Lactic acid starter funky smell

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millhouse9

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Hi everyone,

I am planning on brewing Alferman's Imperial Berliner Weiss tomorrow. I started the home lactic acid starters on Saturday by mixing a cup of grains with a cup of 130 degree water and covered the mason jars with foil.

I used three different grains just to experiment - 2-row, Vienna, and Munich. Now each of these are sitting on candle warmers which I measured the heat that the warmers will keep water at before using them...which is about 110 degrees.

I just checked them last night and the 2-row and Vienna smell like I think they should...kind of a dairy sour milk smell. The Munich however smells like Nail Polish. Any ideas what went wrong or what that could be? I'm assuming I shouldn't pitch this one.

Any advice/help would be appreciated!


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millhouse9 said:
Hi everyone,

I am planning on brewing Alferman's Imperial Berliner Weiss tomorrow. I started the home lactic acid starters on Saturday by mixing a cup of grains with a cup of 130 degree water and covered the mason jars with foil.

I used three different grains just to experiment - 2-row, Vienna, and Munich. Now each of these are sitting on candle warmers which I measured the heat that the warmers will keep water at before using them...which is about 110 degrees.

I just checked them last night and the 2-row and Vienna smell like I think they should...kind of a dairy sour milk smell. The Munich however smells like Nail Polish. Any ideas what went wrong or what that could be? I'm assuming I shouldn't pitch this one.

Any advice/help would be appreciated!


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nail polish says wild yeast and not the good kind. I would probably pitch that one. I think generally speaking for lacto starter you don't really care what the grain type is. it's about the bacteria on the outside. the grain is just a carrier.

That being said I have wondered about the different populations you would find on say a high kilned malt (like munich) vs a pils or pale. sounds like you might have found out!
 
Do you mean that you would not pitch the nail polish one? Thanks for the reply!


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millhouse9 said:
Do you mean that you would not pitch the nail polish one? Thanks for the reply!


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yeah, wow that was super misleading sorry about that. I would slang that thing from ye' like it was a dirty diaper and you don't have a kid. or you know, just dump it down the drain.
 
Ok so I got home and now the 2-Row or maybe the Vienna smells like nail polish remover! However, the Munich isn't as strong of a smell! This is really disappointing because I was hoping to make 10 or 11 gallons.

Any advice? Maybe I should wait a bit longer and see if it goes away?


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millhouse9 said:
Ok so I got home and now the 2-Row or maybe the Vienna smells like nail polish remover! However, the Munich isn't as strong of a smell! This is really disappointing because I was hoping to make 10 or 11 gallons.

Any advice? Maybe I should wait a bit longer and see if it goes away?


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doesn't hurt to wait. this is the nature of culturing your own bacteria.
 
I agree. I'll wait til the weekend and see what it smells like then. After doing a bit of research I may start using those acidophilus pills...sounds a lot easier! Thanks for helping me out morticaixavier!
 
I think 130 may be a bit too high. My experience with harvesting wild stuff from grains went pretty well this last time. I "pitched" them at 100F and held it there for 3 days. At day 3 it smelled....funky. It was a weird bread-y, malty, musty smell and I was kind of disappointed. When I tried it it tasted like a sour should (acidy, milky, soury, lemony). I put it on the counter for another 3 days at room temp and it got EVEN FUNKIER. The tartness hit you in the back corners of your mouth and made you pucker. So don't trust the smell, only. Give it a taste and see how it is.

I worry though, that at 130 you may be killing/preventing the organisms you want from being able to do anything. Remember, lactobacillus lives in the gut, a nice 98.6 degrees. I'm VERY new to sours and souring so maybe someone with more knowledge can respond or has responded above.
 
Im interested to see how this turns out, so the idea is to pitch a small starter as a secondary?

How long would it take to sour the batch?
 
I ended up making this the other night. I pitched the 2-row and the Vienna...the Munich developed some nasty looking blue/grayish stuff on the top and didn't smell as good as the vienna and munich. I'll keep ya'll posted!
 
130F is way too high, you need to shoot for ~100F, like JoppaFarms mentioned. The nail polish smell can come from a few sources: Brettanomyces fermentations can produce ethyl acetate, and high temperature fermentations produce fusel alcohols and phenolic alcohols, all of which contribute to the nail polish remover smell.

Also, at that temperature, you are really stressing the cells out and likely killing most of them. You can always pitch and see what happens, but I would suggest you start again.

Edit: oops, I see I was late with this post. The growth on the surface could be a pellicle forming, which is fine. Can you post a picture?
 
Thank you for your reply. I didn't take a picture of the craziness that was on top of the Munich starter.

I've read through the whole thread of the recipe I linked and no one mentioned that 130 is too high. Keep in mind I tossed in the grains at 130 and then had them on a candle warmer that kept them at about 100 degrees. I'm not saying you're wrong and I do appreciate the feedback; I just find it strange that no one said anything about too high of temp in the other thread. Also, by the time I pitched which was about a week after making the starters, the nail polish remover smell was gone. Thanks!


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Millhouse,

I have been doing sour starters for about 10 years now and I agree with colohox. 130 is WAY TOO HIGH! Keep in mind that a lot of these organisms are only single celled so even 5 degrees is a really big difference to the little fellas.
 
You get massive die off of LAB at the 125 mark. 120 should have been max. Hopefully it cooled down very quickly. I've never had any nail polish in my LAB starters, hard to tell what's going on. All you can do is wait and let us know what happens! Looking forward to results
 

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