I'll show you mine if you show me yours (pellicles)

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stakem1

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Ive seen some pretty interesting looking pellicles on some of my wild ales before I got into using oak barrels. This probably sounds stupid but in a way, I miss fermenting in glass because I cant really peep in and see whats up. So anyway, a year or so ago I decided I wanted to do a series of pellicle pictures to capture what these look like while they develope. When I pulled a wild ale out of my barrel, I racked about a pint into a growler and then I added some fresh wort. Below are the pictures I just found that I forgot about.

First pick is at a month old. The rest of the pictures are taken every couple of weeks or so.

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8B17575A-E34C-4473-8A99-20CF65BA064F-13640-0000088ED5B4335A_zpsece997b1.jpg


9BC641CE-501A-4A3E-8AB3-E16CB26BEBE7-13640-0000088EDCAA79DC_zps75a66251.jpg


70FB033B-C001-41D1-8582-754EF746E321-13640-0000088EE863D6DB_zps7bf840df.jpg


I thought it was interesting to see that somewhere around the 6 month mark, the pellicle lost its white coloration and took on part of the wort color.
 
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I've never had a super gnar pellicle like the ones above. This is about as crusty as they get.

Sour blonde with Cascade, Lost Abbey, Russian River, and Cantillon dregs. Brewed in January. I'm going to add 6 pounds of raspberries and a full can of Oregon Fruit Products' raspberry puree. About 3 more months to go, but I haven't sampled it yet.
 
I have one sour right now that's in a carboy with a nice pellicle forming, I'll be sure to get a picture of it when I'm over at the brew house this weekend brewing. I've been on such a sour kick lately, up to 5 sour fermenters at once and may do another this weekend.
 
Quick question guys, for a guy halfway fermenting his first sour berliner (tons of lacto and dregs from bottles).

I don't have the impressive pellicles you guys have but I do have some smaller ones.

I did have a question in terms of racking and bottling. Many say I should wait for the pellicle to drop while other good friends say it doesn't matter. So my question is, do you guys break up that top film and let it drop before racking onto secondary/bottling bucket or do you guys just rack with the film on top of it and are careful during the siphoning process?

I'm thinking about adding some fruit in secondary for 1/3 of the total batch, should be fun.

Cheers!

I've had the Berliner for about 3 months in primary with the nice bugs and it is looking/smelling/tasting great!
 
Quick question guys, for a guy halfway fermenting his first sour berliner (tons of lacto and dregs from bottles).

I don't have the impressive pellicles you guys have but I do have some smaller ones.

I did have a question in terms of racking and bottling. Many say I should wait for the pellicle to drop while other good friends say it doesn't matter. So my question is, do you guys break up that top film and let it drop before racking onto secondary/bottling bucket or do you guys just rack with the film on top of it and are careful during the siphoning process?

I'm thinking about adding some fruit in secondary for 1/3 of the total batch, should be fun.

Cheers!

I've had the Berliner for about 3 months in primary with the nice bugs and it is looking/smelling/tasting great!

if you dont disturb the pellicle, it will never drop. i see no benefit to "breaking it up and letting it drop." i would recommend carefully racking your beer out from under it
 
FULL CHUB...sorry I've been holding out on youz guyz

*first pellicle* Spontaneous Pale Ale
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Brett L Xmas beer...you know, for shits
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Same beer different view
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I forget WTF this is
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Pellicle formed in glass after I forgot I tasted/tested my "lambic"
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[EDIT] I've done other sours that never formed a pellicle, such as, that "lambic" does not have a pellicle in the carboy. I guess my airlocks are doing well
 
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Those are some nice pellicles. I have a 2.5 month old sour mash berliner with Brett Brux and raspberries and a 3 month old Flemish Red with ECY 02 going, no pellicles yet.
 
Here's an odd one from a brett strain I'm growing up:

Zv8gdWT.jpg
I had that happen to a sour wort recently. It smelled aweful so I had to dump it. The pelicle came out like a thick, tough pizza crust made of ramen noodles. I still have nightmares about it.
 
I had that happen to a sour wort recently. It smelled aweful so I had to dump it. The pelicle came out like a thick, tough pizza crust made of ramen noodles. I still have nightmares about it.
Ha! yeah, this one might not go anywhere past the starter jar. It' pretty solventy in aroma. figured i'd let it go a bit and see. Have 20 isolated brett strains growing up, and hope at least a fourth of them are worthy of full batch ferments.
 
I'm a sour brewing nub. How long do the pelicles take to form a crusty top? I've got 2 batches going right now that look a lot like the bottom right carboy in JulianB 's picture above (they've been going for about 2 weeks now).
 
I'm a sour brewing nub. How long do the pelicles take to form a crusty top? I've got 2 batches going right now that look a lot like the bottom right carboy in JulianB 's picture above (they've been going for about 2 weeks now).

Pellicles have been all over the place for me. For reference, in that picture the bottom one was brewed in November and has looked like that for a while, while the top corner one was brewed in October and has only just (maybe in the last month or so) taken on its current appearance. Prior to that it looked a lot like the others with the big bubbles.
 
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