Pellicle Photo Collection

Beginnings of a pellicle on a cider with Belle Saison and dregs from Lindeman's Cuvee Rene Oud Gueuze.

View attachment 1492810336192.jpg

Where did the EDIT post go (must be too old)??
Anywho, here's the latest update on mine (Here):rockin:

About 4 months after infecting it with sour dregs:

Those look wicked!

Look like Alien facehuggers are gonna start popping out of them

This is an amber braggot with a mixed culture that started as Roeselare. OG was 1.054. It's only 2 days old!

View attachment 1495490196672.jpg

This is the same braggot about 12 hours later. Crazy how quickly this one is changing. I think it's about time to lock down the lid on my bucket.

View attachment 1495545518691.jpg

very cool!

Solera #6 wild yeast/bugs harvested 4 years ago in western Pa. removed 5 gallons and replaced once a year.

.

old ale with Brett C

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1497311046.597966.jpg

Well had only I meant that I might be more excited....

Pretty sure it's lacto so into the carboy with some fruit for aging!

Could be aceto, give it a taste now and then to make sure you arent wasting your time...

pacayaforhops said:

I saved the page with images to my hdd almost exactly a year ago ago... here you go:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dpmkhw

Click to expand...

Do you still have the images?

Here is my first unintentional infection. Not sure if it's a lacto or a pellicle. I'm just going to let it ride and see what I come up with.

ericms86 said:

Here is my first unintentional infection.

Click to expand...

is that the same batch at different times? or two different batches?

ericms86 said:

Not sure if it's a lacto or a pellicle.

Click to expand...

that doesn't make sense... lacto would be the infecting organism, as opposed to brett, pedio, etc. a pellicle is the weird/cool surface stuff. pretty certain you have a pellicle, now the question is what is creating it. no way to tell on appearances alone...

ericms86 said:

I'm just going to let it ride and see what I come up with.

Click to expand...

may i suggest that you add a little brett, as an insurance policy. wouldn't take much, even the dregs from a single brett beer or sour would ensure that you have somerthing cleaning up in there in case it's pedio or something else that would benefit from the presence of brett.

Weirdest/most interesting pellicle I've had yet.

This is a pretty light golden sour, brewed in March of 2015. Wyeast 3278 Lambic blend, Lacto buchneri, and starters built up from Logsdon and Pfriem Brett beers, as well as some Jolly Pumpkin. Its pretty sharply acidic with a good amount of Brett in the background. I'm thinking that i'll rack it to apricot puree sometime real soon.

PeterMontague said:

Do you still have the images?

Click to expand...

Sorry it took a while, here you go:
http://www39.zippyshare.com/v/ukrbuY29/file.html

Funked-up kolsch, 6 months on apricot puree.

The crust ring at the top of the carboy was original beer height, some got thieved during a party a few months back.

So... I've been making a jalepeno cream ale. I added 2x jalepeno 3 times so far, but the 3rd time, this pellicle formed within about 2-3 days. It's very "waxy" looking. The second pic is the waxy type pellicle sticking to the side of carboy.

Any ideas?? If it helps...this wasn't supposed to be a sour beer...

Any thoughts?....

Had this when i went to keg a saison I fermented with omega c2c yeast. smells and tastes fantastic. Dry hopped with 2oz mosaic.

xpops said:

So... I've been making a jalepeno cream ale. I added 2x jalepeno 3 times so far, but the 3rd time, this pellicle formed within about 2-3 days. It's very "waxy" looking. The second pic is the waxy type pellicle sticking to the side of carboy.

Any ideas?? If it helps...this wasn't supposed to be a sour beer...

Any thoughts?....

Click to expand...

wierd. my pics didnt actually attach when posted via mobile app. see attached pertaining to msg above. any ideas would be great. thanks!

What did you to do prep the peppers before adding them?

Roasted at about 250 for 20-25 mins.

Weird, that should have done the trick. I've had a kettle sour get a pellice after adding frozen fruit though, so I guess our normal processes for adding fruit and such isn't 100% foolproof.

mitchard said:

Weird, that should have done the trick. I've had a kettle sour get a pellice after adding frozen fruit though, so I guess our normal processes for adding fruit and such isn't 100% foolproof.

Click to expand...

i would have thought so too! so you figure it's "pooched" ? aside from letting it ride for a month, check gravity again and give it a taste?

i guess my question is...can it get a pellicle, but NOT be infected?...

i noticed milkin the funk in your signature. are you a part of MTF group? i was considering posting it up on there as well to see if anyone had any ideas/suggestions.

Sour Jalepeno Cream Ale anyone?...lol

thanks,

You definitely caught something in there. I'd pull a taste and decide if you want to keep it.

First unintentional infection --
In two vessels!

A starter for WLP500 harvested from a batch a while ago.


And a tripel that was fine until I racked it to secondary.


Trying to retrace my steps and figure out what happened here. The flask was used to build up some Brett dregs a while ago and I thought I'd sanitized (and successfully used it) since then but maybe not.
The tripel might have gotten infected by that somehow (? Didn't use any of the same equipment...) or could be wild.

Well, solved the above mystery.

I went to add strawberry purée to the secondary in a strawberry/rhubarb Trappist single and found the pellicle below. I guess the invasive strain was in the jar of harvested yeast used in all three of these items.

This one is in a bucket, hence the much heavier pellicle.

I am just starting on my first sour and am using cantillon dregs for it which I harvested almost 2 months ago and stepped up the starter 3 times. I moved it to an airlock, but had a couple yeast starters nearby also under foil caps which now have a pellicle forming. I assume my cantillon starter blew over to them with the fan in the chamber and now they are quarantined.

I have since moved the cantillon starter and the infected yeasts out of my fermentation chamber. I assume the cantillon starter infected the other yeast starters (WLP530 abbey, Martin House saison, and Gigayeast Vermont IPA). At this point I will probably save them for one of my next batches which will be a lambic split up and using different yeasts to see the differences overall.

Do all the bugs transfer over when they infect something nearby like that? Could they be stuck in my fermentation chamber forever?

This is my first attempt at a sour and I am making the consecration clone kit with cantillon yeast. I am still learning about this side of things, but I assume I need to segregate my sours in the future from normal beers.

My first accidental sour I think came from a fruit fly, which had a thick pellicle for a year that never went away. IT smelled okay, but was only 2 gallons and I did not feel like testing it out. I know the airlock came off so I assume it was a fruit fly, but never confirmed. It could have been natural yeast though. I saw the same type of pellicle on some other yeast I threw out recently, but it did not look the same as my assumed cantillon infections.

Anyways, I will test out my cantilln yeast on an apricot/peach sour before committing to my consecration clone. It still smells like the kriek even after a few step ups so I assume it should be fine though.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1499995634.528921.jpg
Pellicle waves

This was the first one for me. It was on an Octoberfest. Should I just dump it?

Hopbreakers said:

This was the first one for me. It was on an Octoberfest. Should I just dump it?

Click to expand...

I would taste it. If you like the taste take a gravity reading and let it ride.

Do all the bugs transfer over when they infect something nearby like that? Could they be stuck in my fermentation chamber forever?

Click to expand...

It is possible, though I'd recommend you trace your steps as it's more likely that some equipment made physical contact with all your infected stuff.

It's probably not in your chamber forever but I would really deep clean it and spray it down heavily with sanitizer.

And if that's a plastic fermenter, it's now a plastic sour fermenter!

Here is a saison made with Omega's all the bretts

BriosBrew said:

You definitely caught something in there. I'd pull a taste and decide if you want to keep it.

Click to expand...

So I let it ride a few weeks....my once stable FG of 1.011 is now at 1.008. it tastes....not great. Looking to be a dumper

That strawberry rhubarb enkel tasted terrible and went down the drain.

3 gallons of unhopped 1.032 wort with 2 shots of goodbelly mango probiotic. I held this at 95'F for 62 hours before boiling. pH dropped from 4.5 to 3.35 during that time.

This is being turned into a gose with lemongrass, lime and thai basil.

Here is my cantillon starter collection. My cantillon starter is in the corner, and I had some other regular yeast starters under foil caps that got infected probably when the fridge fan was blowing. they all seem to have the cantillon bug other than a couple things I cultured.

I have since quarantined them and may split them all up to see how they fare later. vermont ipa/cantillon, abbey/cantillon, and saison cantillon. For now I will just be pitching some of the actual cantillon starter in to my consecration clone when I rack to secondary.

Do I just pour out the liquid and add the dregs? Do chunks of pellicle matter? Just checking, this will be my first sour, and I am already worried I may have cantilloned my fermentation chamber. Nothing else inside has shown any issues, just the foil cap starters I had, but the fridge funk culture on the front right is from my fridge with just the ventilation going. Not sure if the bugs are inside forever.

If so, at least its cantillon bugs, I would not complain if thats my house sour culture.

A ongoing sour project with many dregs and cultures in itView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1502492825.470672.jpg