Not your normal yeast washing query

Perhaps this is a case of overthinking (as I am occasionally apted to do )- but I considering the prospect of washing yeast from a yet-to-brewed Berliner Weisse using both Wyeast 1338 European Ale and Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus delbreuckii in order to keep steady stores of this style in house. Are there any implications to washing and storing a 'buggy' cake for future brewing? Would the lactobacillus have deleterious effects on the viability of the yeast?

Wow, there's a question not covered in any of my brewing books.

Lacto, brett, pedio, and sacc all will have different rates of growth so re-pitching yeast with bugs is unlikely to reproduce the same brew. Since the berliner is just lacto and sacc it may work out ok for a generation or two. Maybe somebody has actually tried it. Otherwise maybe you get to be the guinea pig.

Yeah, this one has me stumped- and microbiology ain't my thing!

I'm following Jamil's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles:

4.2 lbs Pils
3.0 lbs wheat

Mash at 149. That highly fermentable wort will give the bugs lots to chew on.

1.0 oz 4.4 AA% Hallertau at 15 minutes

Incredibly, this is only a 15 minute boil- which flies in the face of convention with everything we've heard about driving off DMS.

Doesn't bacteria and yeast go dormant at cold temps? So if you're keeping it in the fridge like you're supposed to both the bacteria and yeast would just be "asleep" and thus not really changing? This is just a guess based off knowing the yeat stops at a cold and thinking that bacteria doesn't grow either?

Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus delbreuckii

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You better include some lactose in your recipe then, because it's the only thing L. delbrueckii can ferment. I'd probably pitch the sacch first and the lacto later, since it is an acidophile and needs a low pH (5.4-4.6). That species also produces decent amoiunts of ethanal, so don't let it go nuts, or you'll have hangovers like you wouldn't believe.


To the poster above me....L. delbrueckii is non-spore forming, so I'm not sure it'd survive at refrigerator temps.

You better include some lactose in your recipe then, because it's the only thing L. delbrueckii can ferment. I'd probably pitch the sacch first and the lacto later, since it is an acidophile and needs a low pH (5.4-4.6). That species also produces decent amoiunts of ethanal, so don't let it go nuts, or you'll have hangovers like you wouldn't believe.

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There's no mention of adding lactose in Jamil's recipe, however. In fact, I've never seen lactose additions in any beer using Lactobacillus. Perhaps you're talking about a different subspecies of delbrueckii?

AFAIK, L. delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus is the only one ssp. of delbrueckii that's used in beer...so I doubt it. I just looked up Wyeast 5335, and from what I understand, it's a lactic bacteria blend (at least they way they make it sound on the website), not just delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus, so you should be fine.

I've never seen lactose additions in any beer using Lactobacillus

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Of the species used in beer, only delbrueckii needs it. L. d ssp lactis is not used in beer AFAIK, but can only ferment lactos enad galactose. L. d ssp delbrueckii IIRC also only ferment lactose. The other lactic acid bacteria used in beer can for the most part ferment a variety of sugars. That's just the way delbrueckii is...if you see a recipe calling specifically for delbrueckii and not using lactose or galactose....the delbrueckii won't do anything. The beer brewing gurus are generally good at brewing, but terrible at biology (imagine that, lol).

In terms of saving a cake of Sacch/Lacto for use in a BW, I would say you could try it and see...but as Sacch himself pointed out, during starter re-growth, they are going to have different rates of growth from each other.

Also, although I have not personally brewed a BW yet, I have heard that if you are looking for the lactic acid characteristics to really shine through, you need to pitch the lacto first and then the Ale yeast after 48 hours of letting the lacto go to work. Doing this from a cake would obviously be a detriment.

Not saying not to try it, however. Experiments are always worthwhile!

In terms of saving a cake of Sacch/Lacto for use in a BW, I would say you could try it and see...but as Sacch himself pointed out, during starter re-growth, they are going to have different rates of growth from each other.

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I think this will be the biggest challenge to storing the slurry. I may do a large starter of 1338 (say, a 1 gallon +) of 1338 to build up some yeast stores and just rely on new cultures of Lacto when brewing this beer.

Of course, you just gotta wait a good while.

We'll be watching. Worst thing I think that could happen is it isn't sour enough, and you can fix that by adding some lactic acid at bottling/kegging?

Worst thing I think that could happen is it isn't sour enough, and you can fix that by adding some lactic acid at bottling/kegging?

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I think this would be about the extent of it. BWs are sharply sour, but it's a very clean sour. I'll be brewing this one on Sunday, I think.

I was talking to my buddy about this in lab the other day. I think you could do it, but not more than once, because the more you do it, the more the population will skew towards the faster growing bug. If you know the difference in growth rates, you can compensate for that, but that might be hard to calculate. If you want to freeze the yeast slurry, I would make sure you aliquot it out.

I should update everyone on my progress with the Berliner Weisse. I've moved the fermenter out of the basement after the ferment completed to let the lactobacillus start working on souring the beer- getting it up to over 70 degrees here in my office. I brewed this November 4th, and it's been warm-souring for about 2 weeks now. Lacto slime is present on top of the beer and there is a noticeable lactic nose when the fermenter lid is opened. There is a slight sourness up front when tasted, but it has a long time to go yet. I'll give it two more days in primary before racking to secondary for another several months' aging. I'd normally just rack to the keg for the bulk aging, but I don't have one open right now.

flyangler18 said:

I should update everyone on my progress with the Berliner Weisse. I've moved the fermenter out of the basement after the ferment completed to let the lactobacillus start working on souring the beer- getting it up to over 70 degrees here in my office. I brewed this November 4th, and it's been warm-souring for about 2 weeks now. Lacto slime is present on top of the beer and there is a noticeable lactic nose when the fermenter lid is opened. There is a slight sourness up front when tasted, but it has a long time to go yet. I'll give it two more days in primary before racking to secondary for another several months' aging. I'd normally just rack to the keg for the bulk aging, but I don't have one open right now.

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Just snuck another sample- it's progressing nicely, refreshingly tart with a clean finish. Carbed to 3.5-4 volumes and this one will be just awesome. I had original plans to bulk age this until March-April, but it's quite good right now! It'll go to the keg as soon as I have one open then more bulk aging.

flyangler18 said:

Perhaps this is a case of overthinking (as I am occasionally apted to do )- but I considering the prospect of washing yeast from a yet-to-brewed Berliner Weisse using both Wyeast 1338 European Ale and Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus delbreuckii in order to keep steady stores of this style in house. Are there any implications to washing and storing a 'buggy' cake for future brewing? Would the lactobacillus have deleterious effects on the viability of the yeast?

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If you get the yeast/bacteria by bottom cropping, you will get disproportionately more of whichever is more flocculent and settles first and less of the other. I would guess you are going to quickly end up with slurry that is almost entirely yeast.

I dunno buddy if it's too late, but I would send an email to wyyeast and ask them your question, they'd be the ones to know...there's probbaly even a way to separate both cultures on a plate and get both cultures seperate again (there was something about that on one of the aussie craftbrewr podcasts I listened to....they did a series on advanced yeast handline....radio.craftbrewer.org

BTW I love 1338, it's prolly my favorite liquid yeast.