Pellicle Photo Collection

About 2 hours after my previous post

Kvass beer fermented with spontaneous sourdough starter.

pohldogg said:

Kvass beer fermented with spontaneous sourdough starter.

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I've been wanting to do this for months, so cool. Did you throw the dough directly in the wort or did you make a starter? I'm curious because I have access to a 30 year old sourdough mother culture that is used daily to make sourdough bread.

Native302 said:

I've been wanting to do this for months, so cool. Did you throw the dough directly in the wort or did you make a starter? I'm curious because I have access to a 30 year old sourdough mother culture that is used daily to make sourdough bread.

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BYO had an article on Kvass in the past year or two. I'll try to find my copy this afternoon.

Native302 said:

I've been wanting to do this for months, so cool. Did you throw the dough directly in the wort or did you make a starter? I'm curious because I have access to a 30 year old sourdough mother culture that is used daily to make sourdough bread.

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Not a baker so I just made the sourdough starter for the beer. If the results are good I'm going to track down a better local starter. It's 8 lbs grain and about 5 lbs of toasted bread. My plan was to do a sour mash with the sourdough, but when the starter grew a pellicle I decided to just use it for primary. Through off a ton of sulfur that seems to have finally cleared.

1 gallon of pale sour with 1.5 lb of peaches. The base beer only had a thin pellicle with bubbles during secondary. A few weeks after moving to a one gallon carboy and adding peaches, this started to grow.

Dont know if this counts, as it is only a starter building up from innoculated oak cubes,but here she is

From left: plambic, sour all Brett lambicus pumpkin spice brown, imperial English bourbon barrel sour brown. *drunk*

sheepdawgg said:

From left: plambic, sour all Brett lambicus pumpkin spice brown, imperial English bourbon barrel sour brown. *drunk*

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That's a good photo. Jealous.

Spring_Chicken said:

That's a good photo.

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I agree. The lighting's incredible.

Here's a better one that's blurry that's a mirror btw. 3 not 6 carboys.

100% Brett B Trois (wlp644) pale ale after 2 days in primary. At first it was covered in about 3 inches of sacc-like krausen. Now it is half krausen half pellicle

bianco152 said:

100% Brett B Trois (wlp644) pale ale after 2 days in primary. At first it was covered in about 3 inches of sacc-like krausen. Now it is half krausen half pellicle

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You sure about that?

Am I sure about what?

That sounds right to me. My Brett starters start off foamy before they progress to bubbles. I don't let them go long enough to get real funky.

bianco152 said:

100% Brett B Trois (wlp644) pale ale after 2 days in primary. At first it was covered in about 3 inches of sacc-like krausen. Now it is half krausen half pellicle

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How big of a starter? How many vials? I recently talked to a white labs rep at Bells and he recommended 3 vials in a 2L starter for a week prior to pitching in a 1060 5 gallon batch.

I stepped up to a 2.5L starter over a 2 week period. Fermentation took off after. 4 hrs. Saved a small qty of the yeast in a mason jar

You sure thats a pellicle?

I'm pretty sure....you think not?

bianco152 said:

I'm pretty sure....you think not?

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I will vote for no, the release of co2 would probably disturb the surface and prevent it from forming.

Ya care to explain how my Brett starter is trying to form a pellicle while on a stir plate? [ame]http://youtu.be/rKLsoSiTnWY[/ame]

This is a unintentional infection I think. It was a pumpkin ale that I brewed a week ago.

I'm no expert, but that looks normal to me...

hunterlab said:

This is a unintentional infection I think. It was a pumpkin ale that I brewed a week ago.

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I don't see a krausen line even..

There is a krausen line its above, not in the photo.

hunterlab said:

There is a krausen line its above, not in the photo.

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hunterlab - DON'T DRINK IT! Don't even SAMPLE IT! You need to give me the batch, carboy and all as you should NEVER use the carboy or the equipment used for this batch again. I will take it all, and dispose of it in a safe and sanitary way. [Now all I need is a :burp icon.]

Sure thing copyright I'll get right on that ..... Not lol. I sampled it and taste good I wouldn't care if this had a pellicle or not as I plan on brewing a lambic soon so bring on the infection. I was just curious because out of all my other beers I've made this one the first one to have that bubbly film.

A lot of bottom cropping yeasts produce bubbles just like that.

DR.CHRIS now that you said that, this is my first time using safale 05 yeast. See that learn something new everyday!

Hunterlab - I agree with the others, at least from the picture you posted it looks normal to me. I had that happen with the first beer I ever brewed - it's just a bunch of tiny CO2 bubbles. A real pellicle should "wrinkle" if you disturb the carboy.

I just had my first real pellicle form (inadvertently) on a fig beer I was brewing. It only appeared about a week after transfer to secondary. And I'm sure the culprit is the figs, which I tried sulfiting this time instead of pasteurizing. I'm not sure what it's going to turn out like, but I'm hoping it's good!

Btw, should I let this sit long enough for the pellicle to fall on its own before bottling? I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts. I don't want to try siphoning around the pellicle, at least not this early on, because I'm sure I'll end up with bottle bombs.

Overpanic said:

Btw, should I let this sit long enough for the pellicle to fall on its own before bottling? I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts. I don't want to try siphoning around the pellicle, at least not this early on, because I'm sure I'll end up with bottle bombs.

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I have a sour Brett pumpkin in secondary right now and it usually has a strong pellicle. today there is no pellicle. If I open it for a few minutes to taste/check gravity the pellicle forms for the next few days then disappears. The pellicle is a reaction to oxygen so if it goes away that just means there is no more oxygen in the headspace. Bottle when a stable gravity happens, or under prime it.

This pellicle has gone through about 4 or 5 different iterations in the past few months

dcHokie said:

This pellicle has gone through about 4 or 5 different iterations in the past few months

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That's a beautiful color on top.. what's in there? Do you let any oxygen in with the glass? That's gorgeous!!
Edit: I ask that cause I'm using my glass now cause all my BB's are full and not getting as much of a pellicle on those..

edmanster said:

That's a beautiful color on top.. what's in there? Do you let any oxygen in with the glass? That's gorgeous!!
Edit: I ask that cause I'm using my glass now cause all my BB's are full and not getting as much of a pellicle on those..

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It's a Belgian Golden Strong Ale with mango and Brett B, based on this recipe: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f72/drunk-owl-mango-55227/

This one didn't form a pellicle of any sort for a few months. It's definitely got a bit more head space than I'd normally allow (although the photo is a bit deceiving), but I've only popped the airlock once for a gravity check in the year it has been sitting.

Sounds and looks. Putting it on my list..
Edit: so did you use the wyeast 3864?

Bam Biere clone.

Did you pitch JP dregs or a cocktail of brett, lacto and pedio?

Quaker said:

Did you pitch JP dregs or a cocktail of brett, lacto and pedio?

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I used dregs from 4 bottles of fresh Bam straight into primary. I was expecting a long lag time, but it was roaring in under 48.

stubbornman said:

I used dregs from 4 bottles of fresh Bam straight into primary. I was expecting a long lag time, but it was roaring in under 48.

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Must've been a fun night collecting those dregs. I have a JP Dark Dawn dreg project going that I will post a pic of soon. Its starting to look real nice and nasty

todd46 said:

Must've been a fun night collecting those dregs. I have a JP Dark Dawn dreg project going that I will post a pic of soon. Its starting to look real nice and nasty

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Yeah it was a fun (and expensive) day of brewing + drinking Bam. Fortunately, it's a low ABV brew and is highly drinkable from lunchtime, straight through to dinner!