lactobacillus in a crockpot

anyone thought of using a crockpot to incubate a lacto starter/sour mash? it seems to be holding it right about 105 degrees on the low setting. i potched a wl lacto vial 18 hrs ago and now theres a bubble every 5 seconds. just make sure theres water in there.

Clever, I like it

muwahahaha, now I can use that crockpot before it gets cold out and she wants to use it for borsch

sheepdawgg said:

anyone thought of using a crockpot to incubate a lacto starter/sour mash? it seems to be holding it right about 105 degrees on the low setting. i potched a wl lacto vial 18 hrs ago and now theres a bubble every 5 seconds. just make sure theres water in there.

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is that a glass gallon jug?

i had thought about using my crockpot for a sour-mash, but had lent out my big Erlenmeyer and got cold feet about using a standard glass vessel unattended.

Yeah I did the same thing on my last Berliner Weisse. I used a regular growler, filled it with some of my unboiled wort and a handful of raw grain and left it there for about 7 days. Used mine on "warm" setting and it held pretty close to 100F... it's pretty slow to start though.

Only hassle was that the max amount of time the crockpot could stay on was 8 hours so temperature sometimes had time to go down a bit before I could start it up again.

The resulting was pretty darn sour. The smell was borderline bearable when I blended this back in the clean fermented beer. It's been 3 weeks in bottle now and it's quite sour already but there are still some off flavors that cleaned up with time on the previous batch so I'll give it some more time.

I think I'll leave the lacto starter for only 3 days next time. It keeps souring in the bottle anyways and I like to be able to enjoy a few easy drinking ones before the sourness gets more intense and limits drinkability. I also fear I may have developed some off flavors by leaving the lacto starter for so long but I need to give the beer more time in bottle before I can judge.

I always add the sour mash/sour wort pre-boil so between the boil and fermentation it blows out all those unwanted smells and flavors, leaving behind a cleanly tart beer. That may not be an option if your soured portion will drop the ph so low the yeast won't ferment but if you are successfully bottle conditioning it doesn't sound like that is your situation.

dcHokie said:

is that a glass gallon jug?

i had thought about using my crockpot for a sour-mash, but had lent out my big Erlenmeyer and got cold feet about using a standard glass vessel unattended.

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The temperature change isn't fast enough to break the glass. Even if It turns off in the middle of the night it will take a few hours.

A side note... I turned it up to just under 120 and the Krausen went away and the bubbles slowed down to one every twenty seconds. Let it fall back to 105 and my little buggers took off again.... Interesting stuff, hope I didn't hurt their feelings

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I always add the sour mash/sour wort pre-boil so between the boil and fermentation it blows out all those unwanted smells and flavors, leaving behind a cleanly tart beer. That may not be an option if your soured portion will drop the ph so low the yeast won't ferment but if you are successfully bottle conditioning it doesn't sound like that is your situation.

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Hey, good point there, I could try this out next time. That being said, I like the fact that my beer continue to evolve (and sour) in the bottle and I don't think that would be the case after boiling the whole thing. Still worth a try just to see what kind of profile I could get with this.

That's awesome! I just used my little cooler last time and added hot water periodically.

Fred82 said:

Hey, good point there, I could try this out next time. That being said, I like the fact that my beer continue to evolve (and sour) in the bottle and I don't think that would be the case after boiling the whole thing. Still worth a try just to see what kind of profile I could get with this.

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Definitely will not continue to evolve in the bottle if you boil the sour mash/sour wort but it's an option if you are getting too much DMS or other off flavors.

Thanks for posting sheepdawgg, it gave me the courage to pull out my old crockpot and try a sour mash last night and experiment. I have a 0.5 gal growler bubbling away today. I found that putting a 4 sheets of aluminum foil around the top to cover the water in the crockpot kept the temperatures up on the warm setting. I hit 122 fully covered after 45 minutes so I pulled a sheet to drop it back down. About 3/4 covered gives me 118F.

I've got a Berliner that fermented on WLP630 back in May and have been disappointed that it has zero sour flavor right now (yes I know it needs time). When I had a Brettanomyces Lambicus Special Edition by Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof and puckered on the first sip, I was sold on super sour beers. Would love to be able to produce one at home. I was thinking of mixing the mash +7 days with the current Berliner to sour it up. Anyone tried adding a sour mash after the fact?

You are welcome! The foil method is a good idea. I'll do that next time. Might help with evaporation too. What I ended up doing is boiling half of the sour and adding it to my all Brett lambicus pumpkin brown then adding the rest of the starter raw a few days later. I hope an all brett sour pumpkin brown ends up being a good idea wish me luck!

I just tried this the other day and it seems to be working pretty well. The WARM setting is keeping it around 110-115 F and it definitely looks like there's something going on. There's some sort of pellicle or something floating on top and while it smells kinda funky it's not a bad smell at all.

I'm wondering what to do next though. My plan was to do a Berliner Weisse but it seems like everything I read is using a different method.

Can I do a shorter boil, pitch the lacto starter and let that go a couple days and then pitch some ale yeast? Or should I pitch the starter in the mash and let that get to the level of sourness I want and then do a full boil? I know people have done both and had success but I'm still not sure what I want to do. I do have 2 jars going in the crock pot so I guess I could try both methods.

Also, do I need to keep these in the crock pot until they're ready to pitch or can I store them safely in some way? I may not get around to brewing until next weekend. I checked one of the jars just now and the ph is around 4.0

It will be safe to keep until next weekend but it will continue to get sour until it reaches the lowest ph the lactobacillus can survive in.

I prefer not to boil the lacto so the beer can evolve in time which is a dynamic that I really enjoy. It's also good when the sourness is not exactly where you wanted it at first because it will get there with time.

Be careful not to let go the sour mash too long with the crock pot. Some people let it go for 6-7 days but often their temperature is not as ideal as what we get with the crock pot. In my case, after 6-7 days, the sourness is a bit too harsh for my taste (especially in such a light beer). Next time I won't let it go as long especially since I can let it age in bottle to get some extra sourness if I ended up short.

About keeping the sour mash, I guess that if you cool it down in the fridge it will slow the growth tremendously. Might be a good thing to filter out the raw grain (if that's the method you used) after a day or two in the fridge. I don't have any justification for that but I don't feel it's a good idea to let the sour mash sit on the grain for too long. Maybe fridge temp is a bit too cold... basement temp might be better... thinking out loud here...

Keep us posted

When you say "sour mash" you're talking about what I have now right? The two jars of wort in the crockpot with a handful of grain in each? Does this method make doing an actual sour mash unnecessary? So I would just mash as normal and get it down around 100 F and then pitch one of the jars? I've read so many different methods I think they're starting to blend together.

Is it safe to taste at this point? I have no idea how sour they are and I don't have enough experience to just go by the ph.

Yes the sour mash is what you have right now. The jar with the wort and grain. The procedure to follow then can vary.

Personally, I have followed this recipe : http://www.ratebeer.com/Recipe.asp?RecipeID=110

As it says, you just need to brew a regular beer with a neutral yeast and after this neutral fermentation is done, you add your sour mash and let it go for a few weeks.

This recipe calls for a no-boil of the regular mash which should add some funky complexity but if you feel unsafe with this, you could boil it a little while. your lacto starter should add enough acidity afterward to make something sour enough.

That being said, this process still need a lot of tuning because I'm not yet fully satisfied with the result so take what I say with a pinch of salt and read what others are saying and make your own mind.

That's interesting. Some of the recipes I've seen are similar but they say to pitch the lacto starter first and let it go for 24-48 hours and then pitch yeast. Still not sure what I'm gonna do...

So I ended up straining these 2 starters and keeping them in the fridge until yesterday. Brewed a low gravity wort with 2-row/white wheat, cooled to around 90-100 F and pitched both jars last night around 9:45pm. There wasn't really any activity when I left this morning (12 hours later). Hoping that will change soon.

Did you pitch a regular yeast as well or did you intended on fermenting this with lacto only ?

I pitched a packet of S-05 after 3 days.

Here's what it looked like a few days after pitching yeast:

Just took a gravity reading the other day and it's down around 1.002 and still not really sour. At least not to the level I was expecting. Will it develop sourness over time if I let it sit for another month or two?

Yes, give it some time, you should get more sourness with time. The profile should also get cleaner... I always get a fair amount of graininess at first but it clears out after 2-3 months.

A lot of it depends on the Lacto species you have. Some don't like hops at all, and will not sour. Most are tolerant of only small amounts of hops.

You should have tasted it before pitching the yeast. The alcohol will also slow the lacto. Once the alcohol has developed it can take a very long time to sour (if at all).

I believe BWs should be made quickly and drunk young. Sour first, then add yeast, bottle carb, and drink after only a few weeks.

I think I used an ounce of low alpha hops in the mash and that was it.

From what I read, pitching the lacto first was just to give it a head start and not necessarily to create all the acidity up front. You're right though, I probably should have tasted it before pitching the yeast.

Just bottled my berliner that was made in May. The gravity sample was tart at room temp, but less so coming out of the fridge. While this one carbs up I was thinking of doing another 2.5 gallon batch. I can only put 0.5 gallon in the crock pot to sour. Would a higher gravity wort, ie 1.050 be more sour than 1.030? Any drawbacks to letting a higher gravity sour?

When its time to add to the additional 2 gallons it could be mashed to give me the proper gravity for a berliner. I'd let the full volume continue to sour at room temp then pitch the yeast.

Still not getting much sourness after a month and the gravity is at 1.002.

I'm not sure if I should keep waiting or just add some lactic acid for a little sourness and drink it now (and then do another one and make sure I get the sourness I want before pitching yeast).

29th floor what flavors are you getting in your Berliner Weiss?I brewed mine 45 days or so ago with the raw grain method dropped into wort for a 3 day head start and then finished with WLP001. It's a really good beer that has apricot notes but is only slightly tart. I've tasted it after a month and nothing is changed so I doubt there's much sourness coming later on. I'm just curious if we have a similar beer. Also keep in mind that brett doesn't need a gravity drop to work but Lacto does. At 1.002 I doubt much further sourness will be added with time.

Yeah that sounds similar to what I have. I'm not sure if I'm getting apricot but it does have good flavor for a low gravity beer. It smells like it's going to taste sour and then it doesn't which I think is what's weird about it.

If the lacto needs a gravity drop to increase sourness I doubt I'm gonna get much more at this point. I'm strongly leaning towards adding a little 88% lactic acid and bottling... just to get a bit of sourness in there. I dont want to overdo it and have it taste artificial, but I think it still needs a little something.