Is This a Pellicle (and Do I Care?)

[AlexKay]

Hoppy beer fermented with Sourvisiae. The other 2 beers I’ve made with this yeast didn’t do this! I’m not worried this will go sour (pH is already ~3) or explode (kegged and cold already), so is there anything else I need to worry about (shelf life, sanitation, ???)

 

[IslandLizard]

Yes, that is a pellicle. "Broken ice shards," fluffy textured layers, (big) "slimy" bubbles, etc.
Probably from some bugs in the Sourvisiae.

It's an intentionally sour beer, so chances are it should be good.
Kegging is safer than bottling in this case.

If you want to do clean beers using the same equipment, everything that was touched by the sour beer needs a good cleaning, scrub, and sanitation. Rubber parts (o-rings etc.) and anything with tight spaces, such as that fermenter spigot, threads, etc. need special cleaning attention. Or just keep those for sours, and get new rubber parts for clean fermentations.

 

[KeizerBrewr]

Yes, that is a pellicle. Looks like you got yourself a sour-beer fermenter.

 

[AlexKay]

Yes, that is a pellicle. Looks like you got yourself a sour-beer fermenter.

Three. I cleaned it, and then mixed it up with my other two LBMBs. I could replace the valves? (I have replacements on hand.) PBW on the fermenter, new valve, StarSan everything, or do I just get new fermenters?

The whole point of Sourvisiae is to make sours without bringing in other bugs. Sheesh…

 

[KeizerBrewr]

I would hot PBW scrub all the gear that beer came into contact with and rinse with StarSan. Or you can just write that bucket as a sour beer bucket. If it were me, I would clean it all really good, rinse really good, starsan it all, the works, to get it back to sanitary and continue the mission of brewing tasty beer.