Used lactic acid to pre-acidify my wort, is this ok?

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Bisco_Ben

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So I recently purchased some probiotic lacto plantarum capsules for kettle sours and brewed the wort today. I wanted to lower the pH to 4.5 before adding the lacto so I used 3 teaspoons in 7.5 gallons of preboil wort which got me right where I wanted. After, I noticed a considerable lactic smell from the wort and now worry that I may have screwed up the flavor profile of this beer. Do you all feel that 3 teaspoons of 88% lactic acid solution in a 6 gallon batch of a hoppy kettle soured beer will impart enough flavor to screw up the flavor of this beer?
 
I've only kettle soured with live bacteria. That being the case, you can boil when you reach the desired ph...so not sure in your case.
 
I am still using live bacteria (lacto plantarum), i just used the lactic acid to drop the pH to 4.5 in order to keep off other unwanted stuff. Im just wondering if the added lactic acid solution will throw off the natural flavor of the plantarum. I want to taste the lacto P in all of its glory.
 
I'm sure you will be fine! Many commercial breweries use lactic acid to pre-adidify their wort before inoculating it with LAB. You will be boiling this later and that may drive off whatever off flavor you are smelling.
 
Adding Lactic Acid is fine until you can taste it. Simple answer. 3 tsp is a lot, but maybe not for a sour. I actually highly suspect in this case it will work out fine for you.
 
... what do you think the lacto bacteria are going to add to your beer when they get going? (hint: lactobacillis generates mostly lactic acid, and 10 to 100 times as much as your 88% lacto addition adds. :) )
The pre-acidification is to prevent other stuff from growing while the lacto starts producing.
 
It'll be fine. I just did the same for a kettle sour, and plantarum dropped the pH from 4.5 to 3.18 in less than 24 hours. It's a beast. Good luck
 
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