Using Sourdough starter as yeast. Is it possible?

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pdellarocca

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So I have a sourdough starter and I would like to know if it can be used as a yeast. I have had trouble finding recipes that used this technique. I was curious with regards to whether not this would work? If there was anything I needed to know before proceeding and if anyone had any recipes that I could use.

Thanks
 
It's gonna make it super funky!

You are basically proposing to ferment with bread yeast + lacto + pedio bacteria plus whatever else is in there. I'm not saying don't do it but I'd caution that's gonna be risky. You could try 1gal and see how it goes. If you do it you have to report back.
 
I just happened to bottle a batch like this yesterday. Brewed a kvass/beer and fermented with a homemade sourdough starter. The starter was made from raw flour and uncrushed grain. Was going to do a sour mash but when the starter formed a pellicle I decided it was just good to go. Not as sour or funky as I expected but after 9 months it did ferment from 1.054 to 1.005. Really all depends on what's in the starter.

I'd go ahead and gamble a full batch. If the small batch happens to turn out good, enough time will have passed and the yeast won't be in good health or the correct ratios and you'd have to start all over again with a new starter which would basically have the same risks of sucking as the first time since it's not a "prepared" culture.
 
Pholdogg that sounds awesome! Would you mind sharing the recipe. I'm really curious and would like to try this but I don't know where to start.
 
It was something like 5# 2 row and 5# dry bread. I'd buy rustic breads and kept about a third of each loaf in the freezer until I was ready to brew. Added around 10 ibus with tet and pitched the starter. For the starter I just followed the method of adding water and flour over the course if a few days but also included a pinch of grain. I did pitch the whole flour slurry, but with almost a year of fermenting I didn't notice excessive clouding.
 
I'm new to homebrewing, but have been baking with sourdough for about 15 months now. The starter has been in my SWMBO's family for 40+ years and is VERY resilient. I opened my big mouth at a homebrew association meeting, and now the president challenged me to make a 1 Gal. test brew w/ extract.

I'm thinking that since this strain has been subsisting on wheat for longer than I've been alive, a weizen would be the most appropriate. I'm thinking of just converting the following recipe to 1 Gal. Any tips, suggestions?
 
Courtesy of HOOTER on the Wheat and Rye Recipe Archive:

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: Danstar Munich
Yeast Starter: Rehydrate
Batch Size (Gallons): 5 gal
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU: 14
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10 days @ 68f
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): N/A
Tasting Notes: A quick and easy Hefeweizen. Serve with a lemon wedge on a hot summer day.

5 lbs. Briess Bavarian wheat DME

8 oz. Carahell

1 oz. Tettnanger (4%)

Danstar Munich

Steep grains for 20 min. @ 155f. Bring to boil and add 2 lbs. extract and Tettnanger hops. Add 3 lbs. extract with 10 minutes remaining in the boil. Ferment for 10 days, keg at about 4 volumes (or bottle) and enjoy. (Full boil recommended).
 
Wheat vs. Barley doesn't matter to the microbes. All grains contain the same starches, and all those starches get broken down into the same sugars during the mash. You will want a recipe under 10 IBUs, as the lacto in the starter won't do well otherwise. I would suggest a Berliner Weisse, Gose or Kvass recipe, but the one you posted should be fine if you cut the hops in half, or even leave them out entirely.
 
So, I'm wondering, should I follow pohldogg's example of just pitching the flour/water slurry, or make an extract/water starter to pitch? I know that in the "slurry" form, my starter can be VERY active (blowing the lids off of yogurt containers), but is absent of almost any sugar. I'm leaning toward a DME starter.
 
I'm assuming you've got a huge amount of sourdough starter already. I see no need to restart it, just pitch as is. Since you don't need hops or yeast, are using extract, and only need to cool to 90F (which you can do by topping off with cold water), this has got to be the easiest batch of beer ever. I hope it turns out well.
 
Wheat vs. Barley doesn't matter to the microbes. All grains contain the same starches, and all those starches get broken down into the same sugars during the mash. You will want a recipe under 10 IBUs, as the lacto in the starter won't do well otherwise. I would suggest a Berliner Weisse, Gose or Kvass recipe, but the one you posted should be fine if you cut the hops in half, or even leave them out entirely.

Not true. I've been sourdough baking for some time and am a reformed home brewer (it was taking over my life LOL).

I have a very active starter (Friends of Carl Oregon Trail starter; also used int he recipe below) and I use it regularly, with many types of grains. Now to the point: wild yeast (Candida and other genera) and various Lactobacillus species (which is what every sourdough starter is) won't thrive when changing grains. Most of the time it simply dies on the spot. I see posts where people think their sourdough starter brew is dead, that's because it was dead, and some other strain of yeast took over. There is no brewer's yeast nor baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) strain in a sourdough starter. In fact they die if they get into a starter since the acid produced by the Lactobacillus kills them fast.

So, with all this in mind, there should be a way to convert a starter raised on white flour (I actually don't use any, mostly white whole wheat or red whole wheat) over to the grains you will be using for the beer. That's where I think the extract method may run into trouble. Using an extract to nourish a starter may or may not work, my hunch is that it would fail. It certainly wouldn't survive in 100% extract. It would survive in flour made from barley if it was converted over very slowly (by feeding it with a tablespoon with a cup of flour, then gradually substituting barley flour for the wheat flour). It would not survive in ground up barley, it's simply too coarse and the starches aren't very accessible to the yeast.

I was looking for a real sourdough yeast brew (no beer yeast like the above recipe, which doesn't have anything to do with sourdough IMO). I think I'll try a dumbed down version of this recipe: http://www.betterbeerblog.com/index.php/2011/12/27/homebrew-session-experimental-sour-dough-ale/

He didn't try to convert his starter so I think his experiment went south from the start. What he actually got probably wasn't a beer fermented by the starter, but with some other strain of yeast (or a miracle could have happened and the sourdough yeast survived) and the Lactobacillus simply died off.

Does anyone have experience with using barley flours, not whole grains, in a wort? I am an idiot when it comes to making my mash, I have only used extracts and the grains just for flavoring.
 
There are a couple of breweries in the SF Bay Area that are doing sourdough fermented beers http://www.examiner.com/article/liquid-bread-at-bar-tartine. The biggest concern I have is that in some cultures the main yeast is C. Milleri which doesn't ferment maltose in favor of leaving that for the lactobacillus it pairs with. Here's a blog post of someone who did a simple blonde and had it turn out just fine.
http://sourdoughmonkeywrangler.blogspot.com/2009/03/sourdough-blonde.html
There should be no concern about just pitching the yeast into a low gravity starter and letting it rip, especially if using a stir plate as lacto doesn't like oxygen if I remember correctly. Since sourdough is a mixed culture, sucessive starters starting at low gravity are probably in order to eventually end up with yeast that have the right characteristics
 
Not true. I've been sourdough baking for some time and am a reformed home brewer (it was taking over my life LOL).

I have a very active starter (Friends of Carl Oregon Trail starter; also used int he recipe below) and I use it regularly, with many types of grains. Now to the point: wild yeast (Candida and other genera) and various Lactobacillus species (which is what every sourdough starter is) won't thrive when changing grains. Most of the time it simply dies on the spot. I see posts where people think their sourdough starter brew is dead, that's because it was dead, and some other strain of yeast took over. There is no brewer's yeast nor baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) strain in a sourdough starter. In fact they die if they get into a starter since the acid produced by the Lactobacillus kills them fast.

So, with all this in mind, there should be a way to convert a starter raised on white flour (I actually don't use any, mostly white whole wheat or red whole wheat) over to the grains you will be using for the beer. That's where I think the extract method may run into trouble. Using an extract to nourish a starter may or may not work, my hunch is that it would fail. It certainly wouldn't survive in 100% extract. It would survive in flour made from barley if it was converted over very slowly (by feeding it with a tablespoon with a cup of flour, then gradually substituting barley flour for the wheat flour). It would not survive in ground up barley, it's simply too coarse and the starches aren't very accessible to the yeast.

I was looking for a real sourdough yeast brew (no beer yeast like the above recipe, which doesn't have anything to do with sourdough IMO). I think I'll try a dumbed down version of this recipe: http://www.betterbeerblog.com/index.php/2011/12/27/homebrew-session-experimental-sour-dough-ale/

He didn't try to convert his starter so I think his experiment went south from the start. What he actually got probably wasn't a beer fermented by the starter, but with some other strain of yeast (or a miracle could have happened and the sourdough yeast survived) and the Lactobacillus simply died off.

Does anyone have experience with using barley flours, not whole grains, in a wort? I am an idiot when it comes to making my mash, I have only used extracts and the grains just for flavoring.

The cultures in a sourdough starter should have no problem thriving in any substrate composed of cereal starches. The bigger issue is the low alcohol tolerance of the yeasts in the culture, this is what causes sourdough beers to "die", the yeast simply go dormant. Getting around this is simple enough, by making a very weak starter and stepping up the gravity a few times, you'll select for yeast that will be able to finish a beer. Preparing your culture in this manner will also give you a fair indication of the final yeast character so you can decide whether to commit to a full batch.

As an anecdote, I once neglected my sourdough culture for months covered in the fridge and had effectively selected for yeast that preferred anaerobic alcohol fermentation (there was a good two inches of hooch on top). Even though the yeast were plenty active after a couple of feedings I had to throw this culture out and start a new one because too much alcohol would be produced in the loaves and they'd turn to goo (alcohol disrupts gluten formation). Making starters with increasing gravities will introduce similar environmental pressures on the culture in a shorter time.
 
Orerockon said:
Now to the point: wild yeast (Candida and other genera) and various Lactobacillus species (which is what every sourdough starter is) won't thrive when changing grains. Most of the time it simply dies on the spot. I see posts where people think their sourdough starter brew is dead, that's because it was dead, and some other strain of yeast took over. There is no brewer's yeast nor baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) strain in a sourdough starter. In fact they die if they get into a starter since the acid produced by the Lactobacillus kills them fast..

Many bakers use a rye starter to ferment wheat breads. I use a rye culture, make a wheat starter, and then use that in the final dough. Also wondering where you get the idea that there is no sacc. cere. in sourdough. All cultures are different and you can't know what's in one without plating it out, or having a lab do that for you. There are plenty of lacto soured beers with live sacc in them, so I don't think dough is any different. If you can provide additional reference, I'm always happy to learn something new.

Reminds me that I've got a quart of wort I pitched sourdough in about two months ago hanging out. Has a huge pellicle, smelled vaguely palatable last time I checked.
 
The cultures in a sourdough starter should have no problem thriving in any substrate composed of cereal starches. The bigger issue is the low alcohol tolerance of the yeasts in the culture, this is what causes sourdough beers to "die", the yeast simply go dormant. Getting around this is simple enough, by making a very weak starter and stepping up the gravity a few times, you'll select for yeast that will be able to finish a beer. Preparing your culture in this manner will also give you a fair indication of the final yeast character so you can decide whether to commit to a full batch.

As an anecdote, I once neglected my sourdough culture for months covered in the fridge and had effectively selected for yeast that preferred anaerobic alcohol fermentation (there was a good two inches of hooch on top). Even though the yeast were plenty active after a couple of feedings I had to throw this culture out and start a new one because too much alcohol would be produced in the loaves and they'd turn to goo (alcohol disrupts gluten formation). Making starters with increasing gravities will introduce similar environmental pressures on the culture in a shorter time.

Great info everybody! You can revive a culture that goes bad and makes lots of hooch by "washing" it, diluting until there are few beasties left then building it back up. I've had to do this too. You don't have to neglect it, it can happen in 2 weeks in the fridge.
 
Many bakers use a rye starter to ferment wheat breads. I use a rye culture, make a wheat starter, and then use that in the final dough. Also wondering where you get the idea that there is no sacc. cere. in sourdough. All cultures are different and you can't know what's in one without plating it out, or having a lab do that for you. There are plenty of lacto soured beers with live sacc in them, so I don't think dough is any different. If you can provide additional reference, I'm always happy to learn something new.

Reminds me that I've got a quart of wort I pitched sourdough in about two months ago hanging out. Has a huge pellicle, smelled vaguely palatable last time I checked.

Sure a lot of cultures have been started with bread yeast in them, but they aren't "true sourdough" cultures. The bread yeast dies off eventually in the presence of the Lactobacillus and acid tolerant yeasts take over from there. The definition of a sourdough culture is the absence of bread yeast and presence of both Lactobacillus and one or more wild yeast strains. If it gets into a "true" sourdough culture it simply dies. Remember sourdough was the only leavened bread for thousands of years. Bread leavened with S. cerevisiae is a 19th century invention, conveniently gleaned from beer dregs. Saccharomyces exiguus is a common sourdough yeast. Dunno how it would fare in a beer.
 
There are a couple of breweries in the SF Bay Area that are doing sourdough fermented beers http://www.examiner.com/article/liquid-bread-at-bar-tartine. The biggest concern I have is that in some cultures the main yeast is C. Milleri which doesn't ferment maltose in favor of leaving that for the lactobacillus it pairs with. Here's a blog post of someone who did a simple blonde and had it turn out just fine.
http://sourdoughmonkeywrangler.blogspot.com/2009/03/sourdough-blonde.html
There should be no concern about just pitching the yeast into a low gravity starter and letting it rip, especially if using a stir plate as lacto doesn't like oxygen if I remember correctly. Since sourdough is a mixed culture, sucessive starters starting at low gravity are probably in order to eventually end up with yeast that have the right characteristics

Yup C. milleri is the yeast in San Fran sourdough and Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis is the bacteria. Most other cultures haven't even been studied but those have and those were the species common to all of them. A microbiologist and baker cultured a few others and sells pure cultures, his name is Ed Wood and he has a website www.sourdo.com. I'm sure some are more suited for beer than others. His Egyptian starter intrigues me, since they apparently did brew beer and bake bread in the same structures. Haven't sprung for it yet, I would need another fridge :)
 
Sure a lot of cultures have been started with bread yeast in them, but they aren't "true sourdough" cultures. The bread yeast dies off eventually in the presence of the Lactobacillus and acid tolerant yeasts take over from there. The definition of a sourdough culture is the absence of bread yeast and presence of both Lactobacillus and one or more wild yeast strains. If it gets into a "true" sourdough culture it simply dies. Remember sourdough was the only leavened bread for thousands of years. Bread leavened with S. cerevisiae is a 19th century invention, conveniently gleaned from beer dregs. Saccharomyces exiguus is a common sourdough yeast. Dunno how it would fare in a beer.

I didn't mean to give the impression I was talking about a yeasted starter. I meant rye sourdough.
 
First: I bake sourdough bread. Frequently. Now on to answering the questions:

Using Sourdough starter as yeast. Is it possible?

1. Sourdough starter has tons of yeast, it is absolutely possible.

2. I would under no circumstances want to drink the beer made from my sourdough starter.
 
First: I bake sourdough bread. Frequently. Now on to answering the questions:

Using Sourdough starter as yeast. Is it possible?

1. Sourdough starter has tons of yeast, it is absolutely possible.

2. I would under no circumstances want to drink the beer made from my sourdough starter.

Ok, so the obvious question is "why not?" Would you get nasty off-flavors?
 
Not true. I've been sourdough baking for some time and am a reformed home brewer (it was taking over my life LOL).

I have a very active starter (Friends of Carl Oregon Trail starter; also used int he recipe below) and I use it regularly, with many types of grains. Now to the point: wild yeast (Candida and other genera) and various Lactobacillus species (which is what every sourdough starter is) won't thrive when changing grains. Most of the time it simply dies on the spot. I see posts where people think their sourdough starter brew is dead, that's because it was dead, and some other strain of yeast took over. There is no brewer's yeast nor baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) strain in a sourdough starter. In fact they die if they get into a starter since the acid produced by the Lactobacillus kills them fast.

So, with all this in mind, there should be a way to convert a starter raised on white flour (I actually don't use any, mostly white whole wheat or red whole wheat) over to the grains you will be using for the beer. That's where I think the extract method may run into trouble. Using an extract to nourish a starter may or may not work, my hunch is that it would fail. It certainly wouldn't survive in 100% extract. It would survive in flour made from barley if it was converted over very slowly (by feeding it with a tablespoon with a cup of flour, then gradually substituting barley flour for the wheat flour). It would not survive in ground up barley, it's simply too coarse and the starches aren't very accessible to the yeast.

I was looking for a real sourdough yeast brew (no beer yeast like the above recipe, which doesn't have anything to do with sourdough IMO). I think I'll try a dumbed down version of this recipe: http://www.betterbeerblog.com/index.php/2011/12/27/homebrew-session-experimental-sour-dough-ale/

He didn't try to convert his starter so I think his experiment went south from the start. What he actually got probably wasn't a beer fermented by the starter, but with some other strain of yeast (or a miracle could have happened and the sourdough yeast survived) and the Lactobacillus simply died off.

Does anyone have experience with using barley flours, not whole grains, in a wort? I am an idiot when it comes to making my mash, I have only used extracts and the grains just for flavoring.

My plan is to replace the beer yeast with some of my sourdough starter, but I'm not sure how much to use. I keep it at the approximate consistency of pancake batter, and generally have at least one yogurt container of it in the fridge (it gets a little hoochy, but I make a point of replacing the fridge container with fresh stuff after a weekend of baking). It generally takes 36-48 hours to go from a semi-dormant fridge culture to a nearly explosive level of activity, following the schedule of doubling the (approx.) mass, waiting for activity (12-24 hrs), then doubling every 12 hrs.

Also, I'm brand new to homebrewing and am NOT looking to learn how to handle "souring" a beer in THIS batch. Is there a way that I could give an advantage to the yeast over the lacto? Or is this something where I have to buck up and try a few new things, including the ins and outs of making a sour beer?

Thank you for all of your informative input. It looks like this project will end up waiting a couple of weeks to actually do, but I will keep reading your advice and will update when I actually do something (Besides bake three seed sourdough that people offer their firstborn in return for ;) )
 
I had an idea the other day and I thought it'd be better to bump this older, informative post rather than create a new one.

I've been nurturing a sourdough starter for a few months now. Not long, but long enough to make a really tasty loaf, and it was all grown at home. What if I took, say, 50g of it and pitched it into about 3.5 gallons of cooled wort that had not yet been boiled - a la kettle-sour Berliner Weisse style. Then, a few days later, brought to pasteurize or a short boil, cooled again and then pitch a clean yeast in the carboy?

I'm aware I would probably lose some alcohol production if there was any made before the pasteurize, but I'm not too bothered by that. Maybe make a higher OG wort just in case? Possibly sour half and then blend the soured wort with an unsoured wort produced on the "clean Sacch" pitch day?

My basic idea is to use my culture's Lacto, and then use another yeast to do the main fermenting. Thoughts?
 
I thought that i'd detail my plan as there doesn't seem to be too much information out there about using a sourdough culture.

I pitched about 4 tablespoons of my authentic SF sourdough starter into about 3/4 L of wort and put it on a stir plate for about 48 hours. I then turned the stir plate off for about 5 min to let the flour settle to the bottom of the flask before I then poured off the liquid into a sanitized canning jar. I tasted the fermented wort and it actually tasted decently good and was even noticeably sour. After a night in the fridge there is about 1/2 inch of sourdough yeast at the bottom.

I plan on pitching this into about 3/4 Gal. of wort coming from a larger batch i'm doing this weekend. I read on another blog post that the it can take a while for the lacto in the sourdough culture to actually sour a beer. Therefore I am going to try and ferment all the way with the sourdough culture and then bottle condition for a couple months.

If this all goes well I plan on doing a 5 gal sourdough yeast batch. Any recommendations for styles?

Another thing I am curious about is if this culture will produce a beer that gluten-intolerant people can drink. From what I've read, truly authentic sourdough bread can be eaten by gluten-intolerant people due to an enzyme that the sourdough yeast can breakdown which commercially made bread yeast can't. Maybe the wild sourdough yeast will be able to the beer drinkable for those who are sensitive to gluten. Anyone have any idea if this might work?

On a last note, in one article I read that the brewer had to progressively build up the gravity of the wort they were feeding the sourdough culture as at first it would die at about 2% abv. I have a hard time believing this as just with my starter the yeast had an expected attenuation leaving the fermented wort at around 4%.
 
Just to add my own experience as it unfolds.
I transformed my sourdough starter feeding it wort made with a mix of homemade wheat and rye malt plus unmalted wheat. The same proportions of grain I was planning to use on the 12L/3gal batch. After krausen (24h), I raked half of it, feeding it again with more wort. After another 24h or so, I considered it was ready to pitch.

this is how it was during the first 24h

I boiled the wort with 10g wormwood, 30g yarrow, 30g St.John's Wort. The final 15min I threw in the peel of an orange.

I was aiming at 1.051 OG, but it came out just 1.028. I was expecting 70% efficiency, but this is more like 46%. Probably my homemade malt doesn't have the same characteristics as the one I used for calculating the recipe.

I pitched the starter anyway. It began bubbling during the first night and it kept bubbling the whole week. After a week I measured 1.012 OG, and it's extremly bitter. It seems I underestimated the wormwood. I hope it will mellow eventually. Beyond the bitterness it seems it's got a little sourness as expected from the lacto. It's got a nice herbal/orange smell which keeps me interested in how it will turn out.

I'll wait for it to finish fermenting, and I'll bottle it just for the science of it, because I don't expect much of it at this point. I'm waiting to free the fermentor to try a revisited version using commercial malt and a lot less wormwood.
 
The trial was a success!

The trial 3/4 Gal batch of scotch ale fermented only with the sourdough culture tasted great! It had about 75% attenuation. I was completely amazed how clean the yeast fermented. It was an even cleaner tasting beer than the rest of the batch that was fermented with Scotch Ale Yeast. After aging for about 2 months there is only a faint amount of detectable lacto. Overall a great beer.

Since my test batch went well I decided to do a full 5 gal. batch with the culture. I went with a saison style recipe as I thought it would go great with the yeast and if fermented at higher temps it might produce some interesting wild tasting esters just like typical saison yeast.

So far it's been fermenting as has gone from an OG of 1.070 to 1.045. I just freed up my ferm chamber so it is now climbing up to about 80 degrees so to help with attenuation and ester development.

This time around I pitched 3/4 cups of sourdough starter into about 1 L starter wort. I decanted off the beer after having been on the stir plate for 2 days and then pitched the whole thing (including the flour sediment) into the 5 gal batch. I did this as I didn't want to risk losing yeast in trying to separate the flour from the yeast.

I will likely squeeze some fresh grapefruit juice into the fermenter when primary fermentation is done.
 
The sourdough saison finished at 74% attenuation (1.070 to 1.017). I put the juice from two grapefruits in and it tastes awesome! I will likely bottle this in another week after some cold conditioning.

So far I am a huge fan of using sourdough cultures to replace brewers yeast. My authentic San Francisco sourdough culture is really flexible temp wise and has produced two of my cleanest tasting beers (other cultures may perform differently, the sf sourdough strain is known to be very resilient and flexible in general). While my beers haven't aged very long, the lacto in the culture has a very minimal effect. I look forward to seeing if they get more sour with time (which is what i've read should happen).
 
So. This is a little late now. But I have been playing with sour dough for 2 months now. Recently I brewed a test batch with the yeast to see if it would taste good. Also, as a disclaimer I started the starter off as yeast from the brewery I work at. After 2 months of feeding it with flour and water it turned more and more sour with every feeding. In the test batch I made the wort was 1.020 unhopped for maximum bacteria funk. It is in a keg now and probably the most complex beer I ever made. It tastes like a dry champagne cut with lemonade. So I would say if it smells good play around and see what happens. Batch 2 of sourdough experiment is in the fermenter already. I plan on dryhopping this one post fermentation.
 
So. This is a little late now. But I have been playing with sour dough for 2 months now. Recently I brewed a test batch with the yeast to see if it would taste good. Also, as a disclaimer I started the starter off as yeast from the brewery I work at. After 2 months of feeding it with flour and water it turned more and more sour with every feeding. In the test batch I made the wort was 1.020 unhopped for maximum bacteria funk. It is in a keg now and probably the most complex beer I ever made. It tastes like a dry champagne cut with lemonade. So I would say if it smells good play around and see what happens. Batch 2 of sourdough experiment is in the fermenter already. I plan on dryhopping this one post fermentation.

Look forward to the tasting notes!

My experience is that the lacto from the sourdough starter will contribute very minimal if any sourness to the beer. I've done two sourdough beers so far and they have been very clean tasting beers with almost zero sourness/tartness. I think it has something to do with the fact that lacto in sourdough starters thrive in a less wet environment. Lower hydrated starts produce more sour. When the starter is introduced to wort I am guessing that the yeast in the starter goes wild and multiplies while the lacto isn't necessarily in the optimum environment to go crazy.

If you created your sourdough starter with brewers yeast then it wouldn't be considered an authentic sourdough starter as brewers yeast isn't a wild yeast. Sourdough is made with wild yeast that are naturally in the air. That's why San Francisco sourdough is different than any other bread, because it's made with a wild yeast culture that's native to that area. Your bread will still likely have some sourness if you make a starter from brewers yeast, however it still isn't the same thing as authentic sourdough bread. Wild yeast is special as during the long fermentation process the yeast is able to break down/neutralize gluten proteins and "unlock" nutrients that commercial/brewers yeast can't do. This is why it's very common for gluten sensitive/intolerant people to be able to eat sourdough bread with no adverse affects (I have many such friends who are able to eat mine), the wild yeast is able to hydrolyze the gluten proteins, essentially rendering what's normally toxic to some people inert. I cannot verify if it works the same way with beer (if you were to ferment a beer with true sourdough yeast). I'd like to verify it with one of my beers but I don't want to spend $80 to get the beer tested by a lab.

So, if you are making a sourdough starter out of brewers yeast and then using that to ferment a beer, then you have essentially just fermented a beer with brewers yeast...not sourdough yeast. I would recommend finding some authentic sourdough starter and trying the experiment again.
 
Look forward to the tasting notes!

My experience is that the lacto from the sourdough starter will contribute very minimal if any sourness to the beer. I've done two sourdough beers so far and they have been very clean tasting beers with almost zero sourness/tartness. I think it has something to do with the fact that lacto in sourdough starters thrive in a less wet environment. Lower hydrated starts produce more sour. When the starter is introduced to wort I am guessing that the yeast in the starter goes wild and multiplies while the lacto isn't necessarily in the optimum environment to go crazy.

If you created your sourdough starter with brewers yeast then it wouldn't be considered an authentic sourdough starter as brewers yeast isn't a wild yeast. Sourdough is made with wild yeast that are naturally in the air. That's why San Francisco sourdough is different than any other bread, because it's made with a wild yeast culture that's native to that area. Your bread will still likely have some sourness if you make a starter from brewers yeast, however it still isn't the same thing as authentic sourdough bread. Wild yeast is special as during the long fermentation process the yeast is able to break down/neutralize gluten proteins and "unlock" nutrients that commercial/brewers yeast can't do. This is why it's very common for gluten sensitive/intolerant people to be able to eat sourdough bread with no adverse affects (I have many such friends who are able to eat mine), the wild yeast is able to hydrolyze the gluten proteins, essentially rendering what's normally toxic to some people inert. I cannot verify if it works the same way with beer (if you were to ferment a beer with true sourdough yeast). I'd like to verify it with one of my beers but I don't want to spend $80 to get the beer tested by a lab.

So, if you are making a sourdough starter out of brewers yeast and then using that to ferment a beer, then you have essentially just fermented a beer with brewers yeast...not sourdough yeast. I would recommend finding some authentic sourdough starter and trying the experiment again.

My culture started as brewers yeast for sure, but it is definitely not a pure culture any more. The bread had a progression over 2 months from tasting like beer to tasting like sour dough. I have used this starter probably 30 times. So it bares no resemblance to the yeast I started with. That being said that first batch of beer has a definite lacto twang to it and a little acetic acid as well, the acidity I would classify as bracing. Where would I get my sourdough culture tested? I'm so intrigued by this stuff now. 80$$ seems like a bargain.
 
My culture started as brewers yeast for sure, but it is definitely not a pure culture any more. The bread had a progression over 2 months from tasting like beer to tasting like sour dough. I have used this starter probably 30 times. So it bares no resemblance to the yeast I started with. That being said that first batch of beer has a definite lacto twang to it and a little acetic acid as well, the acidity I would classify as bracing. Where would I get my sourdough culture tested? I'm so intrigued by this stuff now. 80$$ seems like a bargain.


How many hours does it take your dough to double using your starter? You typically have to leave your starter in the open air for a while for wild yeast to find it's way there. You may have acquired something in your starter along the way but I'm not sure how a completely different yeast strain could take over your starter, unless there's some mutation going on (still not real sourdough starter). Not sure where you could get it tested but it sure is possible. I definately don't have 80 to drop on having a beer tested...my wife and I are closing on our first home tomorrow!
 
alot of yeast labs do testing. white labs for sure, some of the other US labs, etc.
 
Look forward to the tasting notes!

My experience is that the lacto from the sourdough starter will contribute very minimal if any sourness to the beer. I've done two sourdough beers so far and they have been very clean tasting beers with almost zero sourness/tartness. I think it has something to do with the fact that lacto in sourdough starters thrive in a less wet environment. Lower hydrated starts produce more sour. When the starter is introduced to wort I am guessing that the yeast in the starter goes wild and multiplies while the lacto isn't necessarily in the optimum environment to go crazy.

If you created your sourdough starter with brewers yeast then it wouldn't be considered an authentic sourdough starter as brewers yeast isn't a wild yeast. Sourdough is made with wild yeast that are naturally in the air. That's why San Francisco sourdough is different than any other bread, because it's made with a wild yeast culture that's native to that area. Your bread will still likely have some sourness if you make a starter from brewers yeast, however it still isn't the same thing as authentic sourdough bread. Wild yeast is special as during the long fermentation process the yeast is able to break down/neutralize gluten proteins and "unlock" nutrients that commercial/brewers yeast can't do. This is why it's very common for gluten sensitive/intolerant people to be able to eat sourdough bread with no adverse affects (I have many such friends who are able to eat mine), the wild yeast is able to hydrolyze the gluten proteins, essentially rendering what's normally toxic to some people inert. I cannot verify if it works the same way with beer (if you were to ferment a beer with true sourdough yeast). I'd like to verify it with one of my beers but I don't want to spend $80 to get the beer tested by a lab.

So, if you are making a sourdough starter out of brewers yeast and then using that to ferment a beer, then you have essentially just fermented a beer with brewers yeast...not sourdough yeast. I would recommend finding some authentic sourdough starter and trying the experiment again.

If he is doing his feedings properly even if he started out with brewer's yeast after 2 months all of that yeast will have died and the wild yeast that is on the flour and in the air would have taken over his starter. Commerical/brewer's yeast cannot survive in the starter.

Also unless you live in the SF area your starter that started off as SF sourdough has evolved with the wild yeast from where you live. This is why sourdoughs from different parts of the country taste different.

if anyone wants to start their own sourdough starter all you need is non-bleached/non-bromated flour and water. you do not need to start a sourdough starter with commercial yeast. search King Arthur's website for "How to make your own sourdough starter". This IMHO was the best resource for starting out.

I do love this thread as I always wondered as I was introduced to sour beers if you could use sourdough starter in the beer.
 
This thread is a bit dead, but I'm bumping it because I plan on trying to brew a kettle sour with my sourdough starter this weekend. My starter was spontaneously cultured in my apartment and has made some pretty solid bread, but I've kept it pretty thin so nothing has been too funky. I'm going to try and dry it out a bit and then try and make a starter with DME. Hopefully I can get some funk from the lacto, but if not then I'll probably just turn it into a hoppy farmhouse.
 
I'm glad this thread is not dead. I've had a pretty great sourdough starter for a while that I bake with every weekend. After brewing a few good saisons, and currently experimenting with Brett in my newest one, I've been thinking about doing this with a small batch. The bacteria culture seems similar to what is in the Bretts. What really intrigues me is using the yeast to actually ferment my beer without any additional brewers yeast!
 
This seems like a good thread to ask a very similar question. I just inherited a yeast starter from a friend. Originally it came from Wild Concord Grapes. It has been fed with water and AP Flour for 10 years. Would I be able to brew a decent beer with it? I just fed it yesterday and I think I'll have a good amount (definitely above 400grams) within the week...
 
Give it a try. I suspect it will work. Unless you have a genetic analysis done you will know know the strains of yeast and bacteria. So it is hard to guess the exact flavors. but since most starters have a mix of saccharomyces, brett, lacto and other you should be fine. Probably get some esters early and then sour with time. Just be watchful for gushers and possible bottle bombs
 
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