Lactobacillus Brevis
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I don't know if Lactobacillus Buchneri would do the trick but more beer sells it. They say it is used in Berliner Weisse and always used in conjunction with S.cerevisiae and often with various wild yeast.
Glossolalia
Well-Known Member
ATCC #367, but I've only ordered using the address of an academic lab. L. fructivorans might be interesting, too.
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mcnewcp
Well-Known Member
I was hoping for a smaller scale and lower price range than that.
The main reason I didn't want to go with delbrueckii is because I had heard it is slower acting than brevis and because it is homofermentative and therefore won't produce alcohol. Does anyone have experience with delbrueckii? Also, does anyone know which strain/strains are in WLP677?
Bokonon
Well-Known Member
Has anyone tried using one of the thermophilic bacteria packets for making cheese? The one I have says:
Includes lactose, (ST) streptococcus thermophilus, (LB) lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, (LH) lactobacillus helveticus.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/139-Thermophilic-DS-5-packets.html
Includes lactose, (ST) streptococcus thermophilus, (LB) lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, (LH) lactobacillus helveticus.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/139-Thermophilic-DS-5-packets.html
There's a patent on "yoghurt beer" from 1910 on making beer with subsp . Bulgaricus (Kaiserliches Patentamt Patentschrift No. 245607), so it probably works just fine.
I've been trying to get hold of some L. brevis too, since Prof. Methner has identified this as the most important Lactobacillus in Berliner Weiße. Unfortunately, they are not so easy to come by.
Fortunately, the taste difference between different strains of Lactobacillus is said to be not too big. I'm having quite good success using L. delbrueckii (if you give them a starter and some time to start souring before adding the yeast, they sure are slow).
One funny thing: there is a specific gene sequence in L. brevis that is responsible for hop resistance. It is not present in all strains of L. brevis, though. Would be worth the effort to find a hop-resistant L. brevis, and make a hopped Berliner Weiße...
Edit: WLP677 contains the wrong yeast! "Traditional German Weizen yeast" is actually a specific strain that produces a couple of aromas (clover, banana) typical for southern German Weizen. Berliner Weiße is made using regular top-fermenting yeast, which was also used for making bitters and brown beers. I have some good experience with Wyeast 1007, although I figure there is some comparable WLP yeast. Don't forget the Brett, too. Most styleguides won't tell you, but chemical analysis of historical Berliner Weiße shows that Brett is important.
Oh, and don't boil your Berliner Weiße for more than 5 minutes, or not at all, if you dare. That's something Wyeast got completely wrong on their recipe page.
I've been trying to get hold of some L. brevis too, since Prof. Methner has identified this as the most important Lactobacillus in Berliner Weiße. Unfortunately, they are not so easy to come by.
Fortunately, the taste difference between different strains of Lactobacillus is said to be not too big. I'm having quite good success using L. delbrueckii (if you give them a starter and some time to start souring before adding the yeast, they sure are slow).
One funny thing: there is a specific gene sequence in L. brevis that is responsible for hop resistance. It is not present in all strains of L. brevis, though. Would be worth the effort to find a hop-resistant L. brevis, and make a hopped Berliner Weiße...
Edit: WLP677 contains the wrong yeast! "Traditional German Weizen yeast" is actually a specific strain that produces a couple of aromas (clover, banana) typical for southern German Weizen. Berliner Weiße is made using regular top-fermenting yeast, which was also used for making bitters and brown beers. I have some good experience with Wyeast 1007, although I figure there is some comparable WLP yeast. Don't forget the Brett, too. Most styleguides won't tell you, but chemical analysis of historical Berliner Weiße shows that Brett is important.
Oh, and don't boil your Berliner Weiße for more than 5 minutes, or not at all, if you dare. That's something Wyeast got completely wrong on their recipe page.
Bokonon
Well-Known Member
Supposedly cascade brewing in Oregon only uses a strain of lacto to sour their beers. Next time I get my hands on a bottle I'll have to see if I can culture some. I've got some HLP Medium to try.
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mcnewcp
Well-Known Member
I think you mean the berliner weisse blend WLP630. I noticed that too and I was planning on using a lacto starter with a neutral european strain pitched a day or two later, like WLP011. The WLP677 is just lacto, however there is no mention to the specific strain.
I was planning on doing a 10 or 15 minute boil, much like in Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles. I will be careful to keep the IBUs below 5, though.
Oops, you're right!
I recall reading that this is L. delbrueckii too, but I've lost the reference.
I recommend checking the pH while waiting for the wort to sour. Pitch yeast if it drops below 4. One or two days is a good estimate, but I had cases where it took three, and then your Weiße wouldn't be sour enough.
Do you plan to add Brett for secondary? i wholeheartedly recommend it. I had a bottle of Groterjan Berliner Weiße back from the 70s recently, and the Brett is a huge part of the taste profile.
The longer you boil, the slower the lactos become. Traditionally, a turbid mashing scheme is used (pretty much a decoction, but boiling the liquid portion of the mash only), and the hops are boiled with the decocted part of the thin mash. The whole wort isn't boiled at all.
I do a single-step infusion mash, boil for five minutes, and completely skip the hops. Works just fine.
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mcnewcp
Well-Known Member
I wasn't originally planning on it, but you're not the first to recommend it, so now I'm definitely considering. My previous experience with brett suggested that brett character can develop rather quickly, much quicker than lacto, so what would you say to adding brett at bottling?
I think I'll adopt your 5 minute boil idea, though the lack of any hops concerns me.
That depends on how much Brett character you want. It's not too much to pitch it right with the main yeast, but if you want to be a bit more subtle, go for pitching at bottling time. Original Berliner Weiße used to vary in Brett aroma strength, but when the first tests using single-cell yeast cultures were done, the absence of Brett was invariably detected by the tasters.
Prof. Methner did an analysis of the pitching yeast used by Schultheiß in the 80s, and found it to contain lactos, regular yeast *and* Brett, all living in happy symbiosis.
10 would still be ok, I think, but 15 is bordering on too much. You could add the hops by boiling them separately with a bit of water, if you worry about hop utilization.
Glossolalia
Well-Known Member
If ATCC is too expensive, you might try to write to the Faculté d'OEnologie de Bordeaux. I've never dealt with them, but I know that they have scores of Lactobacillus strains banked. As you live in Nashville, you might also consider writing to someone in the microbiology department of Vanderbilt.
L. brevis is one of the species in sauerkraut. You could always make some sauerkraut (good timing as cabbage is in season) and recover some supernatant and scale up cultures from there. Of course, you'd also have a host of other Lactobacillus species, and you'd likely have to to do it before the kraut fully acidifies.
L. brevis is one of the species in sauerkraut. You could always make some sauerkraut (good timing as cabbage is in season) and recover some supernatant and scale up cultures from there. Of course, you'd also have a host of other Lactobacillus species, and you'd likely have to to do it before the kraut fully acidifies.
ryane
Well-Known Member
ah, I think this all depends on where you get your sauerkraut, Ive fermented a beer using sauerkraut lees an it worked very well
Well, I got it at Berlin, Alexanderplatz. And it produced too much acetic acid to be drinkable.
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mcnewcp
Well-Known Member
As a current engineering grad student at Vandy, I've already been working on this one, haha.
What else could I expect to find in waterkefir?
Bokonon
Well-Known Member
You might want to try contacting Al from East Coast Yeast. I believe he has multiple strains of lactobacillus that he includes in his blends
Glossolalia
Well-Known Member
Yeah, there appears to be some controversy. The reference I gave (and a few other secondary references) says it's one of the dominant species, but this more recent and probably more technically proficient study (also see here), claims L. mesenteroides is initially the dominant species with a change over to L. plantarum as fermentation proceeds. I've used sauerkraut innoculant to sour a beer a couple of times, and I actually got a pretty clean souring. My only issue was it eventually became too sour for my taste, and I ended up using the beer for blending.
Well, there seemed to be a lot of different strains involved like Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, Kloeckera, Candida, Pediococcus...Go to Wikipedia. But one of them is L. brevis which is needed for the formation of the grain layers. I'll think about a strategy how to isolate the L. brevis out of the grains.
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mcnewcp
Well-Known Member
Let me know what you come up with.
For now, I think I'll go with L. delbrueckii initially, followed by WLP011 and brett C after the wort drops below pH 4. If anyone finds a cheaper source for L. brevis let me know please.
Bokonon
Well-Known Member
I asked Al at ECY if he had other strains of Lacto and he said no, but pointed out that Wyeast's Lacto is subsp. buchneri. Somehow I've always overlooked that fact or they didn't publicize it till recently.
I can only get White Labs at my LHBS, so I'll have to special order Wyeast 5335 to try it out. Has anyone made a Berliner and tried the Wyeast and White Labs lacto in different fermenters?
If anyone has a fresh bottle of any Cascade beer, Al said he would try to isolate a culture from it. Next time I get one I'll send some over to him, but I can only get it when I drive over to Portland
I can only get White Labs at my LHBS, so I'll have to special order Wyeast 5335 to try it out. Has anyone made a Berliner and tried the Wyeast and White Labs lacto in different fermenters?
If anyone has a fresh bottle of any Cascade beer, Al said he would try to isolate a culture from it. Next time I get one I'll send some over to him, but I can only get it when I drive over to Portland
Bokonon
Well-Known Member
If anyone comes up with an interesting strain of lacto I'd love to try it.
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mcnewcp
Well-Known Member
I just picked up a pack of the 5335 today for use in this berliner weisse. If I remember correctly, the buchneri is heterofermentative, meaning it actually produces alcohol, unlike the delbrueckii. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Seconded.
Bokonon
Well-Known Member
You are correct
I did this recently using White Labs lacto in 5 gals and a separate 5 gals using a wild lacto culture made from a cup of raw grain in 2 cups of 100F water for a week.
Interestingly, they both looked very different during fermentation, the wild got tart much faster. But now that they are bottled and conditioned, they taste identical...no difference at all. BTW both are very tart.
Here is a photo after 18 hours... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/pellicle-photo-collection-174033/index31.html
