Anyone seen this happen before....
I recently had a low efficiency on an all grain DIPA. Instead of just tossing the grain I figured since the grain still had a decent amount of sugars I would try a little experiment.
I dumped six gallons of very hot tap water, around 135 F into my mash tun (a large cooler) and let it sit over night. The next day when the temp was around 120 F I dumped a half pint of an actively souring sour beer I already had going, which included brett, pedio, and lacto. After another day in the cooler a nice film started to form. On day three in the cooler, temp was still 115F and a full pellicle had formed...so I lautered into a bucket and moved and covered, no boil.
Heres the interesting part, after 24 hours this beer had a really nice pellicle with giant bubbles (prob from co2), see attached. After 48 hours the surface was smooth with no sign of pellicle at all. At this time you could see active fermentation, co2 rising to the surface. At 72 hours, the pellicle had completely reformed, this time the bubbles were much smaller.
So the theory I have is that the original pellicle formed in the bucket as a reaction to oxygen from the lauter. As a result of fermentation the head space then became saturated with co2, so the pellicle dropped. Then as fermentation slowed and oxygen made its way back in (the bucket is only covered with tin foil), the pellicle reformed.
Thoughts? Ideas? Anyone else seen this before?
Thanks!
Milehi brewer
I recently had a low efficiency on an all grain DIPA. Instead of just tossing the grain I figured since the grain still had a decent amount of sugars I would try a little experiment.
I dumped six gallons of very hot tap water, around 135 F into my mash tun (a large cooler) and let it sit over night. The next day when the temp was around 120 F I dumped a half pint of an actively souring sour beer I already had going, which included brett, pedio, and lacto. After another day in the cooler a nice film started to form. On day three in the cooler, temp was still 115F and a full pellicle had formed...so I lautered into a bucket and moved and covered, no boil.
Heres the interesting part, after 24 hours this beer had a really nice pellicle with giant bubbles (prob from co2), see attached. After 48 hours the surface was smooth with no sign of pellicle at all. At this time you could see active fermentation, co2 rising to the surface. At 72 hours, the pellicle had completely reformed, this time the bubbles were much smaller.
So the theory I have is that the original pellicle formed in the bucket as a reaction to oxygen from the lauter. As a result of fermentation the head space then became saturated with co2, so the pellicle dropped. Then as fermentation slowed and oxygen made its way back in (the bucket is only covered with tin foil), the pellicle reformed.
Thoughts? Ideas? Anyone else seen this before?
Thanks!
Milehi brewer
