shanecb
Well-Known Member
I've been fine-tuning a berliner weiss recipe that I plan to do in a couple of weeks, and I realized there were some things about lactobacillus delbrueckii that I don't know. I have a vial of the White Labs strain if it's relevant.
1) What exactly is it that the lactobacillus delbrueckii is eating in the wort? I know one subspecies eats only lactose, but I can't imagine that being the case when it is used in beer. What sort of sugars is it eating specifically? To my knowledge, lactobacillus delbrueckii does not produce alcohol of any type. If it is eating some of the same sugars that the saccharomyces (in my case, a Kolsch yeast) would be fermenting, then wouldn't an ABV estimate by, say, BeerSmith, actually be too high since not all of those sugars would be available for conversion to alcohol now? I'd like to take that into account if possible, so I know what my actual achieved ABV would be.
2) Does lactobacillus delbrueckii fall out of suspension like yeast would? Is it something particularly visible? I'm going to be making a lacto starter, and don't really want to pitch a liter of weak, bad beer into the batch if I don't have to. It would be nice if the lacto could be settled to the bottom like yeast, so just that is pitched into the fermenter.
1) What exactly is it that the lactobacillus delbrueckii is eating in the wort? I know one subspecies eats only lactose, but I can't imagine that being the case when it is used in beer. What sort of sugars is it eating specifically? To my knowledge, lactobacillus delbrueckii does not produce alcohol of any type. If it is eating some of the same sugars that the saccharomyces (in my case, a Kolsch yeast) would be fermenting, then wouldn't an ABV estimate by, say, BeerSmith, actually be too high since not all of those sugars would be available for conversion to alcohol now? I'd like to take that into account if possible, so I know what my actual achieved ABV would be.
2) Does lactobacillus delbrueckii fall out of suspension like yeast would? Is it something particularly visible? I'm going to be making a lacto starter, and don't really want to pitch a liter of weak, bad beer into the batch if I don't have to. It would be nice if the lacto could be settled to the bottom like yeast, so just that is pitched into the fermenter.