Any Lallemand Philly Sour feedback or experience to share?

[Porter_Stout]

You’ll be ok with that. Any updates on progress since you posted?

I took a sample today with a refrac and it measured 1002 so I'm bottling. I'm debating on adding dextrose for bottling. It's not the best I've made but it's drinkable before carbonation. The mixed fruit isn't as prominent as I'd hoped but I'll still drink it.

 

[Miles_1111]

I brewed a Philly sour IPA. Everything is great besides that the sourness is less than I expected. I put 5.4% of Dextrose, mash at 65C/149F for 1 hour. Chill to 25c/77F and fermentation at 22C+/75F room temperature. One pack Phlly sour yeast for 10L (2.5 gallon) wort. PH finally at 3.38 after fermentation (before bottling). It carbonated OK after two weeks in the bottles in room temperature.

I would rate the sourness 4 out of 10.. it's more like a dry hopped gose than a sour IPA, only if it can be more sour would be perfect. In order to increase the sourness to 6 or 7 for next batch, I guess I will try 8% Dextrose, 64C mash temperature and high fermentation temperature?

 

[DuncB]

I brewed a Philly sour IPA. Everything is great besides that the sourness is less than I expected. I put 5.4% of Dextrose, mash at 65C/149F for 1 hour. Chill to 25c/77F and fermentation at 22C+/75F room temperature. One pack Phlly sour yeast for 10L (2.5 gallon) wort. PH finally at 3.38 after fermentation (before bottling). It carbonated OK after two weeks in the bottles in room temperature.

I would rate the sourness 4 out of 10.. it's more like a dry hopped gose than a sour IPA, only if it can be more sour would be perfect. In order to increase the sourness to 6 or 7 for next batch, I guess I will try 8% Dextrose, 64C mash temperature and high fermentation temperature?

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You could let the pH drop with the philly sour which might enly take 3 days or so then pitch a normal yeast. I used opshaug kveik and bumped up to 28 celsius . This dropped the pH by about .2 more, can pre or post acidify as well with phosphoric or lactic acid.
The sour IPA i made with it used this recipe and dropped completely clear.

 

[MackerelQ]

I'm on day 4 of my grapefruit gose and I am concerned.

The fermentation is really slow, like it's only dropped two points today.
I took a sample to see how sour it is as I am noticing airlock activity and the gravity has dropped about 10 points in total, so I assumed the souring phase had completed.
My pH meter is on the fritz, so I can only reliably use my tongue and it doesn't really seem hardly sour at all. Could it be because it's still at 1.040 and the sweet is offsetting the sour?

Here are the pertinent data on the brew:
Mashed at 149F (65C)
OG 1.049
Added 2% table sugar and about 3.25 pounds (1.47Kg) of pink grapefruit juice at flameout
Added 1 packet of Philly Sour
5.5 Gallons (20.8L) in the fermenter
Fermentation started at 72F (22.2C), I've bumped it up to 74F (23.3C) over the last two days

Should I wait and see what happens?
Is this what others have experienced/tasted at this point and I should not worry?
Should I pitch another packet of yeast and some more sugar?

 

[Drewch]

I'm on day 4 of my grapefruit gose and I am concerned.

The fermentation is really slow, like it's only dropped two points today.
I took a sample to see how sour it is as I am noticing airlock activity and the gravity has dropped about 10 points in total, so I assumed the souring phase had completed.
My pH meter is on the fritz, so I can only reliably use my tongue and it doesn't really seem hardly sour at all. Could it be because it's still at 1.040 and the sweet is offsetting the sour?

Here are the pertinent data on the brew:
Mashed at 149F (65C)
OG 1.049
Added 2% table sugar and about 3.25 pounds (1.47Kg) of pink grapefruit juice at flameout
Added 1 packet of Philly Sour
5.5 Gallons (20.8L) in the fermenter
Fermentation started at 72F (22.2C), I've bumped it up to 74F (23.3C) over the last two days

Should I wait and see what happens?
Is this what others have experienced/tasted at this point and I should not worry?
Should I pitch another packet of yeast and some more sugar?

I wouldn't panic yet. It's not unusual for the gravity to stay flat longer with Philly Sour than you'd expect with Sacc.

 

[MackerelQ]

I wouldn't panic yet. It's not unusual for the gravity to stay flat longer with Philly Sour than you'd expect with Sacc.

Thanks for the reply. I think my biggest concern is the lack of sourness and not so much the gravity. I can always pitch something else to finish it off. Not sure what to do to get the pH down.

 

[DuncB]

The pH drop is first then alcohol is made. I never tasted the wort just used meter and refractometer.
One packet might have been a slight underpitch but it'll get there.

 

[Drewch]

Thanks for the reply. I think my biggest concern is the lack of sourness and not so much the gravity. I can always pitch something else to finish it off. Not sure what to do to get the pH down.

I've only made a half dozen or so Philly Sour batches. But I've gotten more acidity when I use a significant amount (like up to 20%) of simple sugar.

Edit: based on what I've read on the internet, too, I aim for pitching 1g / L of yeast.

 

[MackerelQ]

The pH drop is first then alcohol is made. I never tasted the wort just used meter and refractometer.
One packet might have been a slight underpitch but it'll get there.

Yes, I think I’m solidly into the alcohol production phase. It’s now dropped 10 points in the last 10 hours. Think I’m beyond possibly fixing it if that was at all possible. I’ll give it a taste later today and see what it’s like. Hopefully the less sweetness will make the sourness more pronounced.

 

[MackerelQ]

I've only made a half dozen or so Philly Sour batches. But I've gotten more acidity when I use a significant amount (like up to 20%) of simple sugar.

Edit: based on what I've read on the internet, too, I aim for pitching 1g / L of yeast.

I was hoping the grapefruit juice would be enough with the table sugar. There didn’t seem to be much guidance on how much sugar to add. What I read basically said, “it does better with more sugar”, but no actual percentages.

Do you typically use corn sugar or table sugar?

 

[DuncB]

You will get pH drop with the ferment so let it finish.
Adding acid later is possible.

 

[YeastFace]

Using Philly Sour for the first time in a tart Brett saison.

Grist was Lager/Wheat Malt/Rye Malt. I was going to add some dextrose but as I didn't want the PH to drop too far decided against this.

Wort OG was 1.046 and ph was 5.4, after 3 days SG was 1.024 and ph was at 3.6.

Aroma was quite delicious, mango and lychee esters. 3.6 was sour enough for my purposes and gave a nice pringly sensation on the tongue.

Have now racked and added WHC Farmhouse Vibes (likely repackaged Belle Saison) and 5l gewurztraminer juice.

First impressions are positive.

 

[Takeshi_pilis]

I brewed a belgian wheat base with blackberries at the end of fermentation cycle.

The beer is now 3 weeks in the fermenter.

I would say its pleasintly sour and light.

But there is a funky wild character. Not to say its infected or anything. I think this flavour comes from the yeast.

Any insight/tips for how long to leave the beer in the fermenter to get rid of that funk? I thought three weeks should be good. Should I push it to 4/5 weeks?

 

[2_gal_brewer]

I made a Mango sour, that originally called for using 0.5oz lactic acid per 2 gal wort and different yeast.
I first made this to the original recipe: https://www.mrbeer.com/sunshine-and-mango-sour .
Then I made another and I replaced the yeast with the Philly sour and left out the lactic acid and got comparable results. No funk.
As yours, pleasantly light and tart.
So not sure about your Funk.
My brew did not include live fruit, so maybe something there.

 

[Takeshi_pilis]

I tried scouring the web for similar topics.

One subredit describes 100% what I feel:

“Yes! I'm almost sure we are tasting the same thing. I taste a yeasty, kinda sour, kinda floral and bitter aftertaste with it. I made a post a bit ago thinking it was the hops but I'm not sure anymore it was that. The yeast is the next best culprit.”

Just trying to figure out next steps.

 

[monkeymath]

I tried scouring the web for similar topics.

One subredit describes 100% what I feel:

“Yes! I'm almost sure we are tasting the same thing. I taste a yeasty, kinda sour, kinda floral and bitter aftertaste with it. I made a post a bit ago thinking it was the hops but I'm not sure anymore it was that. The yeast is the next best culprit.”

Just trying to figure out next steps.

Phew... I mean "funk" is not really all that descriptive. And a "yeasty bitterness", as this post describes it, could very well just be from suspended yeast?

When I used the yeast, I did not find the resulting beer to be "funky" in any way.

Have you made some other beer or wine with blackberries before? I've heard some less-than-great things about fermented blackberries, to be honest. Apparently, their slightly harsh, astringent character can become rather pronounced.
What was your dose of fruit?

 

[DuncB]

Not sure about yeasty, Philly Sour seems to drop fibre optic clear in my experience.

 

[Takeshi_pilis]

Phew... I mean "funk" is not really all that descriptive. And a "yeasty bitterness", as this post describes it, could very well just be from suspended yeast?

When I used the yeast, I did not find the resulting beer to be "funky" in any way.

Have you made some other beer or wine with blackberries before? I've heard some less-than-great things about fermented blackberries, to be honest. Apparently, their slightly harsh, astringent character can become rather pronounced.
What was your dose of fruit?

Yes I have done a blackberry mead earlier this year.

The dosage for beer was 4kg of berries for 22l batch.

Paralel to “normal beers” I play around with sour/fruited beers. First batch of phily sour was done with blackberry puree. The beer recipe was a mess and I learned that real berries work way nicer that comercial purees. The second batch the recipe was fixed and real berries used.

The second batch itself is WAY better in color and WAYYYYY more clear. But still has this “taste character” though much much milder.

Bitter floral after taste. I did though I efed up in the first batch with hops. But it does not seem to be the case.

 

[hungupdown]

Did a Blackcurrant Sour.
Lovely colour, a very refreshing summer beer.

OG: 1.047, FG: 1.007, target 1009 (before lactose addition)
ABV 6.3%
PH 3.2 @ day 9

21 litre batch
Yeast: 1 pack Philly Sour.
Ferment: 25°C for 9 days

Malts (4 kg)​

2 kg (40.8%) — BESTMALZ BEST Pilsen — Grain — 3.5 EBC
2 kg (40.8%) — Weyermann Wheat Malt, Pale — Grain — 3.9 EBC

Other (900 g)​

500 g (10.2%) — Sugar, Table (Sucrose) — Sugar — 2 EBC — Primary
500 g (8.2%) — Milk Sugar (Lactose) — Sugar — 0 EBC — End of ferment
Blackcurrants, boiled & cooled: 1kg at start of ferment; 500g at day 7.

Hops (10 g)​

10 g (11 IBU) — Northdown 8.5% — Boil — 60 min


Recipe called for 400g lactose. This upped to 500g. But still a little too tart, and I wouldn't want more than one pint!
Next year, I'll aim for a bit more body to balance the acidity. With more dextrins, from either a higher mash temperature, or adding some Cara malt.

 

[worlddivides]

I had read that Philly Sour is a really slow fermenter, so I was really surprised when I had regular airlock activity just 5 hours after pitching the yeast.

It's a mango Berliner Weisse (the grains being 50% pilsner malt and 50% wheat malt, though with mango puree making up 22% of the overall fermentables) that I mashed at 65C (149F), though it came down to 63.3C (146F) at one point, so I heated it back up to exactly 65C, left it there, and it spent the rest of the time mostly around 64C (147F and 148F). I pitched the yeast at 26C (79F) and have the temp controller maintaining the temp at 76F (26C). The smell from the airlock does smell somewhat tart. I'm just surprised it started so quickly when I'd heard so much that it was a slow fermenter. Maybe it's due to both the low mash temp and the mango puree containing glucose, fructose, and sucrose.

 

[t1m1]

Hi!
Any experiences with Philly Sour yeast under pressure?

 

[DuncB]

Philly sour loves simple sugars' so your recipe with simple sugars they love. Not much Krausen for the first few days when making acid but a little more exciting to watch beyond the acid phase .
I've spunded Philly but that's at the end of fermentation.

 

[worlddivides]

Philly sour loves simple sugars' so your recipe with simple sugars they love. Not much Krausen for the first few days when making acid but a little more exciting to watch beyond the acid phase .
I've spunded Philly but that's at the end of fermentation.

Yeah, there's been zero noticeable krausen, but there's been tons of airlock activity. It's been a lot more active than I expected. Since it's a Berliner Weisse, it only has a starting gravity of 1.031, but I imagine it could get down to 1.004 or so. I'm just a bit surprised at how fast it started and how active the bubbling in the airlock is after everything I'd heard. I've been thinking for a while that if this turns out well, I'll want to try variations with raspberries, sour cherries, strawberries, blueberries, passionfruit, and so on (either individually or as a combination of two or so).

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Interesting paper for fans of Lachanchea - a collaboration between Madrid and Strasbourg have sequenced 145 genomes to do for L. thermotolerans what Gallone et al did for the S. cerevisiae family tree.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.17667

Geared to wine so I don't see Philly Sour in there unless it's under a different name, but still interesting.

 

[worlddivides]

It's been 10 days since airlock activity began, so I took a gravity sample. 1.008, which is a lot higher than I expected (Brewers Friend estimated 1.004 and I thought it might get lower than that because of the simple sugars in there). That's 74% attenuation and 3.02% ABV, which is within Philly Sour's attenuation range listed by Lallemand (and they also had lower attenuation levels than that, such as 64%, in several of their test fermentations they did with breweries in their documentation). Normally I never care about a 0.5% difference in ABV and for higher alcohol levels I don't even care if I expect 5.9% and get 4.5%), but I do kind of care when it's a Berliner Weisse just because 0.5% is a bigger deal when the ABV is so low. It does taste great, and to be honest, I doubt I could taste the difference if it was 3.5% ABV. It has a very pleasant smooth sourness with hints of peach and stone fruit (I don't get any of the "red apple" I saw a lot mentioned online, but a very pleasant peach flavor is in there). I have to say the flavor matches my expectations very well. It's more sour than I expected, which is probably due to adding the mango puree as a kind of whirlpool addition as opposed to adding it in secondary, which I believe would mainly contribute to alcohol and not lactic acid.

 

[worlddivides]

That mango Berliner Weisse was pretty nice. And my wife, who is incredibly picky when it comes to sours, absolutely loved it and wanted me to make more beers along those lines (maybe with raspberry, cherry, or blueberry next time).

Though not a fruited sour this time, I decided to try to make a sour IPA with Philly Sour, but this time I'm bottling it instead of kegging it. And Lallemand says to not bottle solely with Philly Sour, though I've seen lots of people online who have ignored that advice (with varying success). So I'm thinking of adding US-05 on Day 4 to try to get the majority of the ethanol production by US-05 after Philly Sour has completed its acidification. Then it would be the US-05 and not the Philly Sour fermenting the priming sugar when I bottle it. Any thoughts on this? Also, I'm thinking of adding some more sugar immediately before adding the US-05. Say, 100 grams of sucrose or honey or dextrose dissolved in 100ml of distilled water.

Would love any advice!

 

[DuncB]

You could just ferment it all with philly sour and then use the 05 or the bottling yeast at the bottling stage with priming sugar.

When I used the Philly sour for a sour IPA I used Kveik opshaug after the pH had dropped fully around day 4 if memory serves and then bumped the temp up from about 28C to 30 odd to finish the ferment.
Remember that the kveik will drop the pH another 0.2 approx.

 

[worlddivides]

I already pitched the US-05 since it was Day 4.

I thought if I was going to use US-05 (or Nottingham, which was another option I considered), it would be better to use it for the primary production of ethanol since Philly Sour has such a huge range of attenuation. My last Philly Sour beer only had 74% attenuation, despite being 22% fruit puree (in other words, mostly glucose and fructose) and the base malts of Pilsner malt and wheat malt having been mashed at a pretty low temperature, and I don't think I've ever had that low of attenuation with US-05, so there could be a serious risk of bottle bombs if I used US-05 as the bottling yeast and it fermented sugars Philly Sour had left on the table. I also know that my 74% wasn't unusual since it was Lallemand's listed attenuation range and their own data shows a pretty ridiculous range with attenuation much lower than that and much higher than that, which is probably why they settled on "74% to 82%" as their listed attenuation range.

It does surprise me to hear that Kveik would drop the pH even lower. Does that mean that yeast are unaware of the pH of the liquid they are in and they just lower the pH even if it's already lower than their ideal range? Or is that something unique about Kveik?

 

[DuncB]

Not sure but it was advice given to me by Sui Generis on his Philly Sour thread and my pH meter confirmed the drop.

Not sure that any yeast could be termed " aware ". However metabolic pathways will be effected by pH, temp, alcohol etc.

 

[t1m1]

How's Philly Sour behaving under pressure fermentation conditions?
Anyone tried?