"Infected" starters

Hey all. I did a couple starters with honey, nutrient, and two different smack packs (thames valley and belgian abbey) in two erlenmeyer flasks. Well, I needed some room in my fridge and left them out on the counter for a couple days, and now they're both sporting pellicles.

So, my question is: how do I know if I want to use these starters? Good bugs, or bad?

Please, your suggestions?

Are you sure it's a pellicle and not just krausen?

Positive. It is white, powdery, and has a couple wrinkles in the thin later across the surface.

I've started drinking some sours this evening, so I might just dump the dregs in and do a double batch with whatever I brew tomorrow and split it between fermenters ... Especially if I can tell these are good bugs already.

Nobody has any knowledge around identifying what is infecting a brew based on the pellicle?

banik said:

Nobody has any knowledge around identifying what is infecting a brew based on the pellicle?

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Nope, if you wanna use it, taste it, if its good jump in, if its bad dump it

Either way, you need to look into your sanitation

Yup. Did nothing different this time, except using honey as the fermentable, so I'll see what happens on my next starter.

I am assuming this was raw unpasteurized honey?

Honey can very often have wild yeast spores trapped in it. This is the same reason, incidentally, that you shouldn't feed honey to children under 1 year or so: most honey also has small amounts of botulism spores in it (Pasteurization won't kill Botulism spores). An infants gastric system isn't acidic enough to kill the spores and they will grow in the gut. Luckily Botulism won't grow in partially fermented wort.

incidentally, a White powdery pellicle generally sounds like Brett to me.

BenWillcox said:

incidentally, a White powdery pellicle generally sounds like Brett to me.

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Really? I'm still new to things with the brewing side of sours but I made I cultured lacto from grain husk and it looked pretty white and powdery.