First Kettle Sour - specific steps Questions

[CA_Mouse]

So did you use acidulated malt for the main source of lacto as well?

I used WLP 677 and about a pound and a half of 2 row for a 1bbl batch.

I used the acidulated to get the pH down and pitched WLP 677 and 2 types of Pro Biotics.

 

[Agate]

do you notice any difference between the probiotic pills and using either acid malt or cultured vial? i initially looked at some of those pills for souring but pretty much all the ones i saw had multiple strains of lacto and other bugs, wasnt sure it was the best idea to go mixing up my bugs. then again, i'd kind of guess that acid malt may have quite a few different bugs on it as well....

If you look for the Swanson lacto plantarum pills, they're pure lacto and only one strain. It's the same species doing the heavy lifting in Omega's blend. I cannot recommend it enough. 5 capsules in a 1-liter starter at 90F, let it free fall to room temp. I cut open the capsules at one end and dump them in the starter wort. Do this a couple days before brew day. Dump it in your full batch once it's below 90°F, and 12-24 hours later you'll be at a pH < 3.5. I've done 3 quick sours using them, and it's been awesome so far.

I've cultured lacto from grain, it works just fine if you use a starter under an airlock. Problem is, it's pretty much guaranteed to have some yeast, which will create ethanol. Kettle sour, and you'll just boil it off when you kill the lacto. The l. plantarum in those probiotic capsules or Omega's blend won't create enough ethanol to matter, so it's great for kettle sours.

 

[user 190343]

When I did my kettle sour Berliner, I used some acidulated malt in the grist to bring the PH down to 4.7(after sparging.) I had some lactic acid to bring it down farther if neeeded, but felt that 4.7 was low enough. Transferred to a dedicated sour bucket. I held back a handful of some pilsner and acidulated malt from the mash, put it in a paint strainer bag and added that to my 101° wort. Purged with CO2 and sealed it with plastic wrap. This was on a Friday night. I kept it in my fermentation chamber at 101°. By Sunday morning, PH was down to 3.4. I removed the grains and boiled up and had a normal rest of the brew day, pitching Wyeast 1007.

It came out nice and tart with a final PH of 3.7 in the kegged beer. Looking back, I would have liked it a bit more tart and will probably let the PH get lower before I boil up to kill the lacto and also use a starter of a commercial lacto pitch. Overall though, using this method for lacto was a success in my opinion and I'll do it again next year.

 

[emarsh]

I still haven't brewed this because I had to get pH strips, but now I have another newb question. I do partial boil, like 3 gallons. If this goes down to the mid 3s in pH, and then I add water, will that br8ng the pH back up?

 

[JonesCreek]

if the water has a higher ph than the wort it should meet somewhere in the middle. I am no expert on this but there might be some equation that might get you to the end result you are looking for but I don't know it.

 

[SanPancho]

I still haven't brewed this because I had to get pH strips, but now I have another newb question. I do partial boil, like 3 gallons. If this goes down to the mid 3s in pH, and then I add water, will that br8ng the pH back up?

it depends on your water profile. if your water is hard, with lots of minerals and whatnot you could get a big move in your ph. but without knowing your water profile its impossible to say. lets say you had a very "hard" water with lots of minerals, but its also acidic at ph of 6. it will definitely pull your wort up towards 6 since it holds alot of minerals that will react with your acids.

but--

here in SF we have very soft water, very low minerality. but its also high ph water, typically 9.3 on avg. (the water dept does that to keep the pipes from corroding.) so even though our pH is high, there's very few ions to react with a very strong acid. so even though my water is technically very high pH, it doesnt have enough minerals to make an impact on the acids in the wort.

my water would likely make less of an impact on your pH since it carries so few ions, even at pH 9+. whereas your water may be more "acidic" per its pH reading, but it carries way more ions and so it will cause much more of a change.

the idea is called "buffering capacity" - basically its a count of the amount of ions of either acid or base that are available to react/change pH.

 

[emarsh]

Interesting. I don't believe my water is too hard. I'll do some research on that. I'm just going to go ahead and brew and see what happens.

 

[Ambleside]

Good discussion, thanks for all the input.

I will be brewing mine in about 2 weeks. Going to blanket in CO2, use foil wrap secured with heat resistant tape on the kettle. And wrap in towels. Will just be firing up the burner in order to keep temp at roughly the right spot, swirling the kettle abit to prevent caramelization .

 

[Biobrewer]

If you want even more input on this, request to join the Milk the Funk group on Facebook. It's a whole lot of kettle sour talk all the time! Lots of good information if you're venturing into kettle sour territory. Jay Goodwin also interviewed someone on the Sour Hour (I forget the specific brewer), and he was a wealth of knowledge related to kettle souring on a commercial level.

 

[user 190343]

I always found PH strips to be a PITA, so I got a cheap PH meter off of Amazon. http://amzn.com/B00NL0BYEM It's not the best quality, but for the price it works great. PH strips and it seem to match, so this is what I've been using for the last year.

Do most of you guys use ATC electric boil kettle to keep the wort that warm for a few days? I currently use my fermentation chamber, but would love to figure out something else like a heat wrap.

 

[emarsh]

So, I brewed the Weizenbock kit I talked about, but I didn't add hops, so it's just wheat malt extract, basically. Got it down to 110, then pitched a vial of l. brevis. 72 hours later, no change in pH.

My guess:

-I didn't do anything to get the pH lower before pitching, so it was around 6.
-I underpitched by not making a starter.

I've kept the temp around 100 the entire time with towels and a heat pad.

What should I do? Keep waiting? Pitch more brevis? Give up and start over?

 

[Agate]

72 hours? Honestly, start over. Brevis is really touchy. You could try increasing temp, but I don't know that it'll help at this point.

Here's what you want to do - get some lacto plantarum probiotics, or some good belly probiotic juice. Make a 1 liter starter, give it a day or two, and pitch your starter when your wort is at 80-90°F. Within 24 hours, you should be at pH ~3.5 or less. No hops!

 

[Ambleside]

With L. Brevis (whitelabs 672) the Milk The Funk Wiki page says its temp range is 70-95 F... should I be aiming to hold that, or does the 112-120 F still hold true as most kettle souring techniques describe?

 

[SanPancho]

I've had decent success with pitching in the 90s and then ramping it up towards 110-115 once you see the ph drop a bit and activity start.

You should definitely do starter ahead of time if you bought vial or smack pack. Ive had a few duds, maybe bacteria don't like fridge temps or something. Dunno. But with a starter you'd know you're in trouble before you brew, so you can go to plan B.

I haven't had a chance to use them yet but I took agate's advice and got some probiotic pills with l brevis and l plantarum. Most folks report reliable results, and they're pretty damn cheap.

 

[Agate]

With L. Brevis (whitelabs 672) the Milk The Funk Wiki page says its temp range is 70-95 F... should I be aiming to hold that, or does the 112-120 F still hold true as most kettle souring techniques describe?

I would keep it in the range recommended for that specific bacteria. I'd try pitching at 95 and holding there if you can. The 112-120°F recommendation is for when you're using a wild culture from grain to kill clostridium bacteria among others, which can make butyric acid. They're all over your grain naturally.

 

[Ambleside]

I would keep it in the range recommended for that specific bacteria. I'd try pitching at 95 and holding there if you can. The 112-120°F recommendation is for when you're using a wild culture from grain to kill clostridium bacteria among others, which can make butyric acid. They're all over your grain naturally.

And I'm assuming the clostridium bacteria is already killed from the entire grain bill during the mash? Stupid question, just making sure.

 

[Agate]

Yep! Right until you toss a handful of grain into it if you go that route. There are other bacteria that could survive mash temperatures, but a mash-out in the 170's should be enough to pasteurize.

 

[Ambleside]

I've got my ph at 4.6 as of 24 hours (now covered again in foil so can't see) but it now is starting to smell exactly like a wine supply shop smells. Kinda acetaldehyde ish. Not sure what to think here... I can hear if fizzling so will be doing another ph check in a few hours but wanted to get a feeler out there for the smell

 

[Agate]

Sounds like your Brevis is infected with sacch. Unfortunately, that's not uncommon. Lacto really should not fizz. If you take a gravity reading, you'll probably find it attenuating.

I've had great luck with omega yeast's oyl-605. I highly recommend trying this instead of the offerings from the big yeast labs.

 

[Ambleside]

So that means it's basically fermenting. I take it the batch is no good now? Will take a gravity reading but still fizzing away.

 

[Ambleside]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1445003242.113667.jpgthats all there is appearance wise

 

[Ambleside]

Results are in... 1.005 gravity. Learning experience I suppose. How does that Saach infection even occur? Should have pre boiled?

Edit: after some reading, I read that brevis can sour and attenuate pretty well in the kettle. Now that it's already basically fermented, could I raise to a temp that would kill the lacto but not boil off the alcohol. What temp should that be?

<173 F will keep alcohol from boiling. Maybe just below that will kill the L brevis?

But then again, no full boil will have occurred. Just trying to decide if this is save-able or not

 

[Ambleside]

And with no boil, I've got all the DMS issues.
Dammit

 

[Agate]

Keep it under 170 and yon won't have any DMS. You need to be above this temperature to convert SMM to DMS. You can pasteurize it at that temp, hold it for a good 15 minutes and it'll be fine. Just make sure you hit your sourness first. This is how I do all my Berliners, actually. You'll be fine.

Brevis won't attenuate in the kettle - it's been shown that white labs vials have yeast in them. Nothing you could have done to avoid it.

If it doesn't hit your desired sourness, hit it with lactic acid or brew another one, aim for high sourness, and blend them together. It's all a learning experience.

 

[CA_Mouse]

I would get it to 165*F and hold it there 20 to 30 mins. Like Agate stated, if it hasn't soured to where you like it, use a small amount of lactic acid or brew another one for blending and use a fair amount of acidulated or acid malt in your mash.

 

[Agate]

That's what I did last time I used Lacto from grain. Of course, there was some wild yeast along for the ride from the grain that attenuated from 1.030 to 1.015 or so. I pasteurized at 165 for 20 minutes, added some cane sugar for good effect, and fermented it out with us-05. It came out awesome!