Inhibition of WLP655 Sour Mix 1 bugs by alcohol

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JoeLindley

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Do any of you applied microbiology types have any information on this? I made a barleywine about 5 weeks ago. The OG was 1.11. I pitched 2 packs of US-05 with it. The IBUs are about 23. I racked it into a glass carboy yesterday and added 12 oz of Sun Maid dried tart cherries, and added a vial of WLP655, which is said to contain "A unique blend perfect for Belgian style beers. Includes Brettanomyces, Saccharomyces, and the bacterial strains Lactobacillus and Pediococcus." I got the idea for the Sun Maid cherries from Brandon at EmbraceTheFunk, who added Zante currants to his, but Kroger didn't have the currants, so I went with the tart cherries. So I'm wondering if the alcohol is going to be too high for the bacteria or Brett to metabolize anything. I didn't check the SG when I racked it, but the ABV might be somewhere around 11%. As a reference, RR says Consecration "is aged for 4 to 8 months with black currants, brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus" and its ABV is 10%. Any predictions?
 
White labs doesn't give a lot of details about their strains, but wyeast says that their lacto and pedio have a max tolerance of 9% ABV. In practice, a lot of people will tell you that the lacto is even below that. You should be able to get some activity out of the brett though.
 
The brett will dry it out and provide some funk, but will give you minimal sourness. At 11%, you won't get much out of the pedio or lacto. At any ABV, if you add the US-05 first, it'll eat most of the bacterial food, thus greatly diminishing the sourness.
 
Couldn't he add some Maltodextrin to help feed the bugs?

it'd only feed the brett at this point, but in a beer this big I doubt it needs more dextrins. maybe the pedio too, but it'll be very slow.

as for consecration, I asked Vinnie about that. he said it took years for the bugs to get enough tolerance to get it to the sourness it is today. you'll get some funk in this from the brett and a nice tartness from the cherries.
 
I'm not even sure the Brett will do much. Brett is supposed to be tolerant to about 18% abv, but some on this forum say the Brett you get from Wyeast and WLP is only tolerant to about 10%. Would be interested to find out what your experience is.

If you get anything, it is going to take a long time. 11% abv is not a good environment for Brett. I'm assuming you just pitched the vial. That's not a lot of Brett, and it is going to take a long time for it to build up it's population to a level where you will get anything noticeable.

I don't think Lacto will do anything (too high abv and IBUs).

You might get lucky and get something from the Pedio, but don't expect it.
 
I'm not even sure the Brett will do much. Brett is supposed to be tolerant to about 18% abv, but some on this forum say the Brett you get from Wyeast and WLP is only tolerant to about 10%. Would be interested to find out what your experience is.

If you get anything, it is going to take a long time.

I'll see what happens over a year's time.
 
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