Everyone throw your ideas on maintaining a lacto temp on a Kettle sour please!

[boomtown25]

I have been psyching myself up for about a month now to brew my first sour (and experimenting with different local brewery sours to see which flavor I want to go with). I think I have decided my first one is going to be a raspberry ginger sour. I also think I have my "how to" pretty much down, but my biggest issue is how I am going to maintain a 100-117 degree temp while fermenting the lacto and bringing it down to about 3.3 ph. I have a brew kettle. I also have a heat band for a fermenting bucket, but I am not sure this will do the trick. I do not trust a heat pad as they have auto-shut off. I think I will have to go for about 24-36 hours. I doubt I can fit my boil kettle in my oven. I looked into a water bath in a cube cooler with some aquarium heaters but all those I have found only go up to 88 degrees. Soooooo, long story short, what are your suggestions for maintaining a temp around 100 degrees or a little higher? (FYI- my best idea is possibly brewing late one night and leaving on stove (off) and checking it every four to 6 hours and just turning stove on low for a little to heat it up. Give to me guys!!

 

[RPh_Guy]

Some species of Lacto sour quickly at room temperature -- L. plantarum is a great example and what I recommend for kettle sours.

Cheers

 

[Amadeo38]

Some species of Lacto sour quickly at room temperature -- L. plantarum is a great example and what I recommend for kettle sours.

I second this. Most grocery stores sell shots of probiotics called Good Belly, two shots of which will be plenty to sour a 5-gallon batch in about 48-72 hours at room temp. They say mango and oat contribute the least flavor but I’ve used the pomegranate as well with no detectable flavor contribution.

 

[boomtown25]

Some species of Lacto sour quickly at room temperature -- L. plantarum is a great example and what I recommend for kettle sours.

Cheers

Thanks this sounds awesome and may have solved my issues I've been worried about. So just start the kettle sour like I would normally and when I reach my PH I can do my usual 60 minute boil and hops, etc.??? And all this can be done at room temp?

 

[boomtown25]

I second this. Most grocery stores sell shots of probiotics called Good Belly, two shots of which will be plenty to sour a 5-gallon batch in about 48-72 hours at room temp. They say mango and oat contribute the least flavor but I’ve used the pomegranate as well with no detectable flavor contribution.

My grocery store down the road has these. So I add and just let ferment till my ph is reach and I can do this at room temp? Will ph be reached faster if I add more (say 3-5 of these?)

 

[Rob2010SS]

I only do 5 Gallon batches, not sure about what size you're doing, but I always put my kettle on the stove wrapped in 2-3 layers of tin foil around the sides and over the top. I have a thermometer sticking out of the top tin foil to monitor temp and when it drops a bit low, fire up the stove on LOW to get it back to where I want it. Only takes a few minutes. The lacto I use is Omega OYL 605 and it should be kept a bit warmer than room temp.

Yes, when your pH is where you want it, boil and hop as desired.

The only other recommendation I would make is to pre-acidify your wort using lactic acid. Use the lactic acid to drop your pH manually to 4.0-4.4. This will keep the unwanted bugs out of your wort during your kettle souring phase.

 

[Amadeo38]

Yep. I usually boil the wort briefly first (some just bring to 180F), cool to 90F, pre-acidify with lactic acid, then pitch the goodbelly. Try your best to keep the wort oxygen-free before pitching the goodbelly, and if you have co2, purge the headspace in the kettle with it and seal with plastic wrap.

 

[boomtown25]

I only do 5 Gallon batches, not sure about what size you're doing, but I always put my kettle on the stove wrapped in 2-3 layers of tin foil around the sides and over the top. I have a thermometer sticking out of the top tin foil to monitor temp and when it drops a bit low, fire up the stove on LOW to get it back to where I want it. Only takes a few minutes. The lacto I use is Omega OYL 605 and it should be kept a bit warmer than room temp.

Yes, when your pH is where you want it, boil and hop as desired.

The only other recommendation I would make is to pre-acidify your wort using lactic acid. Use the lactic acid to drop your pH manually to 4.0-4.4. This will keep the unwanted bugs out of your wort during your kettle souring phase.

Thanks. This was my initial plan and was definitely planning on using some Lactic acid drops.

 

[boomtown25]

Yep. I usually boil the wort briefly first (some just bring to 180F), cool to 90F, pre-acidify with lactic acid, then pitch the goodbelly. Try your best to keep the wort oxygen-free before pitching the goodbelly, and if you have co2, purge the headspace in the kettle with it and seal with plastic wrap.

I do have a kegerator and CO2 so I can definitely lay a layer of CO2 over the wort. I can use plastic wrap to seal at that point, but have seen a video of someone pitching and then laying plastic seal ON the wort, so that there is zero contact with air. Bad idea or is this what you were talking about?

 

[redllama]

I've had good success with OYL 605 (L. Plantarum) starting at ~100* and then letting it free fall; I am generally in the 3.7 range within 18 hours

 

[RPh_Guy]

CO2 purging and putting plastic wrap directly on the wort are overkill. Just seal the kettle as well as possible.
Pre-boil, pre-acidification, and using a pure culture all drastically reduce risk of infection.

As far as temperature, L. plantarum requires 65F or higher, nothing fancy.
It does work *faster* if you can keep temp closer to 75F-80F.
Near 145F is fatal and under 105 is best, so be cautious about any heat sources.

 

[Amadeo38]

It certainly may be overkill. I only know that for the year I lived in Cali and didn’t have access to my co2, both of my kettle sour batches had butyric acid and co2 was the only variable that changed. Thus, it’s just part of my procedure. Take it or leave it.

 

[RPh_Guy]

It certainly may be overkill. I only know that for the year I lived in Cali and didn’t have access to my co2, both of my kettle sour batches had butyric acid and co2 was the only variable that changed. Thus, it’s just part of my procedure. Take it or leave it.

Fair enough!
Sounds like possible GoodBelly contamination to me! I use probiotic pills.

 

[Rob2010SS]

For what it's worth, i don't use co2 either. I've done 3 kettle sours, all used Omega Oyl 605 lacto and only had 1 issue which was a yeast infection due to infected lacto from omega. Never had an issue with oxygen. Actually omega tells you no need to worry about oxygen with their lacto. I just cover the top and let it do its thing

 

[Renegade Brewer]

I have a customer who wanted to make our local sour, but this guy used wyeast lacto strain that I use and it’s happy at 98*. The biggest concern I had was the same, but our strain like ma to be at 98* at 3.5PH for 48 hours. Lucky for him he’s brewing on a grainfather, so holding temp was easy. I had other customers who set the kettle in a spare bathroom with a temp controller and a space heater.

 

[Amadeo38]

Fair enough!
Sounds like possible GoodBelly contamination to me! I use probiotic pills.

The ones that went bad in Cali were with omega lacto, but I’ve been wanting to switch to the Swanson probiotic pills!

 

[TwistedGray]

Couldn't you use a sous vide for higher temp control?

 

[helibrewer]

A CO2 blank is easy and just provides added protection from the aerobic baddies. It's good insurance from butyric and isovaleric producers. Another option would be to use a RIMs or HERMs setup for heat control.

 

[Renegade Brewer]

Wyeast offers lactobacillus, pediocaucus, and Brett strains that are amazing. They also have a rosalair blend which has all of these bugs in one smack pack. These strains are what Russian River and many other craft breweries use. They provide consistent results.

I am an advocate of them because we know how they behave, what to expect, and we can build good starters from them.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Lots of great ideas here!

Just FYI
----
Butyric acid is produced by anaerobes. CO2 won't have any beneficial effect with that regard. Also the primary organisms known to produce it are inhibited by low pH (e.g. via pre-acidification).
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Butyric_Acid

Isovaleric acid on the other hand is known to be produced by some aerobic baceria, but also by a variety of anaerobic and facultative anaerobic organisms. So, yes purging headspace with CO2 might be helpful but only against the aerobic species... and only if your wort becomes contaminated with them somehow.
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Isovaleric_Acid

With your particular process YMMV purging with CO2. I haven't found it necessary but glad it's working for some of you

 

[boomtown25]

As usual, sometimes answers lead to more questions. Which would be easiest/best/most consistent to use- the Omega Oyl 605 lacto, or Swanson Probiotic pills or the Goodbelly shots? (and how many pills/shots if the latter)??

 

[TwistedGray]

As usual, sometimes answers lead to more questions. Which would be easiest/best/most consistent to use- the Omega Oyl 605 lacto, or Swanson Probiotic pills or the Goodbelly shots? (and how many pills/shots if the latter)??

I agree, consistency is the key. I am going to use OYL-6050 exclusively (based on the posts I've seen around here).