A pellicle has formed on a porter i brewed and i’m curious about it. I have used brett in the past, only once, and i was pretty confident my equipment was thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. It was left in the secondary for quite a long time so i wonder if just a little something got in at some point and had time to grow.

If you are a brewer that leans toward the funky end of the spectrum (you brew with Brettanomyces or lactic acid bacteria), you probably have seen a pellicle forming in your fermenter. So, what is it? In the parlance of microbiologists, it is a biofilm. A biofilm is basically a community of microorganisms that are connected to one another through the use of an extracellular matrix (material outside of the cell). The extracellular matrix can be composed of just about anything…proteins, long chains of sugars, live (or dead) cells, or other materials found in the surrounding environment. This network of cells and materials is there to support a structure. In the case of the pellicle so organisms can “float” on top of the liquid. Other biofilms can form on solid surfaces such as teeth or medical equipment, the majority of scientific research about pellicles or biofilms focus on those forms. A pellicle is a subtype of biofilm, not as stable as the solid surface types but they employ the same mechanisms of attachment to one another (at the cell level). There is some debate about the purpose of a pellicle in fermentation but it is undeniable that it occurs at the liquid-air interface. The leading hypothesis is so the cells can undergo oxidative metabolism, to access the little oxygen present in the atmosphere of the fermenter. This is by far the most reasonable explanation I’ve heard, obviously the cells are trying to get at the atmosphere. It is widely believed that the formation of a pellicle is a sign that oxygen is getting into the fermenter somehow, although most of these stories are speculation and/or anecdotes (believable though, more below). If that is the case, then bacteria or yeast species capable of running respiratory processes would be producing a different profile of metabolites than those individuals that are within the beer/wort itself. In the case of many yeast and bacteria, exposure to oxygen would allow them to make acetic acid in low quantities, which would have a profound effect on sourness of a beer. I’ve also heard the hypothesis that the pellicle protects the beer from oxygen. I think this is likely false. While the organisms would prevent the oxygen in the head space from getting to the beer, it isn’t protecting. Those organisms will use the oxygen to produce various chemicals that may negative affect the beer, so you might be safe from oxidation but not from acetic acid.

This is great. When I realized pellicle means film I started to read about biofilms and to suggest to friends there were the same phenomenon, but I have not seen anybody with cred flat out state that a pellicle is a kind of biofilm. Very good to see that explicitly.

Lens aberration refers to the imperfections that occur when light passes through a lens, distorting the image. These occur due to the geometry and materials of the lens. They cause light rays to spread out or focus inaccurately. Aberrations affect the clarity, brightness, and colour of images.

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Both types of distortion are a matter of concern in architectural photography where straight lines are prominent. Modern lenses use complex lens elements and aspherical designs reduce distortion. Many cameras feature built-in digital correction capabilities.

Spherical aberration occurs when light rays passing through a lens do not converge at the same point. This results from the spherical shape of standard lenses. Since the light rays hitting the lens at different places focus at different distances, this causes blur and reduces image quality, especially in strong lighting.

Coma is an aberration that causes off-axis points, like stars, to appear comet-shaped. It gets worse as the aperture of the lens increases. This aberration is especially noticeable in astrophotography and nighttime landscapes.

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Correcting chromatic aberration can involve using special lens coatings or additional lens elements that compensate for color dispersion.

Types ofaberrationin lenses

I’ve included two photos above of beers that I’ve made in the past few years that both formed pretty substantial pellicles. One was a saison that contained B. bruxellensis and the other was a berlinerweiss that had no Brettanomyces in it but contained a Saccharomyces strain and a Lactobacillus species. In this case, it is likely that the Lactobacillus species was forming the pellicle and not the Saccharomyces.

Coma becomes more prominent in images taken with a wide aperture setting. It distorts points of light away from the center. This can be very distracting in images with pinpoint lights against a dark background. Lens manufacturers combat coma by designing complex aspherical elements and using sophisticated optical formulas to align light more accurately.

Lateral chromatic aberration occurs when different wavelengths of light are focused at different positions on the same focal plane. It is also known as transverse chromatic aberration. This type of aberration results in color fringes appearing around the edges of objects in the image.

Longitudinal chromatic aberration happens when different wavelengths of light are focused at different distances along the optical axis. This causes a shift in focus between colors, with some colors focusing slightly in front of or behind the sensor or film plane.

I do think pellicles protect the classic Lambics in a real way — they can keep acetobactor-bearing fruit flies off the liquid, and give those lucky Lambic spiders — the icon of the old craft — a way to scoot across and kill them. If not protection, a platform for protection!

I have updated I’ve received a lot of feedback through Facebook, twitter, and in the comments section of this blog about this post and I wanted to express my appreciation to everyone that helped make this post more accurate and helpful. It is always my goal to be as accurate as possible and to provide interesting and useful information that might not be covered in the “beer blog” community.

Some research has been done on oxygen permeability at the homebrew level by Better Bottle. Both closures, http://www.mocon.com/pdf/optech/Closures%20-%20Oxygen%20Passage%20Study.pdf and their carboys:http://www.better-bottle.com/pdf/CarboyPermeabilityStudy.pdf

Bottom line, a lot of micro-organisms can form a pellicle because all that is required to do so is the ability to build this extracellular space to capture other cells. The majority of bacteria and yeast can do this because even microorganisms survive better in communities than as individuals.

Lens aberrationtest

It is also called axial chromatic aberration. This effect is most apparent in images with shallow depth of field, where it shows as halos of color around out-of-focus areas. It is noticeable in the background blur of images.

It is also possible that pellicles are a mixture of species either “intentionally” interact or just get caught up in the super-structure of the pellicle.

Thanks for the feedback. I updated the figure legend to be more accurate and added an additional figure showing the FLO11 dependence of pellicle formation. I’ll give that colony morphology paper a thorough read when I head into lab today and see if I should just remove that SEM altogether or not.

In lenses with spherical surfaces, rays from the edge focus nearer than those from the center. This variance in focus points across the lens surface degrades the image. It can cause softness in images that cannot be eliminated by simply adjusting the focus. Modern lens designs often use aspherical elements to reduce this effect.

Aberrations in lenses can be eliminated through various methods such as using specialized lens materials, incorporating multiple lens elements, utilizing aspheric lens elements, and employing advanced optical designs.

Lens aberration refers to the imperfections in images produced by lenses, such as blurring or color fringes, due to the lens's optical limitations.

As a result of the hypothesized roles and products, pellicles are generally seen by the professional brewing and wine industry as a sign of spoilage (for non-Brettanomyces and sour beers). The majority of literature concerning pellicles is directed at wine producers, basically how to recognize them and what to do when you encounter them, with little else written about them. Brettanomyces bruxellensis is a common wine “spoilage” organisms that can form pellicles within barrels…the general advice for vintners when this happens is to waste the wine and burn the barrel. Some beer makers have a more enlightened view of B. bruxellensis and pellicles in general.

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Re your comment that the role of O2 in pellicle formation has not been determined because nobody is measuring dissolved O2 in fermentation: Even if O2 is causative, measurable levels of O2 would not likely be seen. The half-velocity constant for O2 is perhaps 0.1 mg/L. A slow, steady flux of O2 into a fermenter could support aerobic metabolism, but maintain dissolved O2 at immeasurably low concentrations.

Yes, astigmatism can be corrected by using lens elements with specially designed curvatures to ensure that light focuses evenly at all points.

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In a lens, aberration refers to the failure of the lens to produce a perfect image. Aberrations cause deviations from the ideal image formation and result in image distortions such as blurring, color fringing, and distortion.

Astigmatismaberration

Astigmatism in lenses causes images to blur along one axis more than the other. It results from the lens having different focal lengths in different meridians. This makes it hard to get a uniformly sharp focus across an image.

I am a microbiologist by trade, I have a Ph.D. and have been brewing for over 10 years at this point. A large portion of this blog is dedicated to my own homebrew efforts but sprinkled throughout are articles like this one, where I isolate a biological or chemical aspect of the beer and explain it and if possible analyze it myself. This post is going to be about pellicles, what causes them, what organisms can make them, and what exactly they are and possibly their function. As with all my science posts, I hope you find this helpful or interesting, otherwise there will be a saison post in a few days for your digestion. Any comments, additions or corrections, leave a comment at the bottom. Whenever I publish one of these someone comes along and fills in important gaps I’ve left. I will edit the article and give you credit for the edit. I look forward to your input.

It is more noticeable towards the edges of the optical field and varies with the aperture size. Lateral chromatic aberration is often seen as color outlines that can degrade image quality in high-contrast scenes.

Curvature of Field is an optical aberration where the image formed by a lens is not perfectly flat. Instead of a flat plane, the image surface takes the shape of a curved surface, much like a shallow bowl. This causes the edges of the image to appear out of focus when the center is in focus, or vice versa.

The objective is one having a telephoto ratio between about 0.77 and about 0.95, that ratio being the ratio of the axial length of the objective between the ...

Lens aberrationCorrection

And I am not including that tweet to call either of those people out, I respect both of those individuals, but rather to illustrate that this is a question that is out there and this was only one example of someone asking it. Asking questions is how people learn and fortunately there is an answer to this question in particular.

A little off topic, but I was wondering if the SCOBY from kombucha is basically a pellicle (I believe is made by acetic acid, since you can start growing it from unpasteurized apple cider).

Opticalaberration

I would like to simply point out from a production brewers perspective, the main reason brewers don’t want yeast strains, sachromyces or other wise, that form pellicles is that any form of biofilm represents a cleaning and sanitizing challenge particularly in hoses, filling machinery etc. Keep up the good work!

The expression of this gene alone is enough to form a pellicle and since Saccharomyces cerevisiae species have this gene, they can definitely form a pellicle under conditions where that gene is expressed, which brings me to my last point. If Saccharomyces CAN form a pellicle (or at least has the genetic ability to do so) why DOESN’T it form a pellicle under “normal” use? This is likely the fault of the brewing industry. Pellicles, as stated above, are generally seen as a spoilage state of beer and wine. And since yeast strains have been cultivated by the alcohol manufacturing industry for centuries (millions of generations of yeasts), we have selected for strains that do not express this gene…we have unintentionally evolved Saccharomyces away from this ability. Looking at the current expression patterns for that gene, it is heavily repressed by the presence of glucose. And since wort has a lot of glucose in it, pellicle formation in wort would be rather difficult. Strains with this property would be visibly appealing to brewers.

Aberration of the lens refers to the failure of a lens to produce a perfect image. It occurs due to the lens's geometry and light's physical properties. There are several lens aberrations, each affecting the image in different ways.

Optical astigmatism can greatly affect the quality of an image, depending on the orientation of the lens elements. It is most noticeable when photographing straight lines, which can appear soft or wavy. Advanced lens designs use multiple aspherical surfaces or specially shaped elements to correct for astigmatism.

The EF 50mm lenses are a group of normal prime lenses made by Canon that share the same focal length. These lenses are based on the classic double-Gauss ...

The magnification of the ocular lenses on your scope is 10X. Objective lens X Ocular lens = Total magnification. For example: low power: (10X)(10X) = ...

So which organisms can form pellicles? When talking about bacteria, many bacteria that are not strict anaerobes (cannot grow in the presence of oxygen) can form some sort of pellicle. But for the purposes of brewing we are usually talking about only a few different kinds of bacteria.

Comaaberration

Chromatic aberration can be reduced by using an achromatic doublet, which combines two lenses with different dispersion properties to better focus colors at the same point.

A pellicle is the term brewer’s use for the layer that forms on top of the wort / beer in the fermenter (liquid-air interface). It can appear to be uneven or appear to have “bubbles” in it. It can also appear ropey or like a spider web. I’ve seen ones that are slimy looking or looks like small dry patches of while floating on top of beer. I’ve included a few photos of pellicles from my own fermentations found in various places within this blog. You can use google to find all the permutations a pellicle can take.

Hi Matt, love your blog, but I would like to call your attention to something. The image with the pellicle formation under microscope isn’t correct, as it belongs to the paper “Domestication of wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae is accompanied by changes in gene expression and colony morphology” on yeast colony ECM, not biofilms. Best regards and keep up the good work

There are a set of genes in yeast called “flocculation” genes or FLO for short. Expression of these genes is what generally controls how well (or poorly) a yeast cell will floc out of solution. And Saccharomyces has them. More specifically, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has the gene FLO11, the gene that is required for pellicle formation. Strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that are forced through engineering to over-expresses FLO11 started forming pellicles on glucose media at the liquid-air interface. FLO11 is a cell surface protein. It is decorated by a series of polysaccharides (chains of sugar molecules) that stick out of the cell into the surroundings. FLO11 is required for “pseudohyphal formation” formation which is morphologically distinct cell shape that looks like filaments. It is also believed that FLO11 is required for cell-cell contact, an important feature of a pellicle.

This question was the ultimate inspiration for this post because I think there is a mild misconception about pellicles in the community in general. Most homebrewers, and probably professional brewers, would immediately say “no” to this question. This is likely due to the highly selected strains used by amateurs and professionals in the brewing process. The reality seems from the literature, that there is nothing stopping Saccharomyces from forming a pellicle. This specifically came up with the recent controversy about WLP644 not being Brettanomyces but rather Saccharomyces. You can read about that controversy here, I will not cover it in this blog. Some people thought that since that strain was forming a pellicle, it couldn’t be Saccharomyces, or at least that was speculated.

Pellicles are a cool side effect of brewing sour / funky beers. I got a pellicle when I made my hot sauce a few months back, that was fun to see (photo below). Seeing a pellicle makes me smile for some reason. But they are mostly an aesthetic property of the brew rather than specifically indicative of anything expect perhaps a little oxygen in the fermenter. There are a few experiments someone (perhaps me) can do someday to examine if pellicle formation can be completely blocked even in an organism that may naturally form a pellicle such as a Brettanomyces species. One thing that always springs to mind when I see a pellicle is “has oxygen gotten into the fermenter?” People claim that plastic fermenters (buckets or better bottles as examples) are more permeable to oxygen than glass carboys…it is believable but people aren’t actually measuring dissolved oxygen at the homebrew level (are they?) so it is all based on people’s assumptions, prejudice, and taste perceptions. It might be a worthwhile experiment to brew the same beer and put half in a glass carboy, half in a plastic carboy and purge both with CO2 and see if a pellicle forms in one or both of the carboys. Sound doable. Would sparging with CO2, or actually activating all the oxygen out of a glass jar prevent pellicle formation? An anecodote (which isn’t evidence but nevertheless), I decided to take some WLP644, the Saccharomyces that forms a pellicle, and put it into a 6 gallon glass carboy. I sparged the liquid with CO2 and blew out the headspace with more CO2 and put an airtight cap on it. It has yet to form a pellicle after two weeks. This wasn’t a very well thought out test or experiment but I’ll think of a better way to do it and try again in the future.

Great Post! I’m a scientist and a brewer (long story…), my final work in University degree has been the thesis: Pilot production of a beer aged on flor yeast. I made it in Thornbridge Brewery (UK). I used a yeast strain from a Italian Wine like sherry and finally we made 300 liters of “florized beer”. Very interesting…

I am working on a hot sauce and have a very colorful pellicle forming on the surface. It looks like mold is growing too. Is that a bad sign that it should be discarded or the pellicle just pulled off and the product is ok??

Yeah. I would agree that a scoby would also be a pellicle-like biofilm. That structure is there because the acetic acid bacteria NEED the oxygen to survive.

One suggestion I got that I did not address was to include a section on flor, as in sherry flor. This is another reason why I love this blog, in danger of revealing my ignorance, I had never heard of this. After doing some research on that phenomenon, I decided it would be too off topic to include here but I learned so much reading about that. So thanks for reading my blog and writing me back about the post. I hope the more I do this the better I get but I never want to stop getting your feedback. Thanks again. Please continue to email me errors or omissions.

Lens aberrationexamples

Distortion is an aberration that causes straight lines near the edges of an image to bend inward or outward, giving a warped appearance to the image. There are two main types of distortion: barrel and pincushion. Barrel distortion makes images appear bowed outwards at the edges. It is common in wide-angle lenses. Pincushion distortion causes images to pinch in at the edges, which is seen in telephoto lenses.

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This is a microscopy technique from Dr Zdena Palkova group in colony mophology… More in the paper “Domestication of wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae is accompanied by changes in gene expression and colony morphology”

There are Various types of aberrations exist, each affecting image quality in specific ways. Here are the types of lens aberrations:

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Really enjoy your writing, as a fellow scientist (clinical though), I’d love to hear any thing about how you get into the brewing industry. Been brewing for 4+ years and is love to make the career chance to something I’m really passionate about. Thanks for all the great work and writing!

Aberrations can degrade the quality of an image by causing blurriness, light halos, and color fringing. The impact of these aberrations becomes noticeable in high-resolution photography where even minor flaws in image clarity are visible.

Sphericalaberration

Chromatic aberration appears as color fringes around objects in images. It happens because different colors of light refract at slightly different angles. Blue and red light often focus at different distances when passing through a lens. This type of aberration reduces image sharpness and color accuracy.

This is very noticeable in flat-field applications like microscopy or photographing a flat surface. The result is an image that cannot be entirely in focus at once without stopping down the lens, which increases the depth of field.

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@ECoffy One odd thing though. Trois can definitely form a pellicle on its own. Never heard of a Sacch strain that forms a pellicle.

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Chromatic aberration occurs because lenses refract different wavelengths of light at slightly different angles, leading to color fringing around objects.

Common lens aberrations include chromatic aberration, spherical aberration, coma aberration, astigmatism, and field curvature. These aberrations result in various distortions in the image formed by the lens.

True, maltose also fulfills this function of repression. Next time use your real name so we can have a conversation though. No need to hide.

Any clue what type of microscopy was used to attain figures 3 and 4? I have used SEM before but the yeast just seem to be crushed under the pressure of the electrons.

Worts obtained from mashing cereal grains have incredibly low levels of glucose and as such, that statement is patently false. The small (and irrelevant) amounts of glucose that are produced from the depolymerization of starch during mashing are depleted within the first few minutes/hours of wort fermentation.