Bunk Lacto?

About 4 days ago i made a 2L starter for a pack of wyeast lacto. About 2/3rds of it is 1030 wort. I heard lacto like simple sugars and heard of a lot of people using apple juice as a soure. So I took about five apples and ran them through a juicer and mixed that with the wort. I have been keeping the starter going at about 90-100F.

As of yet there has been zero activity. I read that a lot of times lacto will not show signs of working. So I smelled it, smelled slightly of sweet apples which makes sense with apple juice being in there. I tasted a small amount and it just tasted slightly sweet, not sour at all.

What gives?

 

Lacto will only work on some sugars. However I suspect you have them in your starter.

I've not used the Wyeast Lacto, but the last couple of times I used Lacto, it took 5 days to be noticeable (at 100 F). Once you pitch it, it goes through what is called the lag phase, which can be hours to days while it is getting used to the medium. Then it gets into it's exponential growth phase which is where the lactic acid is formed. Once it starts the growth phase it will go quick, doubling in size in less than an hour; should sour nicely within 24 hours.

You may not see any activity.

 

On a side note, I also started about a cup of wort with a small handfull of uncrushed grain yesterday. It is already building a pellicle. Even though I could pitch this as well or instead, I was hoping to try out the results of a pure culture first. So here's hoping this puppy sours up!

 

I've used the commercial lactos and also cultured it from crushed grain. The grain lacto is way more aggressive, with a shorter lag phase and much more pronounced sourness. And it's free. No need to buy lacto IMO.

To OP: Lacto can take a week or so to start showing visible signs of fermentation. No worries.

 

I actually pitched wyeast lacto a little over 48 hours ago and was beginning to worry about it too. Hopefully its just a lag phase... A buddy of mine got some in the same order from our homebrew shop and his is in the same boat.

 

Almost been a week now, still tastes like warm apple juice. Should I be worried yet?

 

When you said you added five juiced apples to this, did you sanitize the apples in any way or just add them unheated to wort?

 

I brought the juice to a boil briefly then cooled. From what Ive read apples dont typically contain preservatives.

 

so yesterday around noon I still had no noticeable sourness in my wyeast lacto starter. On my mason jar of lacto cultured from grain i had a bit of a filmy pellicle and the whole starter looked creamy white. I took approximately half of the mason jar lacto and strained it into my apple juice/wort/wyeast lacto concoction. The other half I dumped into a newly made 1L starter of DME wort.

By Nine O Clock last night:


Noon today,
Apple Juice/Wort/Wyeast Starter:



New wort starter:


So definetely some pellicle formation on both of these starters, however never having worked with lacto before, I do not know if this is characteristic of a lacto pellicle. Does this appear to be lacto to you guys? Or did I pick something else up from the grain?

 

Keeps getting more gnarly...
7 PM, 31 hrs after pitching.

Apple Juice/Wort/Wyeast Starter:




New wort starter:



The apple juice mixture looks straight up gross and awesome.

The plain wort starter is looking much like the grain starter looked in the mason jar before pitching. We'll see if it catches up or stays different...

 

Awesome!

 

Still trying to figure out what it is and if I should pitch it or not... Was planning to brew a Berliner Weisse this weekend, but not sure what exactly I have cultured.

 

I think using the grain will culture more than lacto in there, and you may get some bad results, or require a longer aging. My lacto starter ended up taking off after almost 5 days. If you dont mind waiting to see how it develops it may be worth a shot. I just think theres got to be more than lacto in that grain starter.

Were these starters at room temp?

 

Temperature has fluctuated between 90-110 degrees.

I am starting to think that something else just got into this specific starter. The second one I made with the other half of the grain starter has not changed much, just the thin film and small clumps of white here and there.

I believe the apple juice starter has some wild yeast in it. You can see bits of movement throughout the liquid like a yeast fermentation. It also looks like the secondary pellicle is more so the krausen breaking through the pellicle, which is why it looks so gnarly.

I am hesitant to pitch either of these into my BW now... Need advice on this one...

 

Lacto that produces CO2, as some strains do, looks like sacc fermenting. It really just looks like sacc, period. Why don't you taste it? If it's sour, mission accomplished.

 

Yes, actually I figured this out kinda by doing just that. It tasted sour and clean no off flavors or anything so I went ahead and pitched both lacto starters. 48 Hrs later and it had attenuated from 1.032 down to 1.010. Still trying to figure that out, still just tastes tart and clean. Tastes Berliner Weissyish.

I made another post asking about the attenuation and what I should do now...

 

If you got that kind of attenuation then I would wager the is a yeast in the mix. Now some lacto can make alcohol along with lactic acid. I believe thats heterofermentive and I think the yeast suppliers are supposed to be selling homofermentative strains. Lactic acid is more dense than water so I don't think you made a ton of acid. Also don't take my word. I am posting from a bad memory through a phone, so i cant double check my bad memory.

 

Correct it is Heterofermentive. Homofermentive just makes 2 molecules of Lactoc acid with no CO2 from each sugar cell (or something like that).

Heterofermentive produce CO2 as well as acid. I'm not sure it makes alcohol though. Maybe someone who knows can chime in.

 

The BW I just made with wyeast lacto is at day 5 of 100% lacto fermentation and the gravity has dropped to 1.008. Its just mildly tart, and not where I want it yet, but the gravity I am surprised by the gravity reading. I have a hard time believing my sanitation wasn't good enough, and i filled the carboy up to the point where there was probably around .25 gallon of headspace, and the carboy was purged with co2 when i pushed the star san out with co2, and again after I drained the wort into the carboy.

Perhaps my sanitation wasnt good enough, but i have a hard time believing that some airborne yeast could have began fermenting less than 48 hours after pitching the lacto. This is all a mystery to me.

 

I found this on some microbiology site:

"Lactic acid bacteria can be divided into two groups based upon the products produced from the fermentation of glucose. Homofermentative organisms ferment glucose to two moles of lactic acid, generating a net of 2 ATP per mole of glucose metabolized. Lactic acid is the major product of this fermentation. Heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria ferment 1 mole of glucose to 1 mole of lactic acid, 1 mole of ethanol, and 1 mole of CO2. One mole of ATP is generated per mole of glucose, resulting in less growth per mole of glucose metabolized. Because of the low energy yields, lactic acid bacteria often grow more slowly than microbes capable of respiration, and produce smaller colonies of 2-3 mm."

So I guess you have alcohol.

 

From what I'm understanding this assumption would be based on the fact that only the Heterofermentative Lacto is stated as producing CO2? And since my fermentation was full of CO2 it must have been Heterofermentative and thus also produced ethanol?

I think that's the way I'm understanding this. Either way thanks a ton for the info!

 

Or you unintentionally had yeast in there as well.

 

Again, I don't believe it was yeast, but it's possible. I don't taste any off flavors from the 90 degree ferment though. That and the complete lack of a krausen with a very active ferment. I pitched 3L of lacto so the strong and fast fermentation makes sense but every time I have pitched yeast starters this size or larger I have had blow off, but with this it was just churning strong with no krausen. I took a video of it, maybe i should post it. At the very least, it was no regular yeast in there....