Pellicle Photo Collection

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I took a few Soured Saison and Farmhouse commercial examples and built up a pitch. I adjusted what has become my go to testing bed recipe for about 5.5 IBUs.

This thing took off and it was a good while until I saw a pellicle. It went from 1.055 to 1.002 until the pellicle showed up. I just recently bottled three gallons on it. Transferred another Three on to Vanilla Beans, Pear Juice, and just added Roasted Pecans.

Calling this project Hail, Saison!
 

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I was playing around with making Berliner Weisse a couple different ways... Unfortunately the fruit on this one infected the batch.

At first I thought it was just Brett. Well it actually it had some Acetic Acid... So I guess now we have fancy Vinegar, and a plastic bucket that needs to be throw out.
 

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had my first infection, the wife forgot to warn me she had reused my spare starsan sprayer for spraying water on her houseplants and not emptied it after use..... guess who grabbed the wrong sprayer to sanitise his fermenter? I didn't notice it wasn't foaming......
Feeling sad for @Kharnynb, losing his beer to some intruder, leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

Yet, one of the more beautiful pellicles in this thread, IMHO! Reminds me of shards of ice on a dark lake or stream.
 
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am i the only one who can't see Kharnynb's image? i'm seeing a big space with a small circle with a bar through it, as if the image is missing or i don't have permission to see it... see screenshot below.
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I can not either. I pretty sure Islandlizard could not either, they were just being funny about it.
ah, silly me... i thought maybe he could see it because he's a mod, whereas us plebes didn't have permission to view :ghostly:
No guys, I'm not fooling around, I can see the image crisp and clear, same as in the original thread he posted it. But... I can't save it or view it externally.
We're looking into the issue.
 
This mod can't see the image. Just the bar in a circle.

Brew on :mug:
The image is gone for me too, now. :(

I've asked @Kharnynb to relink the image in both threads. Hopefully that will resolve the issue.
It's worth the wait, it's a truly nice image of a pellicle. ;)

Update:
Image appears fine now. Thanks, @Kharnynb, for fixing it!
 
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Ok my beer loving friends. I am new to kettle souring and had a rocky start, thought everything was working great then this.
I acidified the 1.33 gal of wort post mash with 8 oz Acidulated Malt (about 4% acid) resulting in pH =4.8 and held at 112 to 90 degrees for about 12 hours. After 12 hours no activity was noticed and the pH remained the same. I went to the LHBS and got 1 lb of 2 row whole kernel and pitched it in the wort. After about 24 hours of pitching the 2 row the pH dropped to 4.3, then another about 12 hours later a pellicle formed. It was a slim film with one central bubble in the middle of the kettle. I accidentally over heated it to about 140 degrees which stopped the process. But then after another 36 hours the pellicle reformed with no change in pH. About 12 hours after that the white strand lacing shown in the photos formed over the foam and pellicle that had reformed. Is this Lactobacillus or do I have something that is not drinkable here? Has anyone had a pellicle look like this?

Cheers!
 

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had my first infection, the wife forgot to warn me she had reused my spare starsan sprayer for spraying water on her houseplants and not emptied it after use..... guess who grabbed the wrong sprayer to sanitise his fermenter? I didn't notice it wasn't foaming......

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Two drops of red food coloring in my sprayer with the starsan, always. I have a bunch of sprayers and color-coding is critical!
 
Ok my beer loving friends. I am new to kettle souring and had a rocky start, thought everything was working great then this. [...]
Did you intentionally leave the souring wort exposed to air? That's probably the reason it grew the pellicles.
Nothing wrong with that, it's just less predictable, as is using raw malt to provide bugs, which are very varied.

Disregard the pellicles, what counts is the quality of the liquid (beer) underneath. You need to take a sample to smell and taste. Then decide if it's something you can/want to finalize into a servable beer. This is step #1, souring. Now you need to ferment it to completion.
 
Is this Lactobacillus or do I have something that is not drinkable here? Has anyone had a pellicle look like this?
Since you added raw malt, it's likely a complex mixture of bugs, not only Lactobacillus. Most kettle sours are controlled by only adding L-Plantarum (from probiotic supplements), and keeping all other bugs out, and not adding raw malt.

By using raw malt (including acidulated malt) for souring, you could create something much more complex (far less linear, so many kettle sours have in common), but it's also more of a toss up what it will become.
 
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I went to bottle this small batch to which I added commercial frozen strawberries (thawed and smashed in the bag ) surprise. It smells like strawberry, it doesn't taste nasty or sour, nor does it taste particularly good, just lack luster. I racked from underneath to a secondary, and capped it as it was a stable SG. I'm thinking of adding some medium toast oak soaked in burbon.

Any thoughts, suggestions? This is not what I was going for, and I haven't any experience with this type of "fermentation". (I know, contamination) Next time fruit is getting treated with alcohol, if there is a next time.
@TimmyWit and @sweetcell I owe you some more thanks. Your advice and my patience turned this around and this funky thing took a second place as a mixed fermentation after sitting with Brett b in a warm water bath for many months. I found the last 4 bottles and sent 3 to a competition this year mostly to get rid of it. The remaining half liter is in the fridge for a HBC meeting. Horse blanket wet hay etc.
This year I‘m thinking of doing a small Berliner or Gose sour on purpose! LOL
 
It's been a while....I discovered I have interesting wild yeasts when I boiled up some elderberry cordial, bottled it just off the boil and capped it to vacuum seal. A week later and half the bottles have pellicles in them. Wow can't even kill this with high heat. WTF? I poured the fermented cordial into a vat and let it continue to brew. I got a very weak fruit vinegar. Okay.....

I mixed up a wort 50/50 plain malt and caramel type malt, chucked in some goldings for good measure and 2 twigs of fresh elderflowers off the bush.

In 24hrs it was bubbling, threw the flowerets in the compost and let it rip.
48hrs and we have a pellicle.
5 days and we've got pepper and peach odours.

Sure it was for making vinegar but if I happen to get a drinkable saison, I won't cry about it.:p The last time I tried a wild ferment the resulting brew tasted like baked beans.....The white blobs are just trapped elderflowers.

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It was a slow fermentation (my first time re-pitching yeast) and I thought I could smell a bit of lactic acid when I racked it off the gross lees, but now it's official: I have my first infected cider. It's a bit washed out in the picture, but definitely there. Oh well, I guess I'll just wait for it to stop bubbling and see what I get.

I'm amazed it's finding anything to eat though. Apple juices are mostly simple sugars, after two months you would think that the yeast should have eaten almost everything available.

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Brewed a non-alcoholic beer and pitched Sourvisiae. After 3 days of no blow off activity we pitched Lallemand Windsor (our usual go-to NA strain). 2 weeks later we found this :0 Any thoughts on what happened?
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Brewed a non-alcoholic beer and pitched Sourvisiae. After 3 days of no blow off activity we pitched Lallemand Windsor (our usual go-to NA strain). 2 weeks later we found this :0 Any thoughts on what happened?

Looks like wild yeast (probably some Brett strain) got in.
 
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