Ah, so I brewed a nice looking saison about a fortnight ago, and put it in the fermenting chamber, and sort of forgot about it. Now it has a pellicle forming. Normal for that yeast? I suspect not, though.
Any ideas where to go with it now? I'm open to all ideas, including chucking / waiting and seeing.
From what I have read, there is no other bacteria in that strain. So somehow it sounds as though you got an infection some how.
It happened to 3 of my batches last year. I decided to let them go and see but after 6 mould grew on top of one which got dumped. The other I only dumped yesterday as the just tasted weird. From what I have read only very rarely does an "accidental" sour work.
It might be better to dump unfortunately, but you will have dump the fermenter unless it's glass or as or risk another infection.
Though at the end if the day it's your choice, and if you do decide to wait let us know how it progresses.
Also, have you got a pic of the pellicle?
Smells OK in terms of infection, as in it's not babysick or off butter (although I could just be getting used to babysick). I've got one of those jerry cans from the group buy cider than I'm prepared to let go, if it's worth transferring to one of those, see how it goes?
Any advice on length of time to wait until trying and dumping?
It's about time the fermenter went anyway. Although I'm sure that it's not the source of the current infection, it could well be the source of the next.
Trying to upload the pic now.
You're quite sure it's a pellicle? Could you post a piccie?
86% sure. I'll try and get a photo up by tomorrow. Old shaky-hands can't get a good one off his mobile!
Maybe if I had a pint first...
In terms of length of time, it would be very hard to say. And especially as you don't know what is in there. Plastic is porous so will let in oxygen which in turn acetobacter (vinegar) could appear over time.
If you are going to let it go, taste now and judge what you think, but as I said because you don't know what is exactly in there it is a very unknown area in terms of what to expect.
If there's a pellicle then any infection will have taken a firm hold already, in which case, your tastebuds will be the best judge.
It's possible that the yeast strain just looks different to any you've ever used before. I'm always amazed at how differently the different strains behave.
I've no pellicle, but using this yeast atm, and it's proving very slow to ferment out, og was 1.065 and it was 1.011 when I checked at the weekend, I have been fermenting at ~20degrees, but I've put it into a fermentation chamber and raised it up to 26 to see if it will drop any further.
I'm really liking the yeast, it has a huge fruit aroma, can't wait to try it when it's finished.
Haven't opened the keezer since I posted the last message, but it's rapidly coming up my to-do list! I'll take a photo, see what happened.
It did smell nice whilst actively fermenting, but I had no problems getting it down to ten, or thereabouts. I think I started it, which may have helped.