Lactobacillus Fermentation

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El_Exorcisto

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Has anyone done a lactobacillus fermentation with anything besides a Berliner Weisse? It makes a sour beer without the level of commitment that the rest of the bugs require. I'm curious why I only read about it being used in Berliner...
 
Sure, I've put lacto in my Flanders Brown, which was actually just a brown ale I did, and used some lacto in (probably not to style guidelines, but who cares!?). I love the stuff, and I love sour beers, so I use it when I can. If you like sour, try it in a beer, what can it hurt.

If you want to stick to styles, try a Flanders Red, Flanders Brown, Lambic, Gueuze, etc.

I'm trying to do a Gueuze, but I'm not sure I'll have the patience to brew a batch or two every year, and blend after three to five years.

In my opinion, however, just do what you like, you don't have to stick to any style. This is especially true with sour beers. Give them time, Give them oak, give them fruit, whatever you want, and they could come out awesome. Don't be scared of Pedio, or any other bugs either. If you like sour beers, you'll probably get something pleasant given enough time.
 
The problem with lacto is you need to keep IBUs and ABV in check if you want it to perform.

I recently brewed a Belgian Amber with lacto and brett (no sacc). I let the lacto (no starter) go for 4 days before pitching a pack of Brett L and Brett B (all bugs were Wyeast). It has been about a month now and the pH is down to 3.5 and it hasn't really budged from there for a week or two. But the temp of the beer is only mid to high 60s, so if I were able to keep it at 80F, I think it would be down in the 3.3 range right now.

This beer had a bittering addition of 3 pellets. That is .05oz of hops in the entire batch.
 
Good point. pitching the lacto first is a great suggestions.

In my opinion bitterness and sourness don't go well together anyways, so I'm not sure that you'd even want many hops in there, but the antibacterial properties of hops tend to... kill bacteria. Not a good thing when using lacto.
 
The problem with lacto is you need to keep IBUs and ABV in check if you want it to perform.

I recently brewed a Belgian Amber with lacto and brett (no sacc). I let the lacto (no starter) go for 4 days before pitching a pack of Brett L and Brett B (all bugs were Wyeast). It has been about a month now and the pH is down to 3.5 and it hasn't really budged from there for a week or two. But the temp of the beer is only mid to high 60s, so if I were able to keep it at 80F, I think it would be down in the 3.3 range right now.

This beer had a bittering addition of 3 pellets. That is .05oz of hops in the entire batch.
Why not just sour mash it and then boil with hops? I followed your sour mashing in a controllable manner thread on babblebelt and did exactly that.

The only problem I see with doing this and using brett is that it supposedly doesn't reproduce after a certain PH.
 
Check out recipes for the German style Gose, which is a lacto beer seasoned with salt and coriander. Mmm, Mmm, delicious. These brews originate in the Sachsen region (Saxony). There are some commercial examples available from Leipzig. Anderson Valley makes a yummy Gose.
 
Just put another 10 gallons of Gose in the fermentor. Love this stuff. 11# Pale wheat, 6# 2row pils, 1# 6 row pale, 1# Acid malt and .4# munich for color. Only 1 oz Saaz, sea salt and corriander. Make a 1.6l starter of Lacto WLP677 about 3-4 days prior, pitch 2 vials WL Kolsch and half the lacto. My fermentor is 12 gals and this baby has such a wild ferment I still need a blowoff tube. after 10 days rack to secondary and add last 1/2 of lacto for another 10 days. Ferment the whole time 70-74 degrees. Keg it after 30 days. It gets better with age but it's not bad on it's 31 day either. Not for the Hop Heads out there.
 
Brew your base high ibu beer separate from your young lacto beer and blend them when you vat / age. That keeps the sour flavours and then the young ale finishes fermenting in vat/secondary/whatever. Classy Victorian trick.
 
I've dona a Gose, although in my hands it was basically a salted Berliner, so not so different. I've done quick sour browns, which are nice on fruit. A lightly soured Saison or Wit is an option. I've never done the lacto/stout blend, but Guinness seems to have perfected it.
 
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