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An often asked question by homebrewers is can a contaminating microbe be identified based on the appearance of a pellicle. This is an impossible exercise for a few reasons.
# While different strains of the same species of microbe (at least in ''Acetobacter'') can create different types of polysaccharides that make up the pellicle, their overall chemical make up is more or less very similar.
# Numbers and size of bubbles in a pellicle is created by trapped CO2, and thus is not an identifying feature.
# Scientific research on pellicle formation in beer is currently next to none.