bigljd

Recipes 

Just a thought, but are crystal grains going to have lacto or pedio on them? Seems to me the bacteria might be killed off during the kilning process, especially on a darker kilned malt. I did a sour mash a couple weeks ago and pitched some maris otter in the wort and kept it around 100, and had a nice and sour lactic starter in a couple days.

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Carter5112

Recipes 

I'll second the method of using the oven with the light on. Here's a lactose starter I just got done with after 4 days. Sour smelling but not funky. I purged with co2 so maybe that helped.

scruff311

Recipes 

I just tried my first sour mash in a 2 gallon cooler with 3 lbs of grain (30% of grist) at about a 1.66 qt/lb thickness (after all additions of temp boosting water). We let this ride for 2 days over which time the temp went from 127 - 102, then boosted to 117 and finished at 92.

The mash did not smell foul or anything, but there were clumps of white film on top and some fuzzy crap along the sides of the cooler above the mash. I skimmed all of this out and then added this sour mash to the main mash just before lautering. What went into the fermentor has zero sourness.

Did we not let the sour mash ride long enough? Maybe an additional day or two next time? I'm afraid another day would have created a lot more ugly bugs though...