A Pellicle? Bottle now or wait?

[lathos]

I've been making a wheat beer with added ginger; done it in two batches, one in carboys and one in a fermenting bin. Never had an infection with my beer before, but generally I've left it in the fermenter and not mucked with it at all until bottling. This time I dipped the sample jar in and took a few gravity samples, and maybe that was a mistake. Or maybe leaving the ginger in the bucket was a mistake.

Whichever way, it's been in three weeks and today I looked in to find this yellowish chalky stuff and bubbles over the top. (The slightly darker bits e.g. around the bubble are probably the ginger.) The beer tastes OK, not sour at all. Should I bottle it, leave it, or dump it? If I'm going to bottle it, what's the best way to filter this out?

 

[RPh_Guy]

It's ok to bottle, just monitor for over-carbonation. It's a good idea to refrigerate the bottles after it finishes carbonating.

When I rack, usually the pellicle just sticks to the side of the vessel, no need to "filter" it out.

How do you process the ginger when you add it? Every kind of raw plant is covered with lots of wild microbes. I guarantee your previous beers were also contaminated if you added raw ginger.
The thing is, pellicles only form in the presence of oxygen, so opening the vessel and allowing oxygen into the headspace is why there is a visible sign of contamination this time.

Clean your equipment thoroughly.

Hope this makes sense, cheers.

 

[deadwolfbones]

That doesn't look like a pellicle to me.

 

[RPh_Guy]

The slimy bubbles are a giveaway.
It must have been sloshed around a little. A pellicle looks like cottage cheese when it's majorly disturbed.

 

[lathos]

Yeah, I disturbed it a bit when I took a sample. Didn't get a photo before hand.

And no, I didn't scald the ginger, just added it raw. Next time...