Lactobacillus Culturing

So, I'm going to try to culture some lactobacillus from grain. Here's my plan.

Create a wort starter, maybe a pint or so, 1.030 with some Wyeast nutrient. Transfer it to a sanitized soda bottle (PET) and let cool to 120F. Then, I'll add some fresh barley (and wheat...it's for the batch of the Berliner Weiss I'm going to try...) and squeeze all the air out of the bottle before sealing it with the sanitized cap and try to keep if at 90-120F for 3 days or so.

The PET bottle is to keep as much oxygen out as possible for the duration of the Lacto propagation. The temperature is to best encourage lacto propagation. Does anyone see any issues with this method, or can anyone perhaps suggest a better/easier method?

Biermuncher did something similar.

here's his thread.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/ive-got-bug-118242/

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

You'll probably have to release the cap once fermentation begins. In my experience my sour mashes have off-gassed a bit, especially at higher temps around 120F. Just partially unscrew the lid and you'll be fine.

Unless you intend on trying to isolate the lacto from everything else and keeping a pure or semi-pure culture you're probably going to have a limited time frame to use that culture before wild yeasts and other stuff starts to propagate.

I routinely do a sour mash for my saison. You're on the right track.

The way I figured, if the lacto gives off some gas, it will fill up the space I squeezed out, and won't be some compound which is bad for the lacto...if it get's a little pressurized, I'll just vent it quickly.

I'm just trying to avoid the garbage/vomit smells which have been associated with a sour mash...and maybe a sour mash with exposure to oxygen. I'd try to sour the whole mash, but I feel like this is a more controlled process.

Now to see if I can't find someone to drink a soda for me.....

Hmmm....I'm not sure about how the culturing went. It's been 4 days, and the bottle with the starter and grains smells like cooked corn...so maybe just some DMS..? I'm nervous to taste it, but my nervousness is probably unfounded. Gosh..I should just bite the bullet to see if it's sour/taste ok-ish.

Any comments/suggestions on where I should go from here?

Here is my method for partial mashes for saisons:

1. place 1 lb of grain bill in 1L of water at ~160F and let it mash for 60 min.
2. bring mini-mash to a boil, and remove from heat.
3. once the mixture has cooled <100F, add 2-3 handfuls of grain on top.
4. place plastic wrap directly over slurry to decrease o2 content.
5. use between 12-24 hours later.

It seems to me like the biggest differences between my method and the one you are using are a)volume - it seems like 500mL is not very much, b)inoculation - how much barley are you adding?, and c) temp - 120F is pretty high, how are you maintaining that temperature in a plastic bottle? Maintaining temperature is much easier in a pot on the stove.

I added about 1/4-1/4 cup of barley/wheat malt to 500mL. I was keeping the temperature between 90 and 120&#730; by keeping the bottle partially submerged in a pot of water on the stove (more liquid to cool down). It's been at RT for the last 3 days or so.

In the past day it has been "carbonating"...so I'm guessing there's a wild yeast in there..So...Not sure where I'll go from here. I guess this has become more of an experiment than anything else.

Interesting, can't wait to see how it goes!

So, if anyone wants an update, here it is...after I've been sitting on my butt for a while. Also, if anyone wants to give me a suggestion, please do!

The "starter" I made in my plastic A&W bottle (it's brown) has completely soured (it's lip-smacking tart!) and fermented (I think). It's got a bit of a cidery flavor...probably just my mind making it up from the sourness.

Anyway. So the plan is to brew today (finally). I'll probably try a decoction mash to shoot for more malt character to run contrary to the sourness/smallness of the beer. Probably protein rest at 125-130F for 20 minutes, Decoct to 148F rest for 60 minutes, then Decoct to mashout at 168F for 20 minutes. I'll probably throw in the .75oz Hallertau with the second decoction. Then do a "sparge" à la the stove-top brewing. Then I'll bring to a boil for 5 minutes to sanitize the immersion chiller and then chill.

Now here's the deal. I'll probably take a sanitized gravity reading on my starter to see if it really has fermented (there was a lot of activity, and a lot of released CO2..I'm guessing yes). If it has, I'm thinking I'll just pitch most of the starter into the carboy with the wort. Should I swirl the "yeast" on the bottom and risk getting some of those grain particles (I will pour it through a sanitized strainer)?

Two other options include pitching the starter, then pitching some US-05 after 2 days, to give the Lacto a head start and help out whatever yeast is already there. OR I could split it, and pitch the extra yeast in one, but just the starter in the other.

So...Hit me with your best advice!

curious how this turned out? I'm about to start up a lacto culture this week for my first BW and was leaning toward pitching the starter and then some us-05 after a couple days

Well, I don't know yet..

I split the batch, and pitched half the starter in both carboys. Then, 2 days later, I pitched some S-05 into one of them. After a couple months (I think around Christmas...) there was a bit of a pellicle on the one without yeast...probably from some Brett that was picked up from the grain...or maybe somewhere else. I'm hoping it's not some other kind of infection. The pellicle disappeared sometime over the next month.

I haven't tried them yet. I thought it would be best to age it since they have lacto...and who knows what other bugs...but now that I think about it, It's a low gravity beer and is probably better younger - bugs or no bugs. I was planning on trying some this weekend, but never got around to it. I'll probably try some before/during/after I brew tomorrow. I'll try to remember to give an update at that time.

Well it turns out the wild one has a pellicle again...it's in full swing. So I'll probably let it go for a little longer.

So I'll try just the 'mit hefe' carboy tomorrow. I'll keep you posted. Maybe I'll even dare to break through the pellicle...we'll see.

Here's my method. It's tested, proven, reliable, affordable and very easy. It will give you enough for hundreds of batches without ever needing to make starters or worry about storage.

1. Go to vitamin aisle of local drug store and buy a bottle of Acidophilus*
2. Cut open 1 gelcap of acidophilus and sprinkle onto wort.

* It's actually Lactobacillus Acidophilus; the manufacturers always put the lacto in the fine print section of the label. This is a different species of lacto than is typically used in brewing, but will produce lactic acid in an identical manner.

kingwood-kid said:

Here's my method. It's tested, proven, reliable, affordable and very easy. It will give you enough for hundreds of batches without ever needing to make starters or worry about storage.

1. Go to vitamin aisle of local drug store and buy a bottle of Acidophilus*
2. Cut open 1 gelcap of acidophilus and sprinkle onto wort.

* It's actually Lactobacillus Acidophilus; the manufacturers always put the lacto in the fine print section of the label. This is a different species of lacto than is typically used in brewing, but will produce lactic acid in an identical manner.

Click to expand...

Hmmm, now that's something new. Might try a small batch with this. Thanks.

That is an interesting idea...it might be better than using the whey from yogurt as I was considering trying. That would give me a mix of lactobacillus, usually including acidophilus. Though I'm excited to try the results of this culturing method, yours might be an easy, surefire way to get a good berliner weisse.

kingwood-kid said:

Here's my method. It's tested, proven, reliable, affordable and very easy. It will give you enough for hundreds of batches without ever needing to make starters or worry about storage.

1. Go to vitamin aisle of local drug store and buy a bottle of Acidophilus*
2. Cut open 1 gelcap of acidophilus and sprinkle onto wort.

* It's actually Lactobacillus Acidophilus; the manufacturers always put the lacto in the fine print section of the label. This is a different species of lacto than is typically used in brewing, but will produce lactic acid in an identical manner.

Click to expand...

I always wondered if this would work.

I suspect that the acidophilus strain is incredibly acid tolerant since it's meant to survive through your stomach acids into the rest of the digestive system. I would be interested to see how acidic it could make a beer fermented with a neutral ale strain.

kingwood-kid said:

Here's my method. It's tested, proven, reliable, affordable and very easy. It will give you enough for hundreds of batches without ever needing to make starters or worry about storage.

1. Go to vitamin aisle of local drug store and buy a bottle of Acidophilus*
2. Cut open 1 gelcap of acidophilus and sprinkle onto wort.

* It's actually Lactobacillus Acidophilus; the manufacturers always put the lacto in the fine print section of the label. This is a different species of lacto than is typically used in brewing, but will produce lactic acid in an identical manner.

Click to expand...

Nice sure-fire method.

I can appreciate a more natural method, as well.
I started an experiment about a week and a half ago in culturing lacto for my ginger beer.
I placed about 20 chopped raisins, and 5oz of chopped ginger with 4Tbs of sugar into 1 liter of water, but I put it in a 3 liter container to give it lots of oxygen.
I kept this at 65F, feeding it more sugar and ginger halfway through. It formed a couple small fuzzy floaters and a layer of yeast living on the bottom.

Last Saturday I brewed a Gingerbeer/Kvaas mix I call Kila-Kvaas in my Mr. Beer kit.
1lb of Pumpernickel dried, boiled and steeped for 8 hours. Strained this liquid into the fermenter. Added more boiled ginger, lemon zest and lemon juice with a lb of honey and a lb of Mr. Beer "booster" (corn sugar and maltose?) and pitched with a half pakcet of dry yeast.
Finished it off with my bug starter and hopefully in about 2 weeks we will have an interesting beverage that doesnt smell like poop.

Let me know how long you let that bug sit, I have no ideas about the timeline of lacto.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I suspect that the acidophilus strain is incredibly acid tolerant since it's meant to survive through your stomach acids into the rest of the digestive system. I would be interested to see how acidic it could make a beer fermented with a neutral ale strain.

Click to expand...

Wikipedia says acidophilus "grows readily at rather low pH values (below pH 5.0)." The human stomach runs at a pH around 2, 1000 times as acidic as pH 5. It is also available as a solution, so I suppose it can survive extreme acidity, but I would guess that its metabolic activity is close to zero until it reaches a more hospitable environment.

I don't own any pH-testing equipment, so I can't say precisely how acidic my brews have gotten, but some of them are mighty sour. Since many lacto strains are inhibited by hops and by alcohol, I typically draw off a half-gallon or so of boiled wort before I add the hops to serve as the sour portion of my beers, and pitch yeast to the main portion. The lacto is kind of gross-looking, so if you want to kill it, you can just pasteurize/boil the sour portion before blending. Lactic acid's boiling point is 251F, so you won't suffer any loss of acidity.

Can anyone comment on the finished product using the acidophilus "pill"? I'm looking to make a Berliner weisse for my boyfriend, and I'm too cheap to shell out the $11 for L. Delbruckii at NB. I have several other options. I have starter cultures for cheese. Mesophillic M, Mesophillic A, and thermophillic that I purchased from the cheese connection, and some probiotic cultures for humans, but they are blends. L. Acidophilus L. Bulgaricus, S. thermophillis, B. breve. I can easily get a $5 bottle of straight L. Acidophilus. How would you rate the final product compared to the white labs or wyeast products? Thanks for your help.

If you're too cheap to spend $11, I'd save the $5 and just culture from the grain. I've done it that way and the pill way. They both work. I haven't done enough with either to say which method produces more favorable results. The pills are very dependable, and probably produce flavors that are cleaner. I've never tried for anything as sour as a Berliner, but if Acidophilus can survive in a pH of 2, it should be able to get you there.

I have a $5 award for vitamin shoppe! And since I need to go to toys r us next door, it's no extra gas... Glad to hear its very clean tasting. He doesn't care for any other sours, like Lambic or Flanders red, only the berliner Weiss... That might have something to do with the Brett and other bugs that are used in those beers. I have some San Diego super yeast I'll be using for an American amber next week, I'll step it up to use for this too.

How long did you let the acidophilus sit before pitching? I was thinking about 48 hours.

Before I pitched the yeast? I split the batch in half, and pitched lacto on one half and sacch on the other. After 2 or 3 days, I boiled the sour portion and combined when cool. If you're not going to split, it's been recommended to pitch the yeast at a high rate to compensate for any damage the acid will do.

If your boyfriend likes brettless sours, you might try making a gose or an oud bruin. The method is the same.

48 hours should work well (It did for me). I wouldn't worry too much about the pitch rate. It's a small beer - so on sachet of S-05 should be just fine. Plus, pro brewers will sometimes acid-wash their yeast in a solution with pH of 2.0 - 10x more acidic than a very sour beer - and then pitch it into their wort.

If it ends up more sour than you'd like, you can brew a small batch of beers with only sacc and then blend them to taste.

I'm currently fermenting a berliner right now from a homemade lacto. I just put a cup of crushed pale malt in a jar with 130 degree water and covered it with foil. I let it sit for a week and a pellicle formed. It was pretty tart by then. I pitched it into the wort at 100 degrees. Let it sit for two days and pitched wyeast 1007 (german ale). It's been going for about a week and a half. After a week I did a gravity reading and taste. It was down to 1.010 and mildly tart. I'm hoping to have it ready after 30 days or so.

The thread for it is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/all-grain-berliner-weisse-313370/

edit: in case you're curious I poured the culture through a paint strainer cloth over a measuring cup to get just the liquid.

For a 5 gallon batch of 1.030 gravity ale, Mr Malty advises 1/2 a satchet, less when you account for the sugars eaten by the lacto. Pitching the whole pack would be an enormous overpitch under ordinary circumstances, but is probably a good idea in this beer.