Flanders Brown under a microscope

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goswell

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I put my first sour under the microscope tonight and it blew my mind. I thought I would share the picture. There's no mistaking this for a clean beer, it's got loads of bugs.

sour_flanders.jpg
 
AH, I would love to be able to do this. Can you explain it to the ignorant? I've never looked at any beer under a microscope, so what is different here?
 
Would be interesting if you could crack a brand name flemish sour like Monks Cafe or Duchesse Du Bourgogne and compare bugs. I'm enthralled. Could you please, then post more pics on this thread? I'm taking your pic is of your home brewed sour, correct?
 
Brett (Rod shaped bacteria, the most prevalent in the picture, top left most in focus) lacto or sacc (bottom of image slightly left, or top right lacto is a small round bacteria and sacc is also round, slightly larger) possibly? a nice number of bugs in there though whatever they are.
 
This is a home homebrewed flanders with nothing pitched but a pack of Roeselare from Wyeast so it's got a bit of everything. It's about a year old and is quite sour. I also looked at a beer brewed with 1056 and while there is some yeast to be found, it really is amazing how little is in that beer compared to this one. I just use a $20 microscope I bought on CL, then I hold my phone to the eyepiece and try to capture a picture. It's not easy, sometimes it's really just luck to get a good picture.
 
what is the sour attributed to? Lactic, formic, acetic acid?

I'm guessing acetic? Sounds ick.
 
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