Sour Experimental Fermentation

[homebrewdr]

Ok so this is my first time experimenting with this.

I collected less than 2 gallons of lower gravity wort from a larger beer mash and separated it into 2, 1 gallon containers I had on hand. I let it sit for 3 days so far and there is a krausen on both. You can visually see fermentation taking place within the bottles like crazy.

I assume this is a lacto fermentation. It is what I was after. It smells like something funky.

I am new to this kind of fermentation. My question is, what do I do from here? I'm after making a small quantity of experimental sour beer.

Has anyone tried this? It is hard to find a thread about it. Thanks.

 

[fermentology]

Did you add anything to the wort? Or is this a spontaneous fermentation? If it's spontaneous then you have to make sure it's fermented before you do anything. Prior to fermentation and pH drop there is a potential for harmful pathogens to live in the wort.

If you can confirm a gravity drop and alcohol production then my suggestion is to smell and taste it. If its bad, dump it, it's not going to get better. If it seems like something you're looking for then step it up with a larger batch.

 

[homebrewdr]

Did you add anything to the wort? Or is this a spontaneous fermentation? If it's spontaneous then you have to make sure it's fermented before you do anything. Prior to fermentation and pH drop there is a potential for harmful pathogens to live in the wort.

If you can confirm a gravity drop and alcohol production then my suggestion is to smell and taste it. If its bad, dump it, it's not going to get better. If it seems like something you're looking for then step it up with a larger batch.

This was a pre-boil mash, so it should have contained a lot of natural lacto. I did not add anything to it. Fermentation definitely took place over the course of a few days and has slowed down. I haven't taken a gravity reading yet in fear of contaminating my hydrometer, but I trust that there is some alcohol present. Has the characteristic spoiled milk kind of smell. It even has developed clarity.

I've heard of brewers doing a mash around 125 for 3 + days to create this kind of fermentation, but instead I collected the grain-filtered wort and let it cool slowly. My background is in biochemistry so this type of fermentation is interesting to me.

I think I may let it hang out for a couple weeks. Then if I feel inclined and it tastes like it should, I may experiment with blending it into a saison thats been going for 2 weeks. First steps of experimenting would be to simply to use a turkey baster and add droplets of the lacto fermentation to my finished beer in the glass, up to my tastes. If I feel it is successful, I may get some sour-devoted equipment to make some funky saisons in the future.

 

[fermentology]

I haven't taken a gravity reading yet in fear of contaminating my hydrometer

This shouldn't be an issue unless you're dumping post fermentation samples back into the carboy, but I wouldn't recommend doing that anyway.

 

[homebrewdr]

This shouldn't be an issue unless you're dumping post fermentation samples back into the carboy, but I wouldn't recommend doing that anyway.

Yeah I don't take samples. Only use wide mouth fermenters and drop the sanitized hydrometer. However this got me thinking, and I don't see why I couldn't wipe it down with medical alcohol and/or lysol after a reading. It would kill any lacto.

 

[fermentology]

Yeah I don't take samples. Only use wide mouth fermenters and drop the sanitized hydrometer. However this got me thinking, and I don't see why I couldn't wipe it down with medical alcohol and/or lysol after a reading. It would kill any lacto.

If it's glass and you have good cleaning and sanitation practices you should be fine. I often switch between clean and wild beers reusing glass and plastic carboys without any infections (unless I'm lazy, but then I know that going into it and expect infection).