What's your favorite commercial Pedio isolated strain, and why?

[goodolarchie]

Per title. The only one I have pitched separately was BLB's Sour Weapon P (Pedio Pentosaceus) and there are a few other good options out there, namely damnosus strains.

The backstory that led to my question - after sampling my library of bottled sour beers and some tasting notes of the last 3 years, my feelings on buying, maintaining and pitching isolated pedio have shifted.

I used to think it was a waste of money to buy a pedio pitch because a) there are good blends out there that have it, and cost the same b) lacto can do a fine job solo and c) my best beers almost always had bottle dregs, with pedio and other LAB.

Older and wiser me realizes there were plenty of times that having a house pedio strain propped and ready to pitch would have been great. I've also been buying barrels and being much more deliberate with the strains I use to initially inoculate, to the point that I have 14 different brett isolates aging to profile over time, and a lacto P. and lacto B. that I maintain... but no pedio.

So I'm curious what you all like that's out there, preferably something that is clean and hop tolerant, doesn't take forever to clean up any diacetyl or ropiness. What was your wort like, how did you pitch it, what were the results?

 

[Funky Frank]

This is a great question but I’ll bet that not many of us have a lot of info for you due to the working timeframe for pedio and the common practice of adding bottle dregs. I have had some beers stay ropey for a long time and others may have never been ropey (or I missed it). I can’t say for sure (probably have) that I would have ever had a single isolate of pedio at that 3 month mark and even if I did, the other conditions would have definitely not been held constant.

 

[RPh_Guy]

It's generally accepted that Brett cleans up the ropiness and diacetyl, not Pedio.

Older and wiser me realizes there were plenty of times that having a house pedio strain propped and ready to pitch would have been great.

I agree that's a good idea since you have a lot of Brett isolates and can make your own desired blend.

I suspect there's not that much difference between Pedio cultures. There's zero mention of flavor profiles on MTF other than the fact that some stains can produce more acetic acid or diacetyl. I've never heard of anyone selecting bacteria for the flavor profile.
You could even isolate it yourself instead of buying a commercial culture if you want. That way you know it's good.

FYI, when referring to species, only the genus gets abbreviated:
L. plantarum

We would love to hear the results from your tasting trials!

 

[goodolarchie]

It's generally accepted that Brett cleans up the ropiness and diacetyl, not Pedio.

Yah I reread that and it doesn't make sense as written. So for clarity - if it produces a sick, slick beer, it does so sooner than later and you don't have bad samples 4-6 months in. I've had a few D-bomb beers from dregs, but the brett has usually taken care of it by month 3 or I've totally missed it, like Frank mentioned.

In general I have more issues ruth THP and caproic acid taking a long time to go away in mature beers.

I might stick with BLBs strain, ordered some yesterday, or try Wyeasts.

 

[RPh_Guy]

In general I have more issues ruth THP and caproic acid taking a long time to go away in mature beers.

THP -- Pitch fresh Sacc from an acid shock starter whenever you introduce new sugar (e.g. bottle priming). Done properly, this procedure will completely prevent or drastically reduce THP production.

Caproic acid -- This is formed from fatty acids, so you can avoid/reduce it by limiting Brett's access to the trub/cold break. This means either changing your brew day to leave cold break in the kettle (clear wort into the fermenter), or racking after primary fermentation. At least theoretically.

 

[goodolarchie]

Cheers, these are good mitigating strategies. But they don't need solutioning in this case because I'm changing my program, just pointing out that they are more pernicious and nagging than diacetyl in my past projects. Diacetyl has been rare but gets more in the way of sampling midway, selecting for continued aging, sizing up candidates for blending or pairing fruit etc., where the other two can show up in the packaged product for a bit, when they weren't they weren't necessarily there at blending. Those are much more obnoxious when you're trying to enter something recent into a comp or give away some as gift noting "don't open until xmas 2020" hahah.

The THP goes away reasonably fast in the bottle or keg refermentation, the caproic is interesting and I'm trying to identify a good B. Bruxellensis specifically for packaging to metabolize it faster. When I was first starting, I considered racking of the trub after primary then pitching Brett, dregs etc. But I took the lazy path years ago using dozens of jugs and carboys, generally set and forget, with everything in primary on its trub and staggered pitching. That came with the understanding that I have to be okay with ethyl caproate and other fatty acid byproducts in these beers, my justification that if lambic producers are, I should be too. In general having to rack each sour carboy-experiment to secondary and do even more carboy cleaning probably would have killed the enjoyment of mixed ferm early on, so it's been a reasonable tradeoff.

This isn't a problem for the barrels so far (the current phase), those are all started in stainless and transferred / solera'd, no extended trub time.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'm trying to identify a good B. Bruxellensis specifically for packaging to metabolize it faster.

Does the goaty/waxy character in your beer diminish over time?? I haven't seen anything to suggest that these fatty acid compounds get metabolized.

I agree it's better to leave beers in primary.
Fortunately, racking isn't the only way to reduce fatty acids. All the fatty acids coagulate as cold break, which can be removed on brew day if you tailor your process to do so. This is good to do for all beers because the fatty acids accelerate staling.

Indeed Lambic has a lot of it. They do everything to promote these compounds. Personally I don't like goat character so I generally don't want to promote it.

 

[goodolarchie]

Does the goaty/waxy character in your beer diminish over time?? I haven't seen anything to suggest that these fatty acid compounds get metabolized.

Mine have diminished, though there remains a hint, moreso as the beer warms up. Most would consider it a pleasant barnyard funk at that point. From MTF:

Ester:
Ethyl caproate (sweet, fruity, pineapple, banana, apple or aniseed)

Precursor:
Caproic acid (Fatty, cheesy, waxy, barnyardy) and ethanol

I wouldn't call the beers I've had this show up particularly fruitier, but they are definitely more pleasant as it fades...

 

[RPh_Guy]

Ah thanks, I missed that. So many flavor compounds.
Too I bad we can't feasibly measure them.