Any Lallemand Philly Sour feedback or experience to share?

[DuncB]

What kind of gravity is sugar cane juice ?

 

[Tyler B]

The sugar cane juice that I got (fresh/raw) measured about 1.080 but I'm not convinced this is a completely accurate reflection of the sugar in the juice. I added the 5L to the boil and just rolled with it.

Online nutrition data suggests it's about 13% sugar, which would equate to about 650g in my 5L and a gravity of around 1.050 (if my calculations are correct).

In the end, I don't really care because my beer will be the same no matter what it was and the yeast will do with it what they want. The more I brew the less I care about final numbers but I do keep detailed records so that I can reproduce the good ones. I am really looking excited to see how this one turns out. I'll update when it's finished.

 

[DuncB]

I had a quick look at the numbers after your reply and got the same figure using a sugar wash calculator, but I couldn't compensate for the approx 15 % fibre in the sugar wash water which would affect things. It's got a lot more sugar in it than maple sap or birch water that's for sure. Great for some belgian high gravity golden ales I expect. Did you get more kettle break and trub than with normal recipes due to the fibre?

 

[Tyler B]

Did you get more kettle break and trub than with normal recipes due to the fibre?

Yes, actually, and I didn't really know why... I was kind of hoping the sugar cane had some sort of super fining powers that made everything floc together in the boil and my beer would be super clear Probably not though from what you are saying. I guess time will tell.

On a different note, gravity has dropped down to 1.015 (according to my tilt). I'm hopping it doesn't drop too much below 1.010. I'd be OK if this one finished with a little bit of residual sweetness.

I'll report back with initial tasting notes and relevant updates.

 

[Tyler B]

Gravity seems to have stopped dropping at 1.012 on my sugar cane sour so I pulled a tasting sample. My initial impression is that it's quite tasty.

I used lots of wheat malt and some Vienna malt in this one (just to use up what I had on hand) and I think it worked. It's giving some flavors reminiscent of a few Belgian beers I've had. Certainly more complex and interesting than I expected it to be at 1 week. More updates and pictures to follow.

 

[2_gal_brewer]

I did not see this thread so I posted on another old one. I made a Mango sour. I pitched the whole 11g packet into 2 gal and based on litmus paper color, I got the same effect as adding 0.5oz lactic acid - which I did in a comparison brew. Researching more, I discovered Titratable Acidity - this nice writeup
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/philly-sour.685948/#post-9161735
Researching more, I discovered Titratable Acidity - this nice writeup
https://www.thebeveragepeople.com/h...nge should we aim for?, 3.71/5 7 more rows

 

[Frieds]

Put down my first brew on Friday using this yeast. The only knowledge I have of it is what I’ve picked up reading this thread.

I pitched 1 packet into 1.080 wort and left it for two days. Activity had only just started and the pH was down to 3.6. I had a taste and the sourness so far was really nice.

I then pitched my starter of LA3. 4 days in now and it’s bubbling away very well. The pH is still 3.6 so it’s seems that the Philly Sour has done its job and now the LA3 is doing the rest of the work.

I’m gonna add a boatload of raspberry to it post fermentation. I want to brew something along the lines of Mega Tastee by the Veil.

Pretty happy with the result of this beer. Nice moderate sourness that plays well with the tartness of the raspberry. Definitely going to use this yeast again.

 

[Tyler B]

Pretty happy with the result of this beer. Nice moderate sourness that plays well with the tartness of the raspberry. Definitely going to use this yeast again.

View attachment 743593

Looks delicious! I've fruited a couple of beers with this and it always turns out nice, especially with raspberry.

 

[Tyler B]

The sugar cane juice sour has cleared up nicely (now that it is almost gone). I used a lot of wheat and some Vienna malt in this one hoping to give it some interesting character to compliment the sugar cane juice. I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Very sour, but pleasantly so. Nice body and head retention. Crystal clear golden-yellow color with a nice white head. I get both apple and stone fruit notes with this one. Not as funky as others I've made.

Can't wait to use this yeast to make a fruited sour. Already ordered the fruit purees!

 

[marc1]

The sugar cane juice sour has cleared up nicely (now that it is almost gone). I used a lot of wheat and some Vienna malt in this one hoping to give it some interesting character to compliment the sugar cane juice. I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Very sour, but pleasantly so. Nice body and head retention. Crystal clear golden-yellow color with a nice white head. I get both apple and stone fruit notes with this one. Not as funky as others I've made.

Can't wait to use this yeast to make a fruited sour. Already ordered the fruit purees!

How many yeast packs did you use?

 

[Tyler B]

I used 27g of yeast for this one, so basically 2.5 packets. I've always had success pitching two packets/5 gallons of standard gravity wort. This one was a little higher gravity so I pitched a bit more. I'd probably do it the same again next time.

 

[Gusso]

Concord Grape Sour. I made this per my wife's request. Came out awesome. Nice level of sour and the grape comes through nice without being overpowering. Easiest fruit beer I ever made using frozen Grape juice concentrate.

 

[AlexKay]

Has anyone else noticed Philly Soured beers getting much better if you leave them cold in the keg for a few months? I’m not sure sourness level is changing, but I’ve had a couple now that were “meh” a week in that became “wow!” a few months later.

 

[crusader1612]

Did a small test on this yeast again recently.

Brewed up a standard Raspberr Gose Recipe.
the mash temp was high (69Deg C) in order to keep hold of some dextrins etc. - finished at 1.012 so a nice base.

I then added 1/2tsp of Lactic Acid to the beers, to taste later to see wehre the sourness would end up. the difference between the previous batch and this batch is interesting. more body and slight sweetness, but a perceived increase in sourness, presumably due to the lactic acid addition (lactic acid added from transfer to fermenter from BK, which is standard on kettle souring for me).

Definitely happy with the result.

 

[monkeymath]

I have a 1.044-OG Berliner-ish beer fermenting with PhillySour right now - 2 sachets for about 5.5 gallons. The plan is to add 3l of "juice" made from 1.5kg of rhubarb (plus water, obviously) to that.

Since rhubarb contains barely any sugars, my idea is to add the rhubarb towards the end of fermentation in order to not have the introduced acid interfere with the yeast's performance (and possibly preserve more "fresh fruit" flavours).

Now, I'd like to squeeze in the next brewday in a week and I have only the one fermentor.... (I just ordered another one online, but I'm not 100% sure it'll be here in time)
From what I've gathered, PhillySour can take a bit to finish fermentation, so I'm contemplating adding a sachet of some dried neutral ale yeast to finish fermentation after a couple of days, when acid production should be completed. I'm a bit worried the newly introduced yeast might not like a nutrient-depleted wort with low pH and considerable ethanol.
Any advice on how to pull it off? Any experiences? Am I overthinking this? Or is it generally a bad idea (and I should feel bad)?

 

[Niatras]

Monkey, I have a Berliner sitting on fruit right now. This is the first time I’ve used Philly Sour. Been sitting on fruit for 2 weeks now.

I don’t have my numbers in front of me, I’m out of town. What I can say is, the fermentation seemed to start slow. That was expected though. I’ve read that the souring does it’s thing first and then fermentation starts. This is what I experienced. After 10 days bubbling subsided. I believe I hit final gravity(notes not in front of me).

I racked onto to fruit and fermentation restarted within a few hours. I’ll get off fruit when I return home. The sample I took when I racked onto fruit did not taste very sour. Granted I had a head cold. My wife noticed the sour so I’ll have to trust her.

I fermented at 77 for primary and the first week on fruit then moved to basement floor. Needs chamber for next beer.

To your question. Do you need to pitch dry yeast to finish off. I don’t think so. I believe your rhubarb addition will finish out. You didn’t mention that you were in a hurry on this beer so I don’t think time is your concern. Ride it out and see what happens. You chose this Philly Sour for a reason, why not see what it does. Adding other variables won’t help in determining its use again in the future.

 

[DuncB]

I pitched some kveik opshaug into my philly sour when the pH had dropped on about day 4, I was already fermenting at about 28 celsius so didn't bump the temperature for the kveik. Don't think I added any more nutrients but had started ferment with a double dose bearing in mind I was adding kveik later. It coped fine with the acidity and dropped the pH further as well.

 

[monkeymath]

To your question. Do you need to pitch dry yeast to finish off. I don’t think so. I believe your rhubarb addition will finish out. You didn’t mention that you were in a hurry on this beer so I don’t think time is your concern. Ride it out and see what happens. You chose this Philly Sour for a reason, why not see what it does. Adding other variables won’t help in determining its use again in the future.

Thanks for chiming in! I'm sorry, the reason I am asking is somewhat implicitly buried in the middle of my post: I have only one fermentor, which I would like to free after about 10 days, hence the hurry.
Otherwise, I'd prefer to let it ride and see what happens.

 

[Drewch]

Thanks for chiming in! I'm sorry, the reason I am asking is somewhat implicitly buried in the middle of my post: I have only one fermentor, which I would like to free after about 10 days, hence the hurry.
Otherwise, I'd prefer to let it ride and see what happens.

I can get food-grade 5-gallon buckets at Lowe's where I am. Drill a hole in the lid for an airlock: Boom! Second fermenter ... you'd lose a little of the 5.5 gallons but at this point you prob don't need much headspace for krausen and you'd prob lose 0.5 - 0.75 gal to trub & lees anyway.

 

[beervoid]

Thanks for chiming in! I'm sorry, the reason I am asking is somewhat implicitly buried in the middle of my post: I have only one fermentor, which I would like to free after about 10 days, hence the hurry.
Otherwise, I'd prefer to let it ride and see what happens.

I've done over 10 batches with philly sour they all finished at day 10. Even higher gravity 1.070+

 

[monkeymath]

I have a 1.044-OG Berliner-ish beer fermenting with PhillySour right now - 2 sachets for about 5.5 gallons. The plan is to add 3l of "juice" made from 1.5kg of rhubarb (plus water, obviously) to that.

Since rhubarb contains barely any sugars, my idea is to add the rhubarb towards the end of fermentation in order to not have the introduced acid interfere with the yeast's performance (and possibly preserve more "fresh fruit" flavours).

Now, I'd like to squeeze in the next brewday in a week and I have only the one fermentor.... (I just ordered another one online, but I'm not 100% sure it'll be here in time)
From what I've gathered, PhillySour can take a bit to finish fermentation, so I'm contemplating adding a sachet of some dried neutral ale yeast to finish fermentation after a couple of days, when acid production should be completed. I'm a bit worried the newly introduced yeast might not like a nutrient-depleted wort with low pH and considerable ethanol.
Any advice on how to pull it off? Any experiences? Am I overthinking this? Or is it generally a bad idea (and I should feel bad)?

Since the Philly was quick to start, but airlock activity had been super slow, I got a bit nervous and took a gravity sample. It went from 1.044 on tuesday only to 1.032 today (sunday) - not quite as far as I had hoped. I've read reports of very sudden drops in gravity after about a week, but I did not want to rely on that. I therefore rehydrated and added a sachet of BRY-97 along with the rhubarb juice in hopes of driving the fermentation.

Of course, I also tasted the sample. It reminded me a lot of my attempts at making cider from unfiltered apple juice from the farmer's market. It was quite a bit more sour than that, more than I had previously imagined. It'll be interesting to see how it tastes without the residual sweetness - which I could not actually taste, by the way, I just infere its presence from the gravity reading.

Next time I'll try and allocate more time to allow PhillySour to finish the job on its own. But I think the production of acid and esters is basically complete.

 

[DuncB]

That's about the right time frame for the acid production phase.
pH meter is a useful monitor of progress with philly sour rather than gravity if you are going to co pitch.

 

[monkeymath]

I have a 1.044-OG Berliner-ish beer fermenting with PhillySour right now - 2 sachets for about 5.5 gallons. The plan is to add 3l of "juice" made from 1.5kg of rhubarb (plus water, obviously) to that.

Since rhubarb contains barely any sugars, my idea is to add the rhubarb towards the end of fermentation in order to not have the introduced acid interfere with the yeast's performance (and possibly preserve more "fresh fruit" flavours).

Now, I'd like to squeeze in the next brewday in a week and I have only the one fermentor.... (I just ordered another one online, but I'm not 100% sure it'll be here in time)
From what I've gathered, PhillySour can take a bit to finish fermentation, so I'm contemplating adding a sachet of some dried neutral ale yeast to finish fermentation after a couple of days, when acid production should be completed. I'm a bit worried the newly introduced yeast might not like a nutrient-depleted wort with low pH and considerable ethanol.
Any advice on how to pull it off? Any experiences? Am I overthinking this? Or is it generally a bad idea (and I should feel bad)?

Just to wrap this up - I hate it when I browse a forum, find someone that did exactly what I have in mind, but then they never post back how it went -, the beer came out rather nice. The acidity is spot on for my taste: very bright and clean lactic, assertively sour, but not puckering. The only downside, to me, is that the flavour is somewhat dominated by the yeast esters. (To me, it comes across as apple, whereas my wife says it's peach - so together we cover the usual descriptors of the yeast, I guess.)

My idea was to repeat this brew through various times of the year, employing the respective seasonal fruits. I'll probably still give it a shot - other fruit might do a better job standing up for themselves; rhubarb is not too flavourful apart from its acidity -, but I don't expect it to showcase the fruit the way I might've hoped.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

Reporting back in, I barely escaped the need for a blow-off tube! This morning the airlock was full of yeast, and just enough overflowed to wet the top of the fermenter lid and then it subsided. That was close!

I had the same experience after about 26 hours (only added 1 package). My airlock did overflow, even though I had a lot of airspace in the fermenter, so I had to add a few drops of Fermcap. After 4 days, the S.G. had dropped from 1.053 to 1.038. It then stayed at that S.G. for a full day. I was getting very worried - I wish others had mentioned that this "stall" is typical (or is it?).

Finally, it started to drop, first very slowly, and later a little faster. After 7 days, the S.G. is down to 1.023. It's also starting to slow down again. I hope it will continue down to at least 1.014 or so.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[Jayjay1976]

Pretty happy with the result of this beer. Nice moderate sourness that plays well with the tartness of the raspberry. Definitely going to use this yeast again.

View attachment 743593

That's easily the prettiest damn homebrew I have ever seen. Bravo.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

So, nobody has had a similar experience? Or can't be bothered to respond? Well, OK. For the benefit of future users of Philly Sour, let me put on the record how the Philly Sour fermented for me (so far):

Notice the significant lag period after the third day of fermenting (June 21). The S.G. stayed at 1.038 for the entire day. I think the yeast was possibly mutating from providing lactic acid, to working as a regular yeast and changing sugars to alcohol. After that lag period, the S.G. continued to drop fairly regularly to where it is today at 1.018.

 

[Drewch]

I generally check gravity at most daily — I haven't noticed a lag like that after SG starts dropping, but it would show up as only one repeated data point for me. So I may just not have noticed or not checked the SG that day.

 

[beervoid]

So, nobody has had a similar experience? Or can't be bothered to respond? Well, OK. For the benefit of future users of Philly Sour, let me put on the record how the Philly Sour fermented for me (so far):

View attachment 773072

Notice the significant lag period after the third day of fermenting (June 21). The S.G. stayed at 1.038 for the entire day. I think the yeast was possibly mutating from providing lactic acid, to working as a regular yeast and changing sugars to alcohol. After that lag period, the S.G. continued to drop fairly regularly to where it is today at 1.018.

Its well known it lags halfway through, its explained in the lallemand presentation.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

Its well known it lags halfway through, its explained in the lallemand presentation.

Do you know which presentation that was? I've watched two presentations ("Philly Sour - Yeast For Lactic Acid Production" and "5 Tips For Fermenting With Philly Sour"), both with Dr. Matthew Farber (a total of over 2 hours of presentation), and neither one mentioned the lag time. They did talk about the "transition" from producing lactic acid to ethanol, but they did not say that there was an actual lag time during the transition, when the CO2 production becomes minimal, and the S.G. stays constant.

 

[beervoid]

Do you know which presentation that was? I've watched two presentations ("Philly Sour - Yeast For Lactic Acid Production" and "5 Tips For Fermenting With Philly Sour"), both with Dr. Matthew Farber (a total of over 2 hours of presentaiton), and neither one mentioned the lag time. They did talk about the "transition" from producing lactic acid to ethanol, but they did not say that there was an actual lag time during the transition, when the CO2 production becomes minimal, and the S.G. stays constant.

I think it was the very first one where introduced philly sour but I dont clearly remember. They mentioned airlock activity will slow down or halt and not to worry.