Pellicle grew on my sour-mashed berliner weisse?!?!

[Bisco_Ben]

Hey guys, so here's the deal. I sour mashed and brewed a peach berliner weisse recently. I fermented it out and then transferred to a plastic bucket as a secondary and added 5 lb's of peaches. First, I put all the peaches in a pot and brought it to about 190*F for about 15-20 minutes or so, then chilled them down and added to the bottom of the bucket before racking the beer onto them. I opened the bucket today after 2 weeks of sitting on the fruit, and in the corner of the bucket was a small white pellicle forming. It wasnt covering the whole surface of the beer but was definitely a significant growth. I thought that by boiling the soured wort as usual, that the lacto should have been completely dead. I transferred the beer into a glass 5-gallon carboy and it is sitting in my basement. It honestly tasted fine so I'm willing to see where this goes. I am now left with a few questions however that I would love to get some insight on.

1- Did I somehow not sterilize my peaches well enough, resulting in some brett getting in?

2- I was planning on kegging this beer, but now that there are obviously wild cultures, should I bottle instead? (I have a separate setup for bottling wild beers)

3- I accidentally used my normal (non-wild) racking cane and plastic tubing to transfer to the carboy instead of the ones in my wild-beer setup. Are these now contaminated? I have them sitting in the bucket completely filled with hot oxyclean.

 

[Bisco_Ben]

Here is a picture for reference...




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[dantheman13]

It does look very "Brettanomyces" to me. How it got in there is the question!

I would keep it away from your kegs just in case. You also are going to want to make sure the gravity is stable before bottling.

 

[Bisco_Ben]

I am going to assume that I didnt sterilize the peaches well enough, especially since a few of them had sat out for a little. Theres already a full-on pellicle forming in the 5 gallon secondary so im definitely "bugged". Should I be worried about my racking cane and tubing being contaminated now? Or did my thorough cleaning mostly take care of anything?

 

[dantheman13]

I would replace the racking cane and tubing just to be on the safe side. You can save the old plastics for doing more sour beers.

 

[FATC1TY]

When you sour mashed, I take it you did a boil afterwards correct? Some people do a no boil berliner, in which case, I'd say you could possibly have some live lacto still, and that would also cause a pellicle.

If you don't want to replace your siphon ( I would make it a sour only set up and keep making sours/wild/brett), you can hit it with a bleach soak, rinse, oxy soak, and then a good soak in starsan or idophor. If there are any cuts in the racking cane, or heavy scratches, I'd be careful.

 

[Cyclman]

I would let the beer "ride it out" but would only use any plastics or rubber equipment on sours from now on.