White Labs Lacto Brevis

Do any of you have experience with this strain? I pitched a 1l starter of it into a 1.032 wort for a Berliner and have held it at 110 degrees since then. I pulled off a little to see how it was coming along and it is barely tart. I know the perceived sourness will increase once the beer ferments out, but it seems underwhelming right now.

Any thoughts or ideas?

You don't mention how long the l. Brevis had been in the beer at 110... takes a few days.

I don't have any experience with WL's brevis, but usually brevis is pretty aggressive...

sweetcell said:

You don't mention how long the l. Brevis had been in the beer at 110... takes a few days.

I don't have any experience with WL's brevis, but usually brevis is pretty aggressive...

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Sorry, meant to include that in the initial post. It's been there for a week. I might just rack off, finish it with a saison yeast, and call it a tart saison. Then brew up another low-gravity batch and put it on the Lacto cake. If that won't sour, I think my Brevis is a dud.

a week at 110??? should be plenty sour! you might have a dud on your hands...

how did you make your starter? did you aerate? i believe that lacto doesn't better without aeration (haven't come across this info in American Sours yet... damn i need to finish that book)

I have only brewed one Berliner weisse before, and it wasn't with brevis, but I will say that I was stunned at how much more sour the fermented, cold, and carbonated beer was compared to the warm, flat, and sweeter wort post-sour mash. My sour mash tasted just a little bit sour but the beer ended up being almost too sour.

If I were you I'd just ferment it out and taste it. As sweetcell said, that's a really long time for a sour mash and if it's not very sour yet it's probably not going to get sour.

No aeration. About a 1.03 wort. It definitely grew in the starter because i could see the sediment. I'll ferment it out and see how it is! Perhaps my perception is just off. I'll be sure to report back.

I used the Brevis in a sour wort Berliner Weisse just a few weeks ago. I let my starter go for over a week and it was super tart when it was finished. It soured my wort in 3 days and I have it on tap now. The tartness is just where I want it and I've already got another starter going of the Brevis for a Gose.

How large of a starter did you make?

I pitched a single vial into a 1.030 wort at 75, ramped up to 95 and held it for 5 days, it took it down to 1.002 and is now only slightly tart. Very clean tasting though, with more acidity it'll be nice. Considering adding some more fermentables since it's at such a low gravity now... any suggestions? I also wanted to finish with b. lambicus

I added Wyeast 3711 to mine this morning and the krausen is already almost to the lid of the bucket. Once it clears up I'll dry hop with some Sorachi Ace and some grapefruit zest and maybe some juice.

joshrosborne said:

How large of a starter did you make?

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I did a 1 gallon starter and gave it a little over a week. Be sure to give it a couple of extra days in the fridge to decant because lacto takes forever to drop out.

Piggybacking on this thread:

If I've seen a big gravity drop but limited tartness using WLP Lacto B, is there much hope for tartness developing? 1.040 to 1.003 in 96 hours at ambient ~74, pitched at 100 and wrapped in a towel. Starter was very tart so I don't have a dud on my hands; I'm mainly curious if there's any hope for the lacto to turn that last .003 into lactic acid. (Or if lacto's process is more complicated than that.) If not, guess I throw some Brett in there and call it a saison...

You gotta get the temps up with Brevis if you want more tartness. It likes temps in the 110-115°F range. But the fact that you had a gravity drop means your lacto was contaminated with yeast. Probably not going to do much at this point other than adding food grade lactic acid.

Agate said:

You gotta get the temps up with Brevis if you want more tartness. It likes temps in the 110-115°F range. But the fact that you had a gravity drop means your lacto was contaminated with yeast. Probably not going to do much at this point other than adding food grade lactic acid.

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Thanks Agate. I'm new at working with this, but former is not to my understanding. Matt at A PhD in Beer found that lacto brevis at 86 will get you to 3.3 in five days. My ambient is a bit lower than that still, but considering I had success with a starter via same approach (pitch hot, towel for insulation at same ambient) I'm not completely sure that was my undoing. Though of course I may have made the mistake of assuming pH drops at cooler temps works as well in bulk as in a small amount. (I get the impression Matt too tested the hypothesis with small batches, but it's not clear from the post.)

The latter seems quite likely, as I've found at least one study agreeing with idea that lacto can't drop gravity. But then, I've also heard of "100% lacto" fermentations -- presumably that means dropping the gravity, though it could just mean lactic/alcohol production without a corresponding gravity drop? But if lacto conversion doesn't come with a corresponding drop in gravity, what exactly are the bugs eating? And wouldn't that make it irrelevant, for purposes of forecasting future lactic acid production, that my SG is 1.003 at the moment?

Lacto will drop gravity slightly, but I think the lactic acid inhibits it before it can cause a significant gravity drop. It's been shown that the 100% Lacto fermentations are actually yeast contaminations, so the idea of a 100% Lacto beer isn't real. There's no way you could attenuate a beer without some form of yeast.

What about hops? How many IBU in your wort?

Agate said:

Lacto will drop gravity slightly, but I think the lactic acid inhibits it before it can cause a significant gravity drop. It's been shown that the 100% Lacto fermentations are actually yeast contaminations, so the idea of a 100% Lacto beer isn't real. There's no way you could attenuate a beer without some form of yeast.

What about hops? How many IBU in your wort?

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1oz Hallertauer in 10 gallons (mash hopped), which is below my understanding of the threshold.

Contamination seems most likely, either from within the culture itself (even if the starter tasted good) or the fermentation buckets, which I just bought off a guy prior to using. Cleaned them out per my usual methods, and I know/trust the guy I bought off of, but one of the two tastes noticeably bad -- thought it was just a mid-fermentation off flavor, but 1+1=contamination seems likely.

Thanks again for the advice, Agate. I'll give them a day or two as a hail mary, but it looks like I have five gallons of wild saison and five gallons of drainpour on my hands.

I'd like to suggest, if you try this again, to pick up omega labs' OYL-605. Skip the hops, make a 1-liter starter, and pitch at around 80F and let it free fall. You'll have a potently sour beer in under 24 hours, and their Lacto cultures are clean. I love using that stuff, it's awesome!

Good luck!

Agate said:

I'd like to suggest, if you try this again, to pick up omega labs' OYL-605. Skip the hops, make a 1-liter starter, and pitch at around 80F and let it free fall. You'll have a potently sour beer in under 24 hours, and their Lacto cultures are clean. I love using that stuff, it's awesome!

Good luck!

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I've heard great things about that strain! This is a cheap malt bill, and I've already got the vintner's harvest I planned to add to five gallons -- I'll have to grab the OYL-605 for another brew day.

Crossposting from here because we're back in Lacto B territory.

Thanks yet again for your help @Agate -- much appreciated. I am re-using the same culture as upthread, on the thought that it wasn't the culture that was infected as such (5 gallons came out contaminated with something but fine; the other 5 were grossly infected). That could be a faulty thought -- maybe I got lucky that one batch wasn't so expressive -- but it got me thinking nonetheless: building a lacto starter at room temperature is a great way to catch infection, too. And, yep, I built a room temperature starter on the second try. (Though, I'll note that I didn't observe anything weird in that starter before pitching it...)

Do most folks build Lacto B starters at all? If so, do you "kettle start" just 24 hours before you'd pitch it? Or is one vial enough, and the safe route with lacto is just to pay the toll each time for a new vial?