First Sour...am I doing this right?

[HumboldtBrewer]

So I have decided to make my first sour saison, and I am quite excited. As I am doing some research on this subject, I obviously have formulated some questions which I can't seem to find an answer for.

I've made a 1.5L yeast starter for my Wyeast Lactobacillus Delbruckii strain, and it is currently on a stir plate in my house which is sitting at around 70F.
-How long should I let this bacteria sit on the stir plate for? Is it like Saccharomyces where it only takes 24 hours or should I let it run for 2+ days?

I am deciding to pitch my Lactobacillus starter into my wort first and letting that ride for one week. Then I will pitch my vial (without starter) of WLP 029 German Ale/Kolsch yeast for another week. My question at this point is:
-After the Lacto has been in the wort for a week, do I then do my 60 minute boil (to kill Lacto), and add my hop additions, then add the WLP 029, or do I just make the whole wort with hops and all before I pitch lacto and then pitch WLP 029 onto the lacto and let them ride together?

Thanks in advance, this sour world is quite new compared to making "clean" beers.

 

[chefchris]

First off, best of luck with L. delbruckii. It isn't known for being aggressive but hopefully you'll have good luck with it while sour worting. FWIW L. Brevis hasn't let me down yet.

The reason people add hops after sour worting is because hops are antimicrobial so they actually work against the lacto.

So mash, sparge, and collect your preboil volume. Bring that up to 180F or so to kill any unwanted bugs from the grain, chill it down to around 110F and pitch your lacto in. Once it's sour enough for you (kind of hard to tell because it's also very sweet at this point) bring it up to a boil and proceed as normal.

First couple of times I did it I just sanitized my cooler mash tun and it held the temp pretty well. You can also use a space heater in a room or sour in your kettle. Whatever works best for you, just keep oxygen out while it's souring. If you keg then use your CO2 tank to flush whatever vessel you're using. My last batch that I sour worted I did it in corny kegs. If you don't have a tank then place saran wrap directly on top of the wort so there's a barrier.

If you're planning on making a saison then I would just pitch some saison yeast in there instead of the Kolsch. I know that strain is often recommended because it can apparently handle the lower pH but I haven't seen a lot of people having problems with their yeast after it's sour. I usually use sach Trois to finish it off but I've used S05 in the past and will be using a Brett Blend from Omega next week in one. I did a split batch of berliner and gose last week and Trois handled the 3.01 pH environment just fine.

As far as starters go, if I don't already have a culture going I like to give the starter a good head start. 4+ days or so. If you think you'll do this again, then when you're ready to pitch your lacto leave a little bit in your starter container and put some fresh wort back on top and, baby, you got a culture going.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[HumboldtBrewer]

Thanks Chef, that's really helpful info.

 

[D-Train]

@chefchris, great info. How much gravity drop do you find from the initial lacto souring? Reason I ask is a strain like brevis will create alcohol, so the post-souring boil will boil off all of the alcohol and it becomes a loss. Pasteurizing temps are lower than alcohol boiling temps so that's an option to kill the lacto and retain the alcohol, but then you can't make your hop additions post-boil. It becomes a catch-22: hop first and risk inhibiting the lacto, or hop after initial souring and burn off whatever alcohol was created. Since you opt for the latter, I'm just wondering what sort of alcohol loss is involved.

 

[youreanimpulse]

Third option: dry hop. Love me some dry hopped Berliner.

 

[chefchris]

@chefchris, great info. How much gravity drop do you find from the initial lacto souring? Reason I ask is a strain like brevis will create alcohol, so the post-souring boil will boil off all of the alcohol and it becomes a loss. Pasteurizing temps are lower than alcohol boiling temps so that's an option to kill the lacto and retain the alcohol, but then you can't make your hop additions post-boil. It becomes a catch-22: hop first and risk inhibiting the lacto, or hop after initial souring and burn off whatever alcohol was created. Since you opt for the latter, I'm just wondering what sort of alcohol loss is involved.

I checked my gravity the first few times and if I remember correctly it would ferment about half the sugars in 3 or 4 days. I brought mine to a boil for 5 or so minutes the first time and I had the same concerns about boiling off alcohol. I mean, we're already talking about a 3.5% beer here. I looked up some data and apparently it doesn't boil off so easily, or not as much as you would think. I don't have the data on me but I'm sure you could find it.

You could only dry hop if you wanted to. I just did that last week with a Berliner, no hops until dry hop. My Gose has no hops.

Maybe you could do some sort of FWH and only bring it to 180F or so and not boil or only boil for a short time if you're worried about alcohol loss.

Regardless, make sure you have plenty of ventilation where you're brewing.

 

[jnacey]

You may have issues with a Lacto D starter on a stir plate. Lacto D is an anerobe. You should use a stir plate for Lacto brevis, but not for Delbruckii.