Berliner Weisse - help?

[ThreePieceBrewing]

So, yesterday I brewed a Berliner Weisse... my first sour. I used Jamil's recipe from BCS and decided to try pitching the Wyeast 5335 Lacto culture 48 hours prior to the Sacch yeast (I'm using WLP001), which he said on the BN would achieve more pronounced sourness than pitching them together. OG was 1.036 and I pitched the Lacto packet (no starter) around 85F and it's been around 82F for 24 hours. In the first 12 hours a wispy light colored layer formed about an inch below the surface. Now at 24 hours that layer had buckled and formed a dome that's submerged about halfway down the carboy. It looks as if a large jellyfish has taken up residence in the carboy. I sneaked a whiff and it still just smells a lot like wort. And there are no bubbles forming and absolutely no movement in the airlock. Is this possibly normal? Should I proceed with pitching the yeast at 48 hours as planned? Photo of the beast living in my carboy is attached. Thanks!

 

[Oldsock]

Make a starter next time. Lacto can be finicky, but works very quickly when it is healthy. I'd pitch the yeast ASAP.

 

[ThreePieceBrewing]

Thanks for the response, man. I'm currently bringing the carboy down to an appropriate pitching temp for the yeast. It's now about 48 hours and that big layer of gunk settled down at the bottom, the wort has gotten very cloudy, and there's some slight airlock activity. Do you think that's the lacto doing its thing or is it more likely that some other nasty thing got in there? Also, I ran off the wort from the kettle very quietly to avoid oxygen as much as possible. I don't have pure O2, but would you recommend aerating the wort before pitching the yeast or just adding it right in?

 

[Oldsock]

Likely the Lacto is getting going.

Shake to aerate. Should be fine, especially in such a low gravity beer. A low pH can be hard on ale yeast, but it doesn't sound like the Lacto has done much yet.