Pellicle or pelicle?

The pellicle has arrived. While not a mat yet, There are little gobs of white floating atop my Flanders Red. Oh, the excitement.

Here, for example, the pellicle is bad. Also here a pellicle would be bad.

But in my carboy it is oh so good.

From homebrewtalk:
"Pellicles are characteristics of Brettanomyces [a yeast whose flavor is described as horsey], which are considered oxidative yeast, which is why they are feared in brewing and winemaking. They use oxygen to grow and metabolize sugar and starch. Since no oxygen remains in the beer when they are ready for duty they have to come to the surface and look for air, forming a pellicle. The pellicle also, as you pointed out, protects the beer from any foreign bacteria like acetobacteria and mold. The brett uses the small amount of oxygen that is diffused into the wort via the dowel to reproduce and consume the remaining sugars."

Flanders Red: Secondary 3/9/9

The color was Flanders red-ish. That was good. Did I mention that I used about a 9 month old Wyeast Belgian Blend Propagator and that I got freaked out it wouldn't work and rather than waiting and using a hydrometer that I instead drove 20 miles one way to buy some White Labs Belgian Sour Mix which I pitched two days later? Well I did. Huge yeast cake. Great beer smell. FG 1.014 ~ 5.46 A.B.V. Now the wait begins.

In a year from now...

I'll be drinking a Flemish sour / red ale.

1 lb white wheat malt
1 lb Munich 10
0.5 lb Vienna
0.5 lb Caramunich III
5.10 oz special B

1 hour @ 155
10 min @ 162
Sparge 172

2 hour boil

6lbs Amber LME
.75oz hallertau 3.9% AA 60 min

Belgian lambic blend
Pitched on 2/15/2009 at 3:00 am

Flip Flopping on Root Beer

Okay,
Root beer is good. I also did not get any of the "cat"-iness that some claim to get from Cluster hops. Which, imho, is good. So yeah, brew it up.

Radical Brewing: Lazy Book Review

There is a lot of information on the World Wide Web about homebrewing. Sometimes the need for a handy real life, in your hand reference is needed. I bought Radical Brewing and I think its a good buy.

1. Its informative
2. Its written in a non-dry way
3. Um, its good and has better layout than similar books.

It has cool title.

ADULT ROOT BEER - Revealed

Bottled the root beer 1/18/09. This beer was not as odoriferous and smelling of root beer as when I put it into the secondary. It carbed nicely and pours nice, but its not root beer. It has some wintergreen to the nose, but other than that is a slightly bitter porter. Not bad, but not root beer. If I try again I'll use spices in the secondary and then make a tincture to add at bottling.

Root beer: bottled

Hmmmm, didn't seem so root beer-y today. Taste good, root beer flavor level low.


FG 1.018

~ 4.66% ABV