chumpsteak
Well-Known Member
So how do you keep a supply of healthy lacto around? Make a starter and then keep it at room temp or in the fridge? Feed it every couple of weeks?
This is basically exactly what I did and what I'm planning except that I couldn't maintain 95 degrees and my L.Plantarum never really took off. After 48 hours and a second lacto pitch it's down to 3.85 pH and will hopefully keep going. 96 hours now and I hope to pitch a sacc brett combo soon.
I did no hops in mine but I did do a 60 min boil in my regular kettle so I wonder if hop residue added some ibus that may have squashed the lacto.
So how do you keep a supply of healthy lacto around? Make a starter and then keep it at room temp or in the fridge? Feed it every couple of weeks?
I TYPICALLY PITCH PLANTARUM AT 110F AND lEAVE 36-48 HOURS AT 95F. ITS PRETTY SOUR BY THEN, A FLASH PASTEURISATION, PLUS ANY HOPS REQUIRED (DEPENDING ON THE RECIPE) THEN A PICH OF MY FAVORED YEAST AND YOU'RE DONE.
I'll actually be trying out something a little different this time.
I'll be brewing a normal beer with a small amount of hops at flameout. transferring warm to a fermenter, pitching my plantarum (rather than kettle souring) carrying out the same type of process warm, then around 36-48hours later I'll pitch my yeast.
No Pateurisation etc.
the other thing I'll be doing is actually trying to get a slightly faster sour beer. so I'll be pitching my House Saison Culutre which has TYB Saison/brett blend (2 Brett cultures) + WLP648 and I think it was 645 too (i cant remember that one)
I'll essentially be brewing a flanders red base - with faux kettle sour in the carboy, and the copitch of sacc+brett after 48 hours, then fermented out and aged for around 6 months (a month prior to NHC in NZ) and then dryhopped with Styrian Golding and kegged.
Looking forward to it.
I'm now pretty sure that the layer of hop residue from a 100 batches of hoppy beers in my kettle is what did this batch in. The pH stopped at 3.8 and nothing I do gets it dropping again. I've added probiotics 3 different times now and 5 gallons of this 10 gallon batch started to spontaneously ferment so I had to pitch sacc/brett. The other 5 gallons is now in the house in a warm water batch to hopefully get the pH down.
I will be boiling sour beers in my hot liquor tank from now on as the lacto I'm using seems to be extremely hop sensitive.
Just mashing this in now.
Flanders red base malt 1.060
4ibu at 60.
90 min boil and then cooled to 40C and plantation pitched. Hold at 35. Co2 directly into wort and covered/sealed.
48 hour after pitching TYB saison Brett blend with wlp648 and 653 as well.
THEN AFTER aging for 6 months in primary I will rack onto 100g of styrian holdings for dryhop. (Keen to see what effect this has)
Not sure if I'll fruit. If I do it'll be sour cherries.
Do you think I should fruit?
I really like your ideas terrenum, I can tell you think the same way I do. Your 3 ideas there are really something else. What is seabuckthorn, what flavor does it have and how would the rosemary compliment it?
As for your starter, I'm not sure if that's a good idea with the veggie culture. A quick google search brought up this link on L. Mesenteroides.
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Leuconostoc_mesenteroides
The cliff-notes version is that the bacteria is in the same family and closely related to Lactobacillus. It's naturally found on many fruits and veggies, is a hetero-fermentative (a big issue for kettle-souring your beer), gram-positive, and anaerobic bacteria. It's often used as a "phase" microbe used in the dairy industry, kimchi, creation of byproducts for medicine or cosmetic products, etc. There were some alarming details about what compounds it metabolizes and its byproducts. But I'm not an expert, check out the article for better details.
I would just be cautious with using this particular microbe, at least in a kettle soured beer. It'd be interesting to see how that microbe would ferment in the long term in an exbeeriment.
My house Lacto culture seemed to have been contaminated by a foreign yeast, or somehow the Lacto became hetero-fermentative? So I've had to get rid of it and now I'm kinda in the same situation as you. I need a new Lacto starter so I was actually thinking of using Greek yogurt (Chobani Simply 100). This yogurt is as close to just straight up fermented yogurt as I can find. No sugars, fats, preservatives, coloring, GMO(s), blah blah. There's several different strains of Lacto (acidophilus, bulgaricus, plantarum, etc.) in there along with Streptococcus Thermophilus. Should provide plenty of souring bugs to do the job, and I've had great sours made from yogurt starters.
The brewery I work for just released a pineapple Berliner wiesse that used such a technique. Frankly, the tartness of that beer is possibly one of the cleanest I've ever tasted. So it can be done.
Enter your email address to join: