More Lacto Questions

So if Lacto doesn't like Oxygen, then adding it to work post-boil rather than pre-boil would be beneficial to it's thriving... right?

That said, if Lacto is hop-aphobic, at what point (IBU's) do the hops actually cause a problem for proper Lacto fermentation?

I ask because until now I've added lacto to un-boiled 2nd running's from my mash. But I'm thinking of trying a regular mash and wort-boil and then just running off my sour portion afterwards. I figure the IBU on the beer is only 7.2 which hopefully isn't enough to inhibit the Lacto, and the boil will drive off nearly all the oxygen so it'll have a much happier anerobic environment to ferment in.

Thoughts?

I saved some second runnings from a batch because I had too much and I boiled it without hops and pitched the lacto. I plan to have the lacto infected wort make up half the batch size and the other half I'm just going to whip up some wheat DME wort then boil for 15 minutes with hops to get about 15 IBU then mix the two halves together and pitch my yeast. So we will find out how it works.

The IBU level is specific to the lacto strain. I don't have any good levels for each of the commercially available ones. The rule of thumb I have seen is max up to 15 IBUs.

The best way to know is to try it. It is also possible to have lacto mutate to be accustom to IBUs as has been done with the lacto strains for Cascade Brewing and Fantome.

lactobacillus is aerotolerant, oxygen doesnt actually inhibit the bacteria, pedio on the other hand does not like oxygen, you have to be careful with nomenclature on these types of bacteria as both technically are lactic acid bacteria

Im betting your using lactobacillus, as pedio needs brett to clean up the diacetyl it can produce, in that case oxygen isnt an issue

As far as hop tolerance, it is strain dependent, and strains from bottles tend to be a bit hardier (Jolly Pumpkin and Odell Friek have good bugs) the commercial strains from WY/WL start to crap out on your around 5IBU

Lactobacillus delbrueckii has problems with hop acids not all strains of Lactobacillus. The issue is that some of the other strains of Lactobacillus will produce other acids besides lactic acid and also can spit out diacetyl like Pediococcus cerevisiae. I think one of the reasons Wyeast and Whitelabs puts out such a wimpy strain is because it's the easiest strain to use.

Hi Guys - I did a BW 3 weeks ago using the WL 630 Berliner Weisse blend. It was an old vial so I used a starter and aerated the starter like crazy...oops. I had pretty good fermentation and airlock activity after about a day and the gravity has hit 1.010 now. It is at a pretty constant 70-72 degrees I am now starting to get rid of the sulfur smell.

I sampled last night and there is a slight (very slight) tartness but no where near what I would like to see. I am asking this here because I am tired of 2 guys bickering back and fourth on the WLP630 thread.

Do you think I should pitch a vial of pure Lacto now?
Should I rack to secondary and forget about drinking this refreshing brew this summer?
Should I bottle and wait, add pedio and Brett?
Should I move to warmer temps like garage at about 85 degrees during the day?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Not speaking from any experience what so ever but i would think that if you pitched your yeast already there may not be a ton of sugars left over for the lacto to convert to lactic acid. you could crash cool and try to drop out as many yeast as you can and then add some more lacto as well as a bit of dme for sugar. But i think at that time there would be too much alcohol for the lacto to survive. You might be as sour as you're going to get. With a grain of salt of course.

fwiw, i'm 100% certain hops do not inhibit lacto-d growth (maybe to some degree, but it'll grow - beware). however, lacto-d combined with high BU is AWFUL tasting imo.

i've had beers develop lacto growth in high BU beers and i can relate (sadly) that while lacto will grow in high BU beers (i've gone as high as 40+), all have been undrinkable due to taste. sour and bitter is no way to go through life, son... (sorry, in an animal house mood)