• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

Pellicle Photo Collection

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
My blow off from my 15 barrel of sour stout on ecy20 +++

1400900107610.jpg
 
Some lovely pics from beers in progress. The first two are a "Berliner Weisse" + Brett C. The third is of an oud bruin after 10.5 months.

ImageUploadedByHome Brew1401335271.583690.jpgImageUploadedByHome Brew1401335279.447384.jpgImageUploadedByHome Brew1401335287.278153.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
ImageUploadedByHome Brew1401671817.949100.jpg

Ok admit its a crap photo. This is the follow up to the first pic. I racked into a secondary (and it's only half full cause all the trub from primary) pellicle forming.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Bottled this gose this morning which i fermented with a homemade lacto starter. It didnt have a pellicle until a couple days ago and i just noticed it this morning. I took about 6-7 gravity samples over three months, and i think this last one was the oxygen concentration tipping point. I'm glad i can finally post here though :D

ImageUploadedByHome Brew1402011601.249251.jpg
 
So I was brewing a berliner weisse and I guess the lacto got back in the beer from using the same tubing after boil. Kegged half the batch and threw the other half on some black berries and its really taking off :)
204537d1402259079-berliner-pellicle-imageuploadedbyhome-brew1402259043.176290.jpg
 
Bottled this gose this morning which i fermented with a homemade lacto starter. It didnt have a pellicle until a couple days ago and i just noticed it this morning. I took about 6-7 gravity samples over three months, and i think this last one was the oxygen concentration tipping point. I'm glad i can finally post here though :D

So i just checked these bottles and they all have a film/small pellicle type layer on top in the neck of the bottle. Anybody had this happen before? that just doesnt seem normal.
 
Someone said I might have some brett in there too? Could this be true?! This is from a sour mash that mashed for 75ish hours.

So I was brewing a berliner weisse and I guess the lacto got back in the beer from using the same tubing after boil. Kegged half the batch and threw the other half on some black berries and its really taking off :)
204537d1402259079-berliner-pellicle-imageuploadedbyhome-brew1402259043.176290.jpg
 
Hmm, thanks for the responses guys. I just didnt think that would happen in the bottle, but Im also not sure about my reasoning as to why it wouldnt haha


Do they drop out when you fridge them, or is it just gonna look funky until I drink the dang thing?


I've got them in my gose bottles too. Haven't dropped yet, in storage or in the fridge. Just adds a couple chunks to the end product, haha.
 
I've got them in my gose bottles too. Haven't dropped yet, in storage or in the fridge. Just adds a couple chunks to the end product, haha.

Haha Im just glad this is normal. my stomach dropped this morning when I saw all the bottles were like that and I thought id be dumping them.
 
Haha Im just glad this is normal. my stomach dropped this morning when I saw all the bottles were like that and I thought id be dumping them.

Why would you dump them? They're sour already!

From what I understand, the pellicle forms from exposure to oxygen. It protects the lacto (and pedio, and brett) so they can do their work, allowing no-one else in. The small air-filled head space in the bottles can develop a mini pellicle, the same way.
 
My two small batches of Brett Saison that I bottled a few weeks ago have developed pellicles as well. At first i freaked out, but I did some research on this site and saw that it's perfectly normal. A lot that I read said that most times it either goes away on its own after time or falls out after being chilled in the fridge. Sometimes it just doesnt go away. So i chilled one for a few hours and then drank it without the pellicle falling. Couldnt tell any difference.
 
Just spent about an our looking at photos of sour beers fermenting... I am horrified, yet intrigued at the same time. New to brewing, but would love to try to make a sour. I have both my carboys tied up at the moment, but in about 2 weeks ill have one available and i just might give it a try. Great thread!! I learn more every day on HBT! :D
 
If you did a sour mash, you probably have a lot of different things including lacto, brett, and others.

Thanks for the info! So do I let it ride out 3-6 months? Taste and go from there? Do i take out the fruit? Looks like the pellicle has already dropped since this pic from last week.
 
Pellicles Rise and fall like the tide, but maybe not be finished. I think it's more of a oxygen barrier than a fermentation checker. Anyways, What's the deal with all this Pellicle TALK.
Baby Pellicle on Lambic Mead from 2nd Generation Bug Cake (around 3 months)
EkDRwPn.jpg
 
Pellicles Rise and fall like the tide, but maybe not be finished. I think it's more of a oxygen barrier than a fermentation checker. Anyways, What's the deal with all this Pellicle TALK.
Baby Pellicle on Lambic Mead from 2nd Generation Bug Cake (around 3 months)
EkDRwPn.jpg

Cool, I'm gonna let this ride out for 3 months then check again ;)
 
I am considering making a sour brew, and i dont know where to get started. Looking for some sound advice. I know i should do a basic brew in the beginning and go from there. Any recommendations on what brew i could do it with? Or just any brew will do? Being in alaska, i have a miniscule selection of microbrews that i can choose from and i would like to start a sour with the dregs from another brew. Im pretty sure i have seen some sours that i could choose from to get some dregs.

Im new to brewing and any advice would help. Can i make any style beer into a sour? I dont want to tie up one of my carboys for as long as it takes for a sour to ferment, so i was planning on using a few of the growlers that i have laying around to make them. Is a sour too complex for a noob brewer like me?
 
I am considering making a sour brew, and i dont know where to get started. Looking for some sound advice. I know i should do a basic brew in the beginning and go from there. Any recommendations on what brew i could do it with? Or just any brew will do? Being in alaska, i have a miniscule selection of microbrews that i can choose from and i would like to start a sour with the dregs from another brew. Im pretty sure i have seen some sours that i could choose from to get some dregs.



Im new to brewing and any advice would help. Can i make any style beer into a sour? I dont want to tie up one of my carboys for as long as it takes for a sour to ferment, so i was planning on using a few of the growlers that i have laying around to make them. Is a sour too complex for a noob brewer like me?


You can sour any style, but very bitter or very roasty styles are tougher to do right. Start with a simple grain bill, add the yeast and bacteria of your choice, and wait. After a few months to a year, check the gravity and flavor and see if you want to add anything like fruit.

Anchorage Brewing does a few funky/sour beers, see if you can get some of their beers to use the dregs.

There is a guy here doing a bunch of 1 gallon sours with extra runoff from his other batches. Do a search for that to get some ideas.
 
Great! Thanks for the advice. I believe that I have had one of the sours from anchorage brewing. I think it was called andromeda or something along those lines. I will do a little more research and I will be sure to post my results. Would it matter what style the beer was that I want to use the dregs? Or just any with the right bacteria?
 
High IBU beers are also harder to sour, especially with lacto. You can always dry hop after you get to the sour level you like. I am thinking of dry hopping some berliner in the future.
 
I can finally join this thread!!!!!!!!!! The funny thing is, I have two 1-gallon saisons sitting on Brett that I thought would have formed a pellicle by now, but haven't. It's my club's barrel project Wee Heavy that got contaminated that gave me my first pellicle. So far, it's only begun to sour, and I think it tastes really good. I'm going to split my portion and do a few experiments with fruit and/or Brett. From the sour taste and the look of the pellicle, I would guess it's a lacto contamination, but don't know for sure.

:ban:

DSC_0594.jpg


DSC_0596.jpg
 
Back
Top