lacto grain starter help

[quietglow]

This is not exactly on-topic for the forum, but I suspect y'all will have an answer for me:

I am trying to make a lacto starter for a quick sour. I am taking 500ml of 1.020 wort made with bottled water, adding .5c of crushed grain to it, then holding it at 110f with a heating pad. For some reason, I am not getting the little white floaties which people say indicates souring. I have tried it three times. First two I dumped after 3 days each, and I'm now 48hrs into my third.

The broth smells a little tart, but definitely not rank etc.

It occurred to me this morning that its possibly souring and I am just missing the white stuff because I swirl it every 12 hrs when I'm checking it.

Any ideas?

 

[ChugachBrewing]

Taste it. What does it taste like?

Why just a sour starter? If you want a "quick sour" (no such thing then you could sour mash. Won't wreck your equipment if you boil it when you brew!

 

[hotspurdotus]

This is not exactly on-topic for the forum, but I suspect y'all will have an answer for me:

I am trying to make a lacto starter for a quick sour. I am taking 500ml of 1.020 wort made with bottled water, adding .5c of crushed grain to it, then holding it at 110f with a heating pad. For some reason, I am not getting the little white floaties which people say indicates souring. I have tried it three times. First two I dumped after 3 days each, and I'm now 48hrs into my third.

The broth smells a little tart, but definitely not rank etc.

It occurred to me this morning that its possibly souring and I am just missing the white stuff because I swirl it every 12 hrs when I'm checking it.

Any ideas?

A couple thoughts.

- Your starter is most likely souring. You really need to taste to be sure, though. Visual signs tend to vary.

- Don't swirl. Lacto doesn't need oxygen, but other bugs that might grow in your starter do. Try to keep the oxygen out if possible, but don't stress too much about it. I've done starters in mason jars with foil and a rubber band for a lid and they've turned out fine.

 

[quietglow]

I thought tasting a sour wort unfermented was risky. No?

My plan roughly the one suggested on an old Mad Fermentationist post: split the wort pre-boil, sour starter into 50% and proceed normally with the other 50. After 3-4 days allowing souring, boil the sour half, cool, add to the fermenting half.

 

[hotspurdotus]

I thought tasting a sour wort unfermented was risky. No?

Lactic Acid actually inhibits the many bad bacteria from taking hold. Just try to keep the oxygen to a minimum.

My plan roughly the one suggested on an old Mad Fermentationist post: split the wort pre-boil, sour starter into 50% and proceed normally with the other 50. After 3-4 days allowing souring, boil the sour half, cool, add to the fermenting half.

The Mad Ferm was in a Facebook chat yesterday on BYO's site. He said "If you want to sour a beer quickly, I'd rather you drained the mash, brought to a boil to sanitize, then went into a CO2 purged fermentor with a culture of Lacto (either commercial, or grown from grain)."

That's exactly what me and a buddy did tonight. We did a no-boil Berliner a couple weeks ago, but decided to boil going forward to keep the nasties from getting into our lacto strain.

Here's the link to Brew Your Own's facebook site. The chat is in the comments section of one of the links.

https://www.facebook.com/BrewYourOwn

 

[ChugachBrewing]

Not on facebook, so I can't see, but I would think a sour mash would be even faster and you'd be able to control your sourness level easier. You would not need to make a starter, so you'd save several days (or not buy a vial, which saves $$)

The method is quick: 2-3 days in the pot, then pasteurize and ferment as usual, plus your equipment won't harbor any bugs.

 

[quietglow]

When I got home from work yesterday, the starter was very obviously soured. The apple tartness was stronger and there was some fermentation underway. I didn't check this thread before I did so I missed the MFs updated method of doing this, but I'm not too concerned -- it seemed to work out pretty well for him before.

This morning, the unsoured half of the batch was fermenting hard (I love saison yeast) and the sour half smelled co2-ish and sour. So I think all is well. I'll give the sour half until Sunday night (so 72 hrs) and then boil, cool, and add it to the unfermented half. A little oak in a couple of weeks and then maybe split the batch, bottle half and put the other half on sour cherries for a bit before bottling.

 

[hotspurdotus]

Sounds like a good beer, quietglow! Which saison yeast are you using? I'm definitely going to get some fresh sour cherries this season for fruiting.

I haven't done a sour mash, so I don't have any experience with the results. When researching sour mashing, though, the word I kept running into was unpredicatable.

A typical mash contains plenty of oxygen, so the lacto is competing with more microbes for the wort. The microbes aren't dangerous, since you'll end up boiling, but they can introduce off flavors to the beer.

We've found that using a corny keg for lacto fermenation works really well. They are easy to purge with CO2, and my experience is that it produces a much tarter beer than just using a carboy.

I might try a sour mash at some point, but I'm leaning towards using Acid Malt or Lactic acid to do the souring. I'm also interested in MadMatt's Hybrid Sour Method, which seems likely to reduce the potential for off flavors. Has anyone tried it?

Happy brewing!

 

[quietglow]

I'm using the White Labs blended one (the DuPont and french strains) for the first time. I'm usually a fan of the Dupont strain, but I'm experimenting. I also didn't want to have to worry about stuck ferments given all the other messing around this beer entails.

Yes, the sour mash process is unpredictable, and that post you link to has a super interesting method of dealing with it. Also great advice on using the keg for souring -- it really would be much easier to co2 purge in a keg. I'll pick up one I can dedicate to souring.

 

[quietglow]

I boiled the sour portion this evening and added it to the already fermenting half, and before I did I tasted it. Super duper sour, and very clean. It also was sorta oddly more viscous than normal wort with a sort of mucousy quality. I suppose it's possible that some wild yeast might have managed to set up shop somewhere in the process as well. When I boiled it, it smelled exactly like an apple pie baking -- tart and bready.

After much reading, I think I'm going to skip the oak. I came across several posts which express dissatisfaction over the combination of clean sourness and barrel taste, so I think I am going to stick to just sour and fruit (probably sour cherries).

 

[quietglow]

In case anyone is following this: after a couple weeks, the beer tasted great. More tart that sour. I added 5# of frozen MI sour cherries and tasted after a few days. Very good!