Looking to Sour mash, any good tricks?

[BrewinBigD]

im looking to make a berliner wiesse like beer by performing a sour mash. i will be leaving my mash open in the tun overnight. should i need to add lactobacillus to it or will it just pick it up from the air?

 

[Tinga]

lacto is naturally occurring in the grain husks. also you don't want lacto to do any aerobic processes so close the lid. you may even want to put some saran wrap ontop of the mash. the lacto will do better if it is kept over 100 for 1-3 days depending on hour sour you want it. mash as normal and then bring down the temperature to under 120. and try to keep it there for the entire mash period.

 

[bruin_ale]

Tinga has some good advice.
I usually hear people tossing a handful of grain into the mash before putting it away to sour. The lacto in the grain gets killed by mash temps.
Can't remember whose tip this was, but he dumps a 2 liter bottle of club soda onto the mash to drive off oxygen, then covers with saran wrap. If you don't get the oxygen out, you can get vomit/garbage aromas in there when you really just want clean lactic sourness.

 

[Tinga]

Tinga has some good advice.
I usually hear people tossing a handful of grain into the mash before putting it away to sour. The lacto in the grain gets killed by mash temps.
Can't remember whose tip this was, but he dumps a 2 liter bottle of club soda onto the mash to drive off oxygen, then covers with saran wrap. If you don't get the oxygen out, you can get vomit/garbage aromas in there when you really just want clean lactic sourness.

yup, can't believe I forgot the add a handful of grain.

 

[BrewinBigD]

lacto is naturally occurring in the grain husks. also you don't want lacto to do any aerobic processes so close the lid. you may even want to put some saran wrap ontop of the mash. the lacto will do better if it is kept over 100 for 1-3 days depending on hour sour you want it. mash as normal and then bring down the temperature to under 120. and try to keep it there for the entire mash period.

Nice! So what i was thinking about doing is mashing nd sparging as usual and filling my BK and souring in that" which i can also use to keep my temps up. I was gonna sour on the MLT side but i dont wanna get all my plumbing and recirc and HERMS stuff all lacto'd up.

So, preboil wort will get a handful of fresh 2 row after i cool from sparge temps to about 100 using dry ice(cant get much more anaerobic than that) then sit for 24-36 hours, then boil as usual to lock in sour profile and kill the bugs.

 

[kingwood-kid]

Anything that comes in contact with the grain pre-boil is already lacto'd up, and gets freshly lacto'd up everytime you brew. You're better off souring in your MLT if it's insulated; lacto is happiest at 98.6F. If you want the extreme sourness of a Berliner Weisse, you'll need to let it go longer than 36 hours. Probably about 3 days.

Since you've already boiled once, you don't have to boil after souring, as lacto will die if you heat the beer up past 160F. But boiling won't hurt anything. And since your beer will be extremely acidic, you may want to overpitch your yeast.

 

[BrewinBigD]

Anything that comes in contact with the grain pre-boil is already lacto'd up, and gets freshly lacto'd up everytime you brew. You're better off souring in your MLT if it's insulated; lacto is happiest at 98.6F. If you want the extreme sourness of a Berliner Weisse, you'll need to let it go longer than 36 hours. Probably about 3 days.

Since you've already boiled once, you don't have to boil after souring, as lacto will die if you heat the beer up past 160F. But boiling won't hurt anything. And since your beer will be extremely acidic, you may want to overpitch your yeast.

no, i willonly be boiling once, i will be souring preboil, but using my boil kettle as thecontainement vessel and temp control, since its electric.