Berliner Weisse - Not souring

[BryceL]

Hey guys! So I'm trying out the sour kettle method for a berliner weisse. I mashed at 152, sparged, brought my mash up to a boil for 10 minutes, cooled to 110 degrees and then pitched a 60ml starter (24 hours, 1 vial) of WLP672 into 7 gallons of 1.030 wort. I have my kettle hooked up a my temperature controller with a heater and it has been at 115 degrees for 72+ hours now and I am detecting absolutely no sourness or acidic bite, just tastes like sweet wort. Any ideas as to what the issue might be? I can just let it ride and see if it sours, but I'm thinking of either getting another vial to pitch, or throw some raw grains in there to see what happens. Any ideas/suggestions?

 

[beerkench]

I did my first Berliner Weisse with raw grains and it turned out great. Throw in a hop sock full of grain and consider letting the temp lower to 105 as this is more optimal for lactobacillus.

 

[Qhrumphf]

From what I have both experienced, and read from others, the commercial sour cultures seem to be fairly weak. Making a starter from bottle dregs, or from grains, seems to be the way to go. If you're going to go the grain route, I would drop the pH to <4.5 with acid first (you'll need a pH meter), and limit any and all oxygen exposure. There's more present than lacto on grains, and the combo of oxygen and high pH can lend to some very nasty stuff.

 

[BryceL]

From what I have both experienced, and read from others, the commercial sour cultures seem to be fairly weak. Making a starter from bottle dregs, or from grains, seems to be the way to go. If you're going to go the grain route, I would drop the pH to <4.5 with acid first (you'll need a pH meter), and limit any and all oxygen exposure. There's more present than lacto on grains, and the combo of oxygen and high pH can lend to some very nasty stuff.

Unfortunately I do not have a ph meter. Is there any way to have a ballpark guess as to how much lactic acid I should add to lower the ph into the 4.5 range? I have my kettle sealed up well, so I don't have much concern with oxygen exposure. I'm really leaving toward just throwing some grain into a bag and tossing it in. I was hoping the pure lactobacillus strain would have worked out just from a repeatability standpoint.

 

[BryceL]

From what I have both experienced, and read from others, the commercial sour cultures seem to be fairly weak. Making a starter from bottle dregs, or from grains, seems to be the way to go. If you're going to go the grain route, I would drop the pH to <4.5 with acid first (you'll need a pH meter), and limit any and all oxygen exposure. There's more present than lacto on grains, and the combo of oxygen and high pH can lend to some very nasty stuff.

Unfortunately I do not have a ph meter. Is there any way to have a ballpark guess as to how much lactic acid I should add to lower the ph into the 4.5 range? I have my kettle sealed up well, so I don't have much concern with oxygen exposure. I'm really leaving toward just throwing some grain into a bag and tossing it in. I was hoping the pure lactobacillus strain would have worked out just from a repeatability standpoint.

 

[Qhrumphf]

For a full kettle sour, I'm not sure. For my sour mashes, at ~1.5 qt/lb in a 5.5 gallon batch, it's been 10-15 ml of 88% lactic acid to drop from normal mash conversion range (~5.3) to <4.5. My last one (joint sour mash for Gose and Licthenhainer) took me ~12ml to reach 4.47. You may need more than that.

 

[lshaner]

115F is way too hot for WLP672. Drop it to 90-95F and it will work. It's a fast working strain when you are in its sweet spot. Like yeast, not all Lacto strains like the same temperature.

 

[BryceL]

For a full kettle sour, I'm not sure. For my sour mashes, at ~1.5 qt/lb in a 5.5 gallon batch, it's been 10-15 ml of 88% lactic acid to drop from normal mash conversion range (~5.3) to <4.5. My last one (joint sour mash for Gose and Licthenhainer) took me ~12ml to reach 4.47. You may need more than that.

Thanks for the help, this will give me an idea of where to start. I'll keep you posted on what happens!

 

[BryceL]

For a full kettle sour, I'm not sure. For my sour mashes, at ~1.5 qt/lb in a 5.5 gallon batch, it's been 10-15 ml of 88% lactic acid to drop from normal mash conversion range (~5.3) to <4.5. My last one (joint sour mash for Gose and Licthenhainer) took me ~12ml to reach 4.47. You may need more than that.

Question for you. Are there any calculators out there there for adding lactic acid? Let's say I get a ph meter and get a reading of my current wort ph. Is it simply trial and error to get down to the correct ph, or is there a calculation? I have 88% lactic at home.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Question for you. Are there any calculators out there there for adding lactic acid? Let's say I get a ph meter and get a reading of my current wort ph. Is it simply trial and error to get down to the correct ph, or is there a calculation? I have 88% lactic at home.

I use Bru'n Water for my water/mash pH, but while I've found it very good at giving me the right amount of acid to reach the right mash pH, it doesn't do so well with the jump down for a sour mash. No real substitution for measuring and adjusting in real time.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Did you use any hops? If so, you're probably screwed.

Question for you. Are there any calculators out there there for adding lactic acid? Let's say I get a ph meter and get a reading of my current wort ph. Is it simply trial and error to get down to the correct ph, or is there a calculation? I have 88% lactic at home.

EZ Water can get you in the ballpark. For me, I can get 5 gal of 1.036 wort down to pH 4.5 using about 7 mL lactic acid. EZ Water predicts pretty close to that.

 

[BryceL]

Only mash hopped to about 4 ibu's. I'm going to taste it one last time tonight to see if there is any progress. If not, I'll be adding some acid and a pitch of fresh grain to see if I can get it going.

 

[BryceL]

Just checked, still zero sourness. Added 8ml of lactic acid and checked with a ph strip,appeared to be in the 4.5 range. Pitched 1# of raw 2-row malt in a grain bag, flooded the kettle with C02 and sealed her back up. We'll see what happens....

 

[jahdub]

FWIW, 1lb is more grain than you need. It isn't a big deal, but for future batches, a handful or two is fine.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Yeah, the hops screwed you. Commercial strains can't tolerate any hops generally. Not sure if there are any exceptions to that (and even if there were, I certainly wouldn't want any hop-tolerant lacto strains in my home!).

 

[BryceL]

Well, good news is that it's definitely starting to sour now. Looks like I might have saved this one.

 

[BryceL]

Yeah, the hops screwed you. Commercial strains can't tolerate any hops generally. Not sure if there are any exceptions to that (and even if there were, I certainly wouldn't want any hop-tolerant lacto strains in my home!).

Yeah, I should have caught that mistake in my recipe. Next time I'll get rid of the mash hops and just go with a small addition in the boil, post souring.