So much to my surprise, my attempt at a sour wort Berliner Weisse is actually coming along rather nicely. Yesterday I did a partial mash with 4 pounds of wheat and mixed that with 2 pounds of light DME - threw all this in the fermenter along with a quick Hallertau hop tea and a vial of Whitelabs lacto, and things seem to be going swimmingly. There's vigorous airlock action and I'm getting a lovely "clean-sour" smell from the brew.
I was hoping to do this no-boil, by throwing in about 5/4ths of a normal k-metabisulfite dosage as soon as I'm content with the level of sourness of my beer, letting it kill off the lacto, and then pitching Wyeast 1007 about 36 hours later.
First question: what will k-meta do to my beer? Will it mess with the flavor significantly? Will it succeed in killing off the lacto?
and the second: Do I really need to make a massive yeast starter, or can I just confidently throw in the contents of a Wyeast smack pack of 1007 and expect that to handle my fermentation needs?
btw, #excited.
I was hoping to do this no-boil, by throwing in about 5/4ths of a normal k-metabisulfite dosage as soon as I'm content with the level of sourness of my beer, letting it kill off the lacto, and then pitching Wyeast 1007 about 36 hours later.
First question: what will k-meta do to my beer? Will it mess with the flavor significantly? Will it succeed in killing off the lacto?
and the second: Do I really need to make a massive yeast starter, or can I just confidently throw in the contents of a Wyeast smack pack of 1007 and expect that to handle my fermentation needs?
btw, #excited.