Harvesting Lactobacillus

[tarmenel]

Wondering how you could grow and harvest lactobacillus at home. Is it the same as yeast? Just wondering as I'm going to try and do a sour as read here. Seems like a great way to also keep control of the whole process. I'm wondering though whether there could be any harvesting before the second boil to get a home strain going.

 

[Blue-Frog]

Untill someone replies... I found some info that might be useful...

but you have to listen to the last 15~20% of the 7th Sour Hour podcast:
http://s125483039.onlinehome.us/archive/sourhour2015_02.mp3

Good Luck & let me know if you find more, good, consice info.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Lacto is pretty difficult to maintain a pure culture. If you're not looking to do sour worting, or sour mashing, or any other form of souring where yeast based fermentation doesn't take place, then you can look at the propogation and store chapter of Yeast, on milk the funk, or on themadfermentationists page for methods of propogating, then pulling half of the soured wort, and topping off with fresh wort.

Alternatively, you can look into probiotic pills that contain multiple strains of lacto, and use those as a cheap relatively stable form of lacto. They're pretty popular with MTF members, L. Plantarum in particular is used often as it sours quickly at room temp.

The reason you can't harvest lacto like yeast is mostly because it doesn't flocculate.

 

[tarmenel]

Thanks for that insight into the fact that it doesn't flocculate. My thinking is along the lines of a sourdough starter. From what I understand a sourdough starter is sour because of the lacto. So I'm wondering whether you can just keep a strain going somehow by feeding.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Yup, if you go to the sources I listed, you'll see that's the traditional method of propagation and storage.

Step 1: Propogate up lacto. Remember that lacto achieves 2-3x as many cells per mL as yeast does. So where a yeast starter would produce 200~, a lacto starter would make ~500 in the same volume. Give it a few days to reach maximum density, more info at the milk the funk wiki under the lactobacillus page.

Step 2: Wait till it's done

Step 3: Take a fraction of the wort and pitch into the beer.

Step 4: Top off with fresh starter wort and re-propogate.

Repeat as desired.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Funny, the MTF Lacto and Brett pages have just been like permanently open tabs in my browser for a while now.

That's definitely the procedure if you just want to keep something going, but honestly the probiotic pills are just so cheap I decided it wasn't worth the effort.

 

[tarmenel]

I didn't see any sources? From what I understand though is that I create a lacto starter as per a yeast starter and then just pour off a quarter into the fermentor and feed it again. Sort of how I would feed my sourdough starter just using DME this time.
I can probably store the remaining lacto in the fridge till a few days before the next brew and then create a starter again?

 

[drgonzo2k2]

If you're really set on making a Lacto starter then you should check out the MTF wiki on Lacto, but specifically this section on starters. You'll see it's a bit different than a Sacc starter.

The probiotic pills are so cheap though, that I don't know that it's worth your time if you go that route.