Question about Sour Consistency and Speed

[kinkothecarp]

I have read a lot about brewing a 5 gallon batch of beer, souring some or all of it overnight, then boiling it to kill the bacteria. However, some people have complained about this producing a pH drop that will inhibit yeasts from doing their job optimally. I'm wondering if anyone has fermented a beer down with a regular yeast strand and/or Brett and/or bacteria and then brewed a gallon or two, soured that batch overnight, boiled the second batch, and simply blended it with the previously fermented beer.

In essence, I guess it's like adding vinegar to the beer. However, the timeline seems to be in the reverse order of the method people are proposing around here. It seems like if you plan this sour in advance, you can blend instead of having to deal with the pH issues.

Any potential objections to this method?

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I've made some fairly tart beers by way of sour mash/sour wort and they all fermented as usual. There is a point where the ph will be too low for proper fermentation but I've never reached that point myself.

 

[ryane]

I've made some fairly tart beers by way of sour mash/sour wort and they all fermented as usual. There is a point where the ph will be too low for proper fermentation but I've never reached that point myself.

I agree with this

I would add that while Ive read plenty of people on here and other boards talking about simply tossing grain in and getting good results, Ive never had that work

Going this route I always get hot vomit smelling beer, probably as a result of enterobacter on the grain

Now what I do is make a "starter" using grain, let it ferment out, then drain the liquid off the top and add more wort, I do this 2-3x, the first one always is stinky, but the pH drops enough usually to kill all the bad bacteria, the second and third one (if I go that far) are great, really tart and usually slightly fruity

 

[Calder]

I agree with this

I would add that while Ive read plenty of people on here and other boards talking about simply tossing grain in and getting good results, Ive never had that work

Going this route I always get hot vomit smelling beer, probably as a result of enterobacter on the grain

Now what I do is make a "starter" using grain, let it ferment out, then drain the liquid off the top and add more wort, I do this 2-3x, the first one always is stinky, but the pH drops enough usually to kill all the bad bacteria, the second and third one (if I go that far) are great, really tart and usually slightly fruity

I've never tried the grain method; because of the 'bad' bacteria. Always put me off thinking there was a decent amount of enterobacter, clostridium, and who knows what else. I have only used Lactobacillus Acidophilus.

Now this starter method intrigues me. But how is it that it isolates the Lactobacillus rather than the other bacteria? By pouring off the wort and starting with fresh wort, the PH is back to close to neutral, and they all have a chance to compete again. All these bacteria are in solution rather than in the sediment (...... I think).

 

[ryane]

I've never tried the grain method; because of the 'bad' bacteria. Always put me off thinking there was a decent amount of enterobacter, clostridium, and who knows what else. I have only used Lactobacillus Acidophilus.

Now this starter method intrigues me. But how is it that it isolates the Lactobacillus rather than the other bacteria? By pouring off the wort and starting with fresh wort, the PH is back to close to neutral, and they all have a chance to compete again. All these bacteria are in solution rather than in the sediment (...... I think).

the lactic bacteria grow quickly, after the 1st addition of wort the pH drop is quite a bit, and it enough to kill off most of the nasties

By the second time you add wort, the lactic bacteria population is quite high in relation to everything else, save for yeast, and will out grow everything and drop the pH quite quickly

I forgot to add that by the later stages of the 2nd feeding I have to start adding chalk or baking soda to offset the acidity, so the bacteria dont kill themselves