Sacc pitch after lacto fermentation of Berliner Weisse

Hey all,

I posted a question about my Berliner in the sour forum to no avail. Perhaps I'll get some help here. I an going to be pitching my US-05 into the carboy that was inoculated with my lacto culture 48 hrs ago and has been fermenting vigorously since at 110f. I purposely did not oxygenate the wort then since lacto doesn't really like or need it.

I plan on dropping the temp to 65 and pitching the Sacc yeast, but should I add 02 now? Not really sure. I think I should, since I'll be dropping them into a pretty hostile environment with pretty low pH and high population of competing bugs...

What say you? Any help appreciated! Cheers!

I have made 1 berliner weisse and when I do it again I will do it like you have done. Lacto first then pitch sacc. I would add o2 the yeast need it and will absorb most of it.

You do need to aerate. With the low ph, the yeast will need as much help as they can get. If you don't aerate, you will not get much reproduction, and the small population of yeast might not be able to finish.

I had the same concern the first time I did it. Don't worry, the yeast will use the O2.

When I did my Berlinner, just as you have described, I did not oxygenate. My wort was only in the mid 1.030s and a packet of us-05, as I figured, has more than enough healthy cells to burn through that low of a grav. I would be worried about over oxygenating as there wont' be much fermentation to do, but a bit shouldn't hurt.

If you haven't made one yet, I found it to be the fastest, easiest, cheapest beer I've made (no boil, no hop, etc) and I used a lacto-grain-sugar-water starter, and it was absolutely awesome. I even got a bronze in sours in a florida comp with it. Good luck.

Thanks for the replies. I ended up making a 2L 'starter' (did a mini BIAB mash) and injected pure 02 for about 20-30 seconds into it. I pitched the US-05 and had it going strong in about 6 hrs. I pitched this at high krausen into the carboy with the lacto (now cooled to about 65f). For those interested, my recipe and method are outlined below:

Brewed this up yesterday. First bacteria inoculation, first no sparge, first no boil, first no chill. What an easy brew day.

Went for a more traditional gravity so I cut the grains and hops down a bit.

4.5# pale us 2-row
4# wheat malt
0.75 +/- Tettnanger (in mash).

Protein rest at 118f for 20min. Sacc rest at 148-150f for 60min. Mash out at 165f with remainder of water. This was a very thin mash at that point. Drained without vorloufing into kettle and heated to 185f to pasturize, killed heat, covered and let free fall to 120f (about 4hrs).

Pitched homemade lacto starter (crushed grain, 160f water, and a tsp of yogurt whey) and within 12hrs this carboy is going nuts! Nice krausen, active airlock, and swirling wort. I am keeping it at temps, 100-110f, in a small sealed bathroom with a small space heater fan pointed at it about 12" away. It's actually holding temps quite well this way, since I don't have a way to heat my term chamber as of yet. Gonna give of the full 48hrs before pitching US-05.

I'm confused. Have you pitched the S-05 or not? How long did you let the lacto go before adding the sacc? Did you taste it before adding the sacc to see if it had soured enough?

Calder said:

I'm confused. Have you pitched the S-05 or not? How long did you let the lacto go before adding the sacc? Did you taste it before adding the sacc to see if it had soured enough?

Click to expand...

Ah, yes - I see how that looks confusing. I edited it to have it make more sense. I just copied and pasted that part from my original post in the sour forum.

Yes, I pitched the S-05 after about 55hrs of strong lacto ferment. I did taste it first and it had a nice tart acidic flavor. I basically made a small 2L beer with the same grain ratio of the 5gal recipe and started the S-05 in there. Once it was really going strong (
~12hrs or so) cooled the main lacto batch from 105f to 65f and pitched the 2L starter.

Since this is my first go at a Berliner, this will be my base line recipe to make any adjustments from. The sour starter method worked great for me. I know some people have trouble with the raw grain method sometimes, but I seemed to get a really clean, all-lacto (or... mostly lacto, I guess) culture going.