Ph in Gose too low?

[Morrey]

Floundered around kettle souring wort with L Plantarum caps and a cup of yogurt. Normally use OYL-605, so this method was out of my comfort zone where 3.25 is my norm. Took 5 days but suddenly ph dropped to 3.17. I like it sour so no biggie.

BUT, US-05 is acting strangely. Rehydrated and pitched...saw some minor BO activity yesterday (24 hours) but this morning nothing. Tilt shows no drop in SG since yeast pitch. Yeast seems largely inactive after a few feeble attempts to launch.

I plan to repitch another sachet and see if this one will take off. Has anyone else seen a similar situation...could the ph be too low?

 

[mabrungard]

I've fermented with US-05 at 3.1. It was sluggish, but it finished the beer.

 

[Morrey]

I've fermented with US-05 at 3.1. It was sluggish, but it finished the beer.

Martin, thanks for the reply as I was unsure about the results I am currently seeing. Your post gives me hope that all will turn out ok.

Just got done reading an online BYO article by Michael Tonsmeire saying that low ph stresses yeast and can cause time lags and attenuation issues. Michael suggests overpitching, so I am considering adding in a splash of yeast nutrient and another sachet of US-05 to see if that picks up the pace. I'll see if anything is happening this evening when I get home from work and post back.

 

[Morrey]

Ended up pitching a second sachet of US-05 on day 2 (52 hours) showing minimal activity. Now at 60 hours showing strong and steady BO activity and SG has dropped 6 points since the second pitch.

Question: would a single sachet have finally gotten to this point, or is it a better choice to pitch two sachets from the beginning to promote better fermentation?

 

[Rob2010SS]

I think in this particular situation, pitching the two sachets right up front may have been your better choice, but you should be fine.

Is this the beer you were talking about in other posts where the pH was stubborn and wouldn't drop? It finally dropped to 3.17? That's nice and sour!

 

[couchsending]

Anyone ever measured PH on a kettle
or quick sour after fermentation by Sacch finished? It will often go up but I’ve only done a couple and never measured.

Also an interesting note. Got a buddy who’s head brewer at a large craft brewery that has won some big hardware for their kettle sour style beers.. when they first started producing them they were having trouble with attention and they had the beers tested and it turned out their lacto culture was actually reforming long chain sugars. They started using an enzyme after the quick souring period to break those down again. Not sure which enzyme exactly, can’t remember

 

[Morrey]

I think in this particular situation, pitching the two sachets right up front may have been your better choice, but you should be fine.

Is this the beer you were talking about in other posts where the pH was stubborn and wouldn't drop? It finally dropped to 3.17? That's nice and sour!

Yes! Seems this beer has been challenging from the onset...but I am blaming myself for the issues.

I went direct pitch with outdated L Plantarum caps, then in desperation I threw in a cup of FF Greek yogurt. Lo and behold, it dropped like a rock on day 4 and went to 3.17. The wort tastes fine with no off flavors....Love it sour!

I think this real low ph may have stalled out the US-05 more than previous batches that averaged 2.25 ph when I pitched a single sachet. So lessons learned....Use fresh L Plantarum caps kept refrigerated, make a lacto starter and finally....use 2 sachets of US-05 provided I stick with this strain.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Holy crap 2.25 pH?! I thought my 3.2 was sour lol. What would you compare a 2.25 to commercially?

 

[Morrey]

Holy crap 2.25 pH?! I thought my 3.2 was sour lol. What would you compare a 2.25 to commercially?

Sorry....3.25, my bad.

 

[RPh_Guy]

You don't mention at what temp you're fermenting ..?

I find that US-05 ferments clean at higher temps in sour wort. So I *usually* overpitch and let the temp go high -- at least 66°F... up to 70°F.

I've fermented wort at 3.08 without issue.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Sorry....3.25, my bad.

Ah, ok. That makes more sense.

 

[redllama]

You definitely want to overpitch slightly when working in low pH environments. Another thing you could do is sour some starter wort so that the yeast can get acclimated to the lower pH environment. There was an episode of the Sour Hour (ep. 32/33) where they are talking about acid shock when bottle conditioning but I would think that the same rules apply with kettle sours since the pH is already lower.

 

[Morrey]

You don't mention at what temp you're fermenting ..?

I find that US-05 ferments clean at higher temps in sour wort. So I *usually* overpitch and let the temp go high -- at least 66°F... up to 70°F.

I've fermented wort at 3.08 without issue.

I know you didn't ask.....

When I cool wort from the boil, my source water temps in the summer here in SC will barely get wort to 90F with a Jaded Hydra IC. So I transfer 90F wort into my uni tank and let the glycol chiller take it from there.

For the Gose, I used US-05 rehydrated, and at the time to pitch, yeast was at 80F. So I set my chiller to 80F, and when it got there I oxygenated and pitched at 80F so wort and yeast temps would be the same. Let it all settle down, then stepped it to 75F and let it acclimate an hour there before bringing on down to 65F which is my controller setting for the 05. So from the time I pitched at 80F until it settled off at 65F was right at 2 hours stepping down slowly.

My initial pitch was on Sunday afternoon, added 2nd sachet on Tuesday evening, and now on Thursday morn the BO tube is on fire blowing star san bubbles out of the container. My OG of 1.046 is now 1.023, and with that kind of wild BO activity still going strong, this yeast shows no signs of slowing down...which is fine with me. If I get to 1.008 all the better as I don't want much residual sugars in this tart beer.

I have used OYL-605 for a couple of years with 100% success, so this was my first adventure with alternate processes. Live and learn and got a good education from this non-traditional process. Looks like the beer is going to be ok after all.