way hah)

Yes, yes it does. I'm pretty proud of the gross. What taste there was going from primary to secondary was delicious.

H-ost said:

(looks gross by the way hah)

Click to expand...

Yep Looks like he tossed a ham hock in there.

Believe it or not it's pretty much entirely peach and peach slices floating around.

My Number 8 Clone from NB. Not sure if it was supposed to get an infection, but I am not sad.

taylja06 said:

my first sour, and first beer:

Click to expand...

I laughed when I saw this because I had seen this picture a day earlier on a different site. Small world, etc, blah blah blah

taylja06 said:

my first sour, and first beer:

Click to expand...

Who threw in the life-preserver? That looks like something my cat would puke up.

I bet it will be awesome. I love looking at sour beers in their wild state. Occasionally, I'll see a beer that I can't figure out what is going on.

2nd infected beer first nice pellicle…

can someone tell me what kind of infection this is, and whether I should throw this batch out? Its a Festa Brew double oatmeal stout.

Looks like a brett pellicle to me, but I wouldn't dump it. Have you smelled / tasted a sample?

Let it ride!!

stubbornman said:

Looks like a brett pellicle to me, but I wouldn't dump it. Have you smelled / tasted a sample?

Let it ride!!

Click to expand...

Agree. Brett is furry puffy.

so I have a batch that looks just the same.

Extract brew with added steeped malt. In the primary for 2 weeks. I opened it 7 days ago, added a sterilised hop bag to dry hop. I figured it was time to bottle today, opened it & it has this same bubbly white skin , I assume its Brent Pellicle.

In this thread most seem to say leave it - I assume this means leave in the primary for longer? When should I bottle it?

I am envisaging a major dose of bleach in the fermenter before the next batch...

OK, so I was out in Seattle earlier this year (July) and among the beers I tried at the Tap House Grill (160 on tap!), I had a Lips of Faith/ Lost Abbey Brett. It was quite nice. Is there a Brett beer for dummies guide so I can brew something like this (or even better)? Do I need to dedicate equipment to it? I've done 30+ all grain batches, so just a general pointer is probably enough....

Thanks!

Best book on brewing sours by far: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381861/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

In short, you can definitely do it. You don't NEED dedicated equipment, but having an extra set of plastics certainly makes things easier.

Strong porter w/ Cantillon dregs - 23 days in

Are you fermenting that in a trash can??

tankdeer said:

Are you fermenting that in a trash can??

Click to expand...

Open top 8L fermenter

tankdeer said:

Are you fermenting that in a trash can??

Click to expand...

I had a similar thought

Soma said:

Strong porter w/ Cantillon dregs - 23 days in

Click to expand...

That is...beautiful.

it is a thing of outstanding beauty!

It looks like your pellicle is trying to build the Death Star.

I brewed 10 gallons of a spot on orval clone about a year ago and split the batch, half with Brett B (which was drank super fast) and this that has been sitting on ECY 20 bug country for 10 months.
I just racked on top of 10 lbs of peaches 3 days ago and the pelicle just took off

This thread is horrifying and fascinating.

Here is mine. It was supposed to be a regular pumpkin ale. After I determined that it wasn't fatal, I called it a "belgian-style" pumpkin ale and people drank it.

Here's an update as this baby grows. She's so beautiful!