re: Homebrewing: In-Process Thread

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Fast souring involves using lactobacillus into either the mash grain (sour mash) or after a boil of the wort (kettle souring) prior to adding yeast for fermentation. This gets good acidity and sourness after a much shorter time frame, but it does require you to be able to hold fermentation temperature at ~90F for a couple days to let the lactobacillus do work. It also means your wort is going to have to ferment under conditions that sacch. yeast strains really don't perform well under.

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Well, everything i'm reading in that article LINK kind of argues against kettle souring, unless you have the means to maintain the temps and keep oxygen out. Can't guarantee that with my kettle. From what i gathered from the article, (which i could be wrong) is that a standard wort production and pitching the right amount of lacto and maintain it at the correct temps would lead to a more reliable sour beer.

Something about temps could produce colustrum or botulism. Not sure.

Anyway, i was also reading on the milk the funk wiki on the lacto strain i used.

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Wyeast on 5335 The following is an excerpt with Jess Caudill, Brewer/Microbiologist, at Wyeast Laboratories, Inc. concerning usage of Wyeast 5335 and making a Berliner Weissbier. Use 5335. If using our 5335, don’t use ANY hops. You can always blend in some IPA or hopped wort after souring takes place if you really need some bitterness or hop flavor/aroma in the beer. From one 5335 pack, make a 1L starter with 1.020 DME sterile wort. No O2! Incubate at 90°F if possible for 5-7 days. Brew your 5 gallons of wort. Again… no hops. Sterilize the wort. (No need for sour mashes). Cool to 90°F and add 1L 5335 starter. No O2. Try to maintain 90°F for 5-7 days depending on how sour you want the beer. After 5-7 days, cool wort to around 68. Pitch with a low pH tolerant strain such as 1007 or 2124. No O2. Ferment for around 1-2 weeks… until you hit terminal. Package beer. If bottle conditioning, use 4021 as a bottling strains. Very tolerant to low pH.

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I did none of that. My hops were at 3.8 IBU's, and i pitched the sach, lacto, and brett all at teh same time, along with a 1 Liter starter of bottle dregs. It's been fermenting at 72 degrees. This beer wasn't meant to be a fast soured beer, so i'm hoping just giving it time to do its thing will produce a good beer. I have been wondering if i need to maybe pitch a starter of another lacto, however.

For my next sour batch, i think i will use the method in that article. Produce wort, make a starter for the lacto. Dump starter in and keep the temps around 86-90 for a few days. Build a brett starter. Then pitch the sach and brett together and let it go and see how that works.

And then for my gose, use the process on the chart (1 page back, and in the link). I interpret that diagram that i
1) brew as normal.
2) No or minimal hops.
3) Then add phosphoric or lactic acid to give me a wort ph of 4.5.
4) Pitch lacto from starter using a carboy.
5) Maintain the lacto temp using my fermwrap if needed.
6) Cool to sach temps and pitch sach yeast and oxygenate (i use the shake the shite out of it method)
7) bottle/keg or transfer to secondary and add brett.

I know this is a long post and is all over the place, however seeing as Sour brewing is a relatively new process, a lot of the information i've read 6 months ago, to now is different.


ETA: Actually its discouraging the no boil souring method, not the kettle souring. My mistake.

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Use Omega Lacto blend and an unhopped wort. No need to control temperature. Pitch at 90 and let it ride down with no control. You will have appreciable sourness in 24 hours.

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No starters are anything? What about wort OG? I've read anything under 1.050 is preferable.

Also, seperate question, what stops the ph from going down too low? I would like my current sour to be in the 3.6 to 3.8 range. If i measure my wort ph and its in that range, how do i stop it from getting more acidic? Do i simply cold crash and bottle/keg?

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For the sour I brewed last week I used the brew, pitch lacto, wait, then pitch yeast (in my case Brett) method. I bought the GigaYeast Lacto blend for 10.99. The WLP lacto has an extremely low cell count for the 6.99 price tag, and the Wyeast is 10.99 for half the cell count of the Gigayeast blend. Seemed like a no brainer to use the gigayeast with no starter.

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Would you recommend grabbing a pack of that giga lacto blend and pouring it into the fermenter, or just waiting and see what happens? FWIW, i don't even have a ph meter yet, and need to get one before i do anything. Just wondering what my steps should be or should i just be patient and ride it out. I've had every intention of "sit and forget" with this batch and just be patient, but if i can help out my brew in anyway for $10 and it might give me a quicker brew, i'll do it.

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No starters are anything?

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1000 ml starter.

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What about wort OG

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My last one was 1.050 and it went fine.

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how do i stop it from getting more acidic

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If you're wanting to stop it in the 3.8-3.6 range, you're going to have to boil or campden tablet it. Otherwise it'll keep going until it kills itself in the lower 3's.

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If you're wanting to stop it in the 3.8-3.6 range, you're going to have to boil or campden tablet it. Otherwise it'll keep going until it kills itself in the lower 3's.

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Wow. Even if you've already pitched your sach and brett? What your suggesting is basically pasteurizing the wort, correct? and Campden, never used those before. How would you use it in this situation? Does it produce off flavors?

And well, i guess the appropriate way to combat too much sourness is blending.

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Even if you've already pitched your sach and brett?

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I'm strictly talking about kettle souring with lacto.

Not sour related-

Want to thank you for the oatmeal coffee stout recipe and recommendations. Cracked the first one on Sunday and WhoA! The next batch (a double batch) is already being planned.

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Want to thank you for the oatmeal coffee stout recipe and recommendations. Cracked the first one on Sunday and WhoA! The next batch (a double batch) is already being planned.

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No problem. Did you use the 2 row or did you end up getting some maris otter? Did you use coffee? How big was the batch?

Glad you liked it. It's one of my favorite recipes i brew. I'm critical of every beer i make, but that one is hard for me to pick apart.

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The coffee stout is such a great cold weather brew I want to get more out before it warms up in late may.

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Agreed. I believe this was my first beer to go into my kegging system last year. The keg ran dry in about 3 weeks (not just from me).

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These little batches have been a ton of fun. I've done 8 total since mid January and I've learned a lot.

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I've often wanted to do gallon batches. The ease of brewing in your house as opposed to dragging all that equipment out, sounds more appealing. The problem, is you only have 1 gallon of beer. But if you are making 8/month, then you really don't have that problem.