Lacto fermentation characteristics

Just brewed my first Berliner Weisse on Sunday. I did about a 66/33 wheat/pils mash, 15 min boil, 5 IBU w/ Hallertauer. OG ~1.030. I aerated w/ my aquarium pump (didn't think about lacto being anaerobic, oh well!) and pitched one tube of White Labs lacto d. around 90*F (no starter). After about 12 hours or so, there was definitely activity - a white foamy krausen started forming on top.. looking surprisingly like the beginnings of any other fermentation. At about 24 hours, there was a swirl of activity, and thick white krausen.. again, looking like most other sach. cer. fermentations. Smelling the airlock, there is definitely some sourdough funk aromas going on, so I'm pretty sure the lacto is doing it's thing. I'm planning on letting it run until later today, pitching WY1007 (German ale yeast) at the 48 hour mark.

I've heard a lot of different stories about lacto fermentations, but I'm curious - how does it typically look when it is fermenting?

I mean the carboy had the typical crazy churning/swirling going on like I had pitched a huge yeast starter. I was not thinking that a lacto d. fermentation would look like this, but again, this was my first sour batch and I have no other experience with lacto/brett/pedio, etc.

I'm not worried at all, more so curious as to what others experience with lacto. I know a lot of people pitch lacto and sach. together, and that would certainly achieve a different result. Anybody out there follow a similar procedure (pitch pure lacto d. first, then sach. later) and can chime in with their observations?

When I've done/seen pure lacto ferments the krausen is usually very light and foamy. Since Lacto is smaller and doesn't flocculate as much the krausen doesn't get the thick "yeasty" look in my experience. CO2 is being produced, so the wort/beer does have a similar swirling look.

I would say that it was definitely light and foamy. It almost looked like left over Star San foam on top of the wort for the first 18 hours or so, but it was definitely growing.

I did just about the exact same thing as you and noticed similar results. With only the lacto, the krausen was much more "fluffy" than anything I've seen previously.

On a semi-related note, I had a sample of mine today and found that it wasn't really sour. I'm kind of confused, as I let the lacto have free reign of the wort for about 36 hours with the heat wrap set on 96 degrees. For as much as it was churning and bubbling, I can't believe that there is so little sourness. Hopefully you experience something different.

Definitely keep us updated with your results if you can.

I took a gravity sample on Tuesday after ~48 hours w/ just lacto. I've heard people comment on this before, but the lacto dropped the SG to 1.014ish. The sample tasted.. very lightly sour, and had a nice grainy taste. My understanding is that the sourness takes a while (3-6 months) to get to the right level, building over time (to an extent). I went ahead and pitched WY 1007 as originally intended. It seems to be doing its thing.

So.. I'm guessing that I will have a practically non-alcoholic Berliner Weisse on my hands, as the lacto d. dropped the SG so low (and it is homofermentative, producing only lactic acid)..? Not that this was intended to be any more than 3ish % alcohol anyway, but depending on the results of this brew I may alter when I pitch the lacto next time.

This is just my opinion, but there's no way that lacto consumed all of those sugars while only producing lactic acid. My beer is lightly sour and just about fermented out. Maybe this strain makes about 1% lactic acid for every 99% CO2.

Now to put this into perspective, I recently did a sour mash berliner that soured up very nicely after about 72 hours. Here's the kicker: it was very sour, but still tasted like wort.

This is unfortunate because I really don't know where to go next. Maybe I'll do some more experimenting with starters made from crushed grain.

I also found a thread on the BN forums that pretty much backs up both of our experiences with commercial lacto d:

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=&t=24718

I bet that theres several things working against you. Im betting somewhere along the line you picked up some yeast, lacto will drop the gravity, but lactic acid has a density near 1018-1020 at fermenation temps, so the fact it dropped to 1014 is curious

But another possibility could be your water, lets say for the sake of argument that it was solely lactobacillus in there, it could be that there is quite a bit of residual alkalinity in your water buffering the effects of the lactic acid produced. Is your water very hard

I too considered yeast, but I fermented at 96 degrees for the first 48 hours and there are no off flavors to speak of. It's just not sour. As far as water, I used very soft water that was built from RO.

My observations are similar to garbs - fermented @ 90* for first 48 hours, no off-flavors.. so I doubt it is yeast. It tasted surprisingly clean to me, and had an aroma of sourdough bread. My water is naturally very soft w/o treatment, with very low residual alkalinity. I have seen this situation referred to both on HBT and other forums, but there seems to be no consensus as to what is happening... Though Ryane's suggestion is probably on the right track (re: lactic acid density). However, the density of lactic acid will depend on concentration of both lactic acid combined with dissolved sugars as well as temperature, which may help explain why I am seeing 1.014ish. My hydrometer is not perfectly calibrated, but I have taken this into account with my reading. Last I checked, distilled water was reading @ 0.997 - it may have changed since the last I checked.

I guess that I will just give it time, like any other Berliner Weisse needs. I periodically take samples to assess the sourness/tartness, and may end up pitching the dregs of a commercial funk beer if things are not to my liking.

UPDATE: Checked my hydrometer, it is now @ 0.995 with distilled water. I haven't used it since I checked the sample the other day, so I would say really my reading is about 1.016-1.017 ish.

Check out this thread on the BBB: http://babblebelt.com/newboard/thread.html?tid=1108752780&th=1309210030&pg=1&tpg=1&add=1

According to Cody, White Labs told him that their lacto produces both lactic acid and ethanol. This makes perfect sense as mine tastes just like beer, but isn't all that sour. I will say that it does have some great flavors so far, it just needs to be more sour.

Good luck guys. I just brewed another yesterday and am trying the corny keg sour mash yet again. Only this time, I will not boil to kill the bugs. Should be pretty interesting...

Interesting. I wonder how much ethanol is produced vs. lactic acid. In any case, this isn't a beer known for ethanol content, so it's not much of a concern. I just wanted to figure out why the gravity dropped, and I at least have some good notions.

Just out of curiosity - how long are you planning on leaving your BWs in primary? I was thinking I'd leave it in primary for about a month, add a little lacto (or maybe brett? dregs/pure? not sure yet), and keg. I may just bottle this, as I don't like to tie up a keg for months.

I actually already bottled mine at day 6. I tried to follow the Kristen England approach outlined in Brewing with Wheat, but couldn't bring myself to bottle it 3 days in like he suggests.

Wow, 3 days??? How long are you planning on aging? Just until the tartness/sourness is where you want it?

Yeah, I'll probably let them sit for up to 6 months to see how they sour. Of course, I'll sample a few on a month by month basis just to see.

Just to update this thread: I talked to a Wyeast rep yesterday at Austin Homebrew and found that they do not use the delbrueckii strain like White labs. He claims that their strain drops the PH without affecting the gravity in a significant way.

When brewing a berliner weisse, he suggested making a 2 quart starter with 1.020 wort and holding that at 98ish degrees for about 2 days (no aeration). After cooling the wort to pitching temps, pitch the lacto first and taste at 24/36/48 hours. When the level of sourness is where you like it, pitch an aerated starter of yeast.

Hopefully that will help someone out there.

That's good info, garbs. Next time I do this I will likely try the Wyeast strain and follow his suggestion. I think it makes sense to pitch the lacto first, especially if it will not significantly affect the gravity as has been observed with the WL lacto.