Probiotic fun gets interesting

Now this probiotic action has gotten really interesting this week. In case the posts have disappeared, this project began here and continued here. Thanks to the results this week I've made some modifications to my plans.

So I checked on the base beer for this project, which I assumed was not going to get funky or sour. To my surprise, on Saturday I noticed a pellicle beginning to form. This morning it was thick and full of bubbles. So the probiotic blend must be some slow but persistent bacteria and yeast. So since I have good activity there I don't want to complicate it by adding the side sour wort. I want to let it ride and see where it goes and how much longer it takes to dry out.

Since I have the sour wort free I decided I'll make a simple blonde ale sometime soon and toss in the sour wort to the boil. Then I can compare the blond and brown ale and see which I like more to determine how, if at all, I'd want to reproduce that sour beer. The sour wort smells strongly of diacetyl but it's developing a bit of funk. I went ahead and capped the bottle I used as a fermentation vessel to keep out extra air. What's interesting is the bottom of the bottle has a thick white layer. It doesn't necessarily look like trub, it has an appearance more like the mother in vinegar. It is thick, white and somewhat disk-like. I'll want to keep whatever is in there and feed some more food when I decant out the soured wort.

Although it's not what I intended for this project it's definitely given me something interesting to work with.