Another "is this normal" thread

This is my first attempt at brewing with bacteria or fruit. This is a Berliner weisse (pitched lacto first, yeast after 48 hours, let it ferment down to about 1.008) that I racked onto 3# of raspberry puree. The mass at the top of the fermenter formed a few days after, and I assumed it had something to do with the puree, since I thought pellicles take a while to form, and this thing is massive. But, it's now been about 4 weeks since racking to the fruit and it remains. A few questions:

1. The obvious, is this normal?
2. Does it have anything to do with the puree, or is this a pellicle?
3. Should I be worried about disturbing it, or is it OK to break through w/ a thief to take a sample every now and then?
4. When I'm ready to bottle, should I cold crash in the hopes that this will fall, or just siphon from underneath?

Thank in advance...

Hmm... I'm new-ish to this forum - any way to get the pictures to appear directly in the thread?

here are the images from the OP

drummermattie02 said:

1. The obvious, is this normal?
2. Does it have anything to do with the puree, or is this a pellicle?
3. Should I be worried about disturbing it, or is it OK to break through w/ a thief to take a sample every now and then?
4. When I'm ready to bottle, should I cold crash in the hopes that this will fall, or just siphon from underneath?

Click to expand...

1. Can't tell if it's normal without the deets. what yeast did you use? you list lacto and "yeast" but don't say what type. bugs? brett only? sacch? mixed culture lambic blend? roselare?
2. It's probably the puree. i've used ghirardelli sweet ground white chocolate and it was the strangest looking floater you've ever seen. no pix tho doh! i'mm 90% sure it has to be puree related, but i've never personally used store bought fruit puree.
2. Go ahead and break through. if something happens don't do it again, but i'm sure it will be fine. it might be a good test. if it's a pellicle it should regrow in the void, if it's the puree it won't.
4. Just siphon from underneath.

cheers

That looks frightening.

On the plus side it looks pretty clean and uniform color. And the beer underneath looks nice and clear.

I would be worried because it was new to me, but it really looks as though it is OK.

jessup said:

1. Can't tell if it's normal without the deets. what yeast did you use? you list lacto and "yeast" but don't say what type. bugs? brett only? sacch? mixed culture lambic blend? roselare?
2. It's probably the puree. i've used ghirardelli sweet ground white chocolate and it was the strangest looking floater you've ever seen. no pix tho doh! i'mm 90% sure it has to be puree related, but i've never personally used store bought fruit puree.
2. Go ahead and break through. if something happens don't do it again, but i'm sure it will be fine. it might be a good test. if it's a pellicle it should regrow in the void, if it's the puree it won't.
4. Just siphon from underneath.

cheers

Click to expand...

I pitched 100% sacch two days after the lacto went in.

I think you're right about it being puree, I just wanted to see if anyone had particular experience with this. I'm going to give it a few more weeks before I sample, because I'm hoping that this gets a good sourness to it. I've seen people say that if you like sour Berliners (which I do), then it takes a couple months to really develop. I'm not sure how the added sugars provided by the puree will affect that, but we'll see.

Hopefully this turns out well...

Just to update, if anyone is interested. I took a sample about three weeks ago for tasting purposes and, a few days after that, noticed a growth on the surface of the (what I'm now calling) vegetal matter on the top of the beer. This appeared to be a reaction to exposure to oxygen, as it did not look like mold and spread across the entire surface in about a week.

The taste of the beer at that time was slightly medicinal, due largely to the raspberries. Fortunately the lactic tartness was pretty close to what I was looking for. I bottled the beer last night and found that the medicinal taste was gone and the beer had a great color and clarity.

If all goes well in the bottles, this could be a good one - very excited about my first sour-ish beer!