Pellicle Photo Collection

To add to the wild yeast discussion, a soon to open brewery somewhat near me, say 2 hours down the interstate, has been collecting wild yeast samples from a fruit orchard to hopefully use to ferment a beer using the same fruit. They lucked out and ran across a microbiologist that specializes in yeast. They have a nice partnership and all now. This guy tells me that this biologist has thousands of yeast cultures from different areas that she has traveled. It's crazy to think that they are so diverse. Only a small subset produce ethanol or flavor compounds that we enjoy in beer.

 

Saying wild yeast is so vague. That would encompass so many species other than just brettanomyces and saccharomyces. I wouldn't consider the cultured strains of Brett "wild" anymore because you are pitching from a known tube. There at obviously wild types of both saccharomyces and brettanomyces and other yeasts. Some will form pellicles and some won't, it just depends on what you have. Oxygen is obviously a factor of formation too.

 

Indeed, it would.

I disagree, and I've explained why. If you take nothing else from what I've explained, just try to focus more on the difference between "cultured" and "domesticated" yeast. We'll just have to leave it there I guess.

 

In my home brewery wild yeast means anything that wasn't purposely put into my beer but is there now. If I pitch a vial of Brett, it wouldn't be wild IMO.

 

Really? That's your criteria? Well, thanks for your opinion.

 

I'd say wild yeast is yeast that was obtained from some non laboratory source.

 

So a lion is no longer wild when it is caged? Capturing a wild organism makes it domesticated? Does an organism have be in the wild to be wild?

I think what you guys are still confusing is the difference between cultured and domesticated. Naturally occurring and native.

With Brett, you're buying cultured wild yeast that is native to other regions of the globe that developed independently of human selection. Unlike domesticated brewer's yeasts, which are selected and bred for specific characteristics and are now noticeably different than their wild ancestors.

I'm enjoying this debate, but perhaps it is derailing the thread too much. PM me if anyone wants to continue this.

TB

 

Hi all, first time poster and had to share my pellicles. Also this great thread needs more pics!

The first two are top down into a natural cider in two different one gallon jugs. Picked up the cider fresh squeezed off the presses at a local orchard, no pasteurization. Capped with an airlock and they've been sitting since just after Thanksgiving 2012. Interestingly it made two different looking pellicles but they taste the same/similar (maybe I'm not that discerning).

The last one is an older pic of an experiment that I've been running. Started as a brown ale and I threw in some cherries and blackberries and some dregs from Weyerbacher Rapture. It was my first pellicle.

 

I finally have something interesting enough to post here. I pitched a handful of grains into a simple sugar solution and then stepped it up by pitching into an apple juice/wort mixture that wasn't souring up much after a wyeast lacto pitch. You can read more in my own thread. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/bunk-lacto-399532/

24 HRs after pitching:



7 HRs later:





Still trying to figure out what it is...

 

Brett from a tube or from environment makes a different. If you added Brett to your culture you expect certain things to happen. I've seen all of those veil formations without adding Brett. There is ton of wild/native yeast in grain. And yes, the term wild is vague. But, it is the only term I like using when I'm not sure what strain is causing the veil. The only thing I know in my experience is either you like the flavors that they add to your beer or not. I don't like it so I rack once its starts showing. Even if you don't add bacteria, it is there, same as wild yeast. Bacteria to do its work has to have temperature. Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Oenococcus thet go to work at temps above 20 C. If you want them you keep temp up, if not you keep temp down. When you rack, you remove all the yeast at the bottom (some of it is great quality, and the other stuff is dead) but you don't get all of it or all the bacteria since a lot stuff remains in suspension. So, if you add nutrients or raise temps you might ignite fermentation again (with less vigor) or malolactic transformation. It depends on what you want and what you have in your beer. As I said before working with wild/native strains of anything is a gamble. That's what makes brewing so fun.

 

Pellicles are cool, but as said they are just a reaction to oxygen. On my sours, every couple of months I pull a sample to check gravity to a point and to monitor flavor development. Each time the pellicle morphs (again cool).





Supplication clone "morph"

 

Here's mine as of today. Just racked onto strawberries and raspberries.

 

Another shot of my Consecration clone. Changed a lot over the last few weeks. Went from alien to dusty alien.

 

Not really a photo but happy birthday to my lambic its 6 months in the Carboy as of today. Ill post my pellicle tomorrow.

 

So proud to be posting in this thread for the first time. Here's my sour brown ale, 1.049 OG, after two weeks in primary with ECY01 and only one week in secondary. I picked up more oxygen in transfer than I would have liked, but I'm gonna roll with it.

Look! I have a pellicle.

 

This the wort for my Berliner after 24 hours with lacto. Is this pretty common for a lacto pitch?

 

I'm a proud first timer as well, inoculated with grain and worked perfectly. Berliner weisse, racked 1 gallons onto mixed berries, might blend it all together at the end, time will tell!

 

Here is the tart of darkness clone with ecy20. Going on 4 months.

 

I would love to try ECY..... Can't seem to source any locally. This sucks.

 

Blonde Lambic (Wyeast Lambic Blend) at 8 months


Saison w/ Jolly Pumpkin dregs (Bam Biere and Oro de Calabaza) at 2 months

 

One month old oud bruin

 

Mmmm...

 

Here is my 1 gallon experimental batch. The base beer is Belgian Golden Strong, and it was infused with rinsed bug mixture from a batch of flanders red (ECY+commercial bugs) on 3/8/2013. I just added cubes today.
I'd like to think that the thick pellicle formation is due to me opening the lid pretty frequently (smells super). Another batch in a gallon chug, infused with pure Brett B., does not have any visible pellicle... But I am not 100% sure if it's the bug mixture or the lid opening that makes difference in the pellicle formation.

Cheers

 

this is a wicked source for desktop backgrounds.

 

Pellicles require oxygen (it's actually created to form a barrier to that oxygen). Most of my sours are kept without oxygen in the headspace, so they usually don't even get pellicles. But yeah, it's almost certain that it's due to you opening it.

 

I've got my first 2 sours going right now, about a month in is all- a split batch Flanders where I pitched Roeselare in half and WLP655 in half. No pellicles yet. But check this out:


I keep a solo cup by my taps to use for the first second or so of a pour when I haven't had that beer in a bit- for the gods, you know. Well this baby formed in about 48 hours.

 

Here's one on my most recent reuse of a hop tolerant bacteria. I dont know the type for sure and the first beer never developed a pellicle (never opened it to look though). Anyhow it has developed this beauty since the transfer. Smelling cleanly sour not bretty at all.

 

beautiful.

what does the bacteria taste like? a classic sour, or something else?

 

Just classic sour. This was used in a saison (picture many pages back) but the hops are too prominent to really taste the lactic. I think it will get packaged at the end of the month. This was a large batch and I split it off and gave a portion 5lbs of local tart cherries. That portion due to active fermentation and a brett addition hasn't developed a pellicle at all. There's a possibility I picked something up in the fermentor but I've been 100% disassembling the 10gal kegs I use each funky ferment and cleaning the hell out of everything. If there's no ropy viscosity which there wasn't two weeks ago, then it's just the bacterium or possibly bacteria that I intended to be there. I tried to get this purified but my friend got a gram negative rod that soured my beer in an anaerobic environment. So either the acidity I got is from aceto/gluconobacter and slight oxidation, or we didn't grow the bacterium from the beer that he had a on a plate and it was something else. I might bring him a small portion of this in the fermentor to work with instead of a carbonated bottle like he tested last time.

 

I joined just to post these crappy photos of my 14mo Flanders Red (Gilda):




Unfortunately I just destroyed the pellicle by moving the carboy and siphoning some to inoculate another batch. Hopefully it won't be too long before it starts getting furry again.

 

Just killed my pellicle racking off oak chips yesterday. I miss it

 

Not the best quality photo, it is hard to get a good one with all of the krausen stuck to the carboy. My first attempt at a lambic, now 2 months old with wyeast lambic blend, cantillon rose de gambrinus and tilquin dregs. This just popped up in the last week or so.

 

expose the beer to oxygen, it'll come back

 

It got racked into an open bucket then back into the carboy after I cleaned the oak out. I'm thinking that was probably adequate O2 exposure, but just to be safe... maybe I'll pull the airlock for a couple hours tonight

 

You don't need or necessarily want a pellicle.

 

True, I wouldn't go about trying to make one. But they sure are great to stare at!

 

Awww... but I miss it!

 

Drink a sour, toss the bottom of it in some low grav wort, shake periodically, and you'll have a new friend in no time.

 

Or just leave a glass of beer out in your garage for a week or two...

 

I was freaking out until I started looking at these photos. Guess mine is doing good, just never had it look like this.




Looks like something under I microscope. Didn't even zoom.