working with Lactobacillus

I'm working on brewing another Berliner Weisse and am running into conflicting info on when to add the Lactobacillus. It seems to be common knowledge to add it to secondary after the yeast has done it's job. But I'm also seeing some people say to add it 24-48 hours prior to adding the yeast. The problems I've read with adding it to secondary is there is not enough tartness in the final product. But I also see that adding it before the yeast can cause too high of a ph in the wort and make it hard for the yeast to ferment the wort.

The last time I made a Berliner Weisse I used the Wyeast Berliner Weisse activator pack and honsestly there just isn't any tartness to the beer at all. All I can taste in my final product is the Brett.

I am leaning toward adding the lactobacillus 24 hours prior to pitching a starter of wyeast kolsch II that I have harvested and stored in my fridge.

Just looking for any opinions on these two methods from anyone who has successfully made a nice and tart Berliner Weisse.

I don't have the time to find and quote sources so take this with a grain of salt, but my understanding that Lacto can't really handle alcohol above 3%. That's where the idea of pitching it prior to yeast comes in. I do know that the comment about too high of a pH is off because Lactobacillus produces lactic ACID. I think the Berliner yeast blends bank on the lacto doing enough work before the saccharomyces makes too much alcohol. I don't have any experience making Berliner, but of the homebrewed versions I've had, my favorite has always been those that use half a sour mash, half regular mash boiled to sanitize, then standard ale yeast pitched. It seems fresher tasting than other examples that have been naturally soured later via lacto and/or "artificially" via direct lactic acid addition. It could have all been happenstance though.

Maybe I should have wrote that adding the lactobacillus too early can cause too low of a ph for the yeast to work properly. (my chemistry is definitely not up to par these days.)

I don't plan on adding any lacto at bottling just want to get a good sour taste by adding one package of lactobacillus and a proper starter of kolsch yeast. With the Berliner Weisse the high end of the style is only 3% abv anyway so pitching the lacto after the yeast has fermented out shouldn't be a problem. I beleive in jamil z's "brewing classic styles" he pitches the lacto at secondary.

According to wild brews, lacto has an alcohol tolerance of 8%. However, i believe that's a general statement and it probably varies by strain (e.g. the lacto in fantome hiver will supposedly work outside the ABV and IBU range of commercial strains). I don't think you'll get anything out of adding "normal" lacto to the secondary..i don't believe it will eat on the complex sugars like other organisms will.

My first attempt at a BW using the WY blend was also a disappointment. For my next try i'll be pitching a BIG starter of lacto for about 24-48hrs and hold the temps above 90 degrees. I believe sacch stops reproducing around a pH of 4.5.

I can get some of the google scholar links if you like. But Lactobacilli can actually withstand up to about 20% ABV.

As for making the beer it is farily easy. All you do is make sourkraut at the same time as your wheat beer then save the yeast and repitch ala sourdough. It is how I "accidently" made sour beer myself. Really you can infect it with lactobacillus at the very beginning. I now use that yeast as my wheatbeer starter (as I half wash and store all my yeasts).

S. cerevisiae can withstand a PH of as low as 6. Lactobacillus acidophilus can withstand alcohol way above even a HG beer. So really the two can coexist the entire time you are brewing. If you are adding it, wait about 3 days for a "primary" fermentation, then add in the Lactobacillus. If you want to keep brewing this, save the yeast from the last batch and repitch. IF you are using things like White Labs mixes then you are in fact pitching them both at the same time.

Torg said:

I can get some of the google scholar links if you like. But Lactobacilli can actually withstand up to about 20% ABV.

As for making the beer it is farily easy. All you do is make sourkraut at the same time as your wheat beer then save the yeast and repitch ala sourdough. It is how I "accidently" made sour beer myself. Really you can infect it with lactobacillus at the very beginning. I now use that yeast as my wheatbeer starter (as I half wash and store all my yeasts).

S. cerevisiae can withstand a PH of as low as 6. Lactobacillus acidophilus can withstand alcohol way above even a HG beer. So really the two can coexist the entire time you are brewing. If you are adding it, wait about 3 days for a "primary" fermentation, then add in the Lactobacillus. If you want to keep brewing this, save the yeast from the last batch and repitch. IF you are using things like White Labs mixes then you are in fact pitching them both at the same time.

Click to expand...

The way WY (presumably WL, too) designs the BW mixes is with a big dose of lacto and a small amount of sacch (and brett in WY). They do this so the lacto has time to kick out lactic acid before the sacch yeast takes over and eats all the simple sugars. If you wait 3 days of primary fermentation to add the lacto as you suggest, i bet you'll get little to no sourness from the lacto. I doubt saving the yeast from a primary with lacto and sacch will do much good either since the sacch will greatly outnumber lacto.

I am not sure which will "kick out" each other. But as the lacto metablises the sugar it lowers the PH. The lower the PH the slower the lacto goes. As cerevisiae metabolizes the sugar it riased the ethanol content. The higher the ethanol the slower the lacto goes as well. So there really should not be a really big deal as to which is started when.

I do know that if I reuse the same "sour starter" I have in the fridge it works fine. It takes the beer a bit longer to ferment but then again I am used to letting beer ferment for 3 weeks or more.

I just brewed 10 gallons of a "berliner weisse". I split the batch into two carboys. Added a 1.5L starter of Lacto 5335 and fermented for 36 hours at 88F. I then let the temp drop to 70F (over the next 9 hours) and added german ale 1007 to one carboy and Kolsch II 2575PC to the other after a 48 hour jump start for the lacto. At the 36 hour mark for the lacto, there was a decent kreausen and the airlocks were going pretty steady. At the 48 hour mark the kreausen had receded and airlock activity was much slower.

I added the yeast but wasn't real sure on whether or not I should re-aerate the wort or not. I ended up just swirling it a bit to mix the yeast starters into the wort. Should I add oxygen?

no chemist here, but from what i know of lacto, it does not need oxygen to metabolize and can be fatal to lacto. aerating seems unnecessary and potentially harmful...

as for its alcohol tolerance, i did a mini sour mash on an imperial belgian wit and the sour carried over for sure... it does seem to be diminishing in the bottle over time however.

In a natural fermentation lacto would be one of the first things to dominate, when doing a traditional no boil Berliner Weisse the lacto from the grain would also dominate first, getting a head start with higher temperatures that don't favor the yeast. So if your trying to do something close to 'traditional' I would say add the lacto first, and possibly let your mash be at the higher end of ph, just make sure to use a malt with lots of diastatic power.

steinsato said:

I just brewed 10 gallons of a "berliner weisse". I split the batch into two carboys. Added a 1.5L starter of Lacto 5335 and fermented for 36 hours at 88F. I then let the temp drop to 70F (over the next 9 hours) and added german ale 1007 to one carboy and Kolsch II 2575PC to the other after a 48 hour jump start for the lacto. At the 36 hour mark for the lacto, there was a decent kreausen and the airlocks were going pretty steady. At the 48 hour mark the kreausen had receded and airlock activity was much slower.

Click to expand...

steinsato, I know this is an old thread, but would you mind reporting back how your batches turned out?

I just brewed a Berliner, and pitched 1 vial of WLP677 and holding in the low 80's. Not quite sure yet how long I'll wait before pitching saccharomyces, or what strain to pitch. Would be very interested to hear your results!

With my split batches I was very disappointed. The lacto did not even come close to reching a sourness I was hoping for and to make it even worse, the 15 min. boil I used wasn't enough to get rid of the chlorine in the water and I ended up with major chlorophenols (band-aid flavor). It was pretty much a dumper due to the chlorophenols. So far, making a good sour beer has eluded me. I really do not think using "bugs" are as easy as some people make it out to be.