question on my kettle sour, fermenting with the lacto

[ramonallones]

Hey everyone, noob here to bacteria and trying my first kettle sour.

grain bill, 60 percent 2 row, 30 percent white wheat and 10 percent flaked oats. 6 gallon batch pot and cooler.

Mashed and batch sparge as normal in a cooler. I then cooled wort to 120 and pitched lacto delbruckeii into kettle and mixed. boiled for 10 mins. no starter on lacto.

I then transferred wort to two 3 gallon carboys (with airlocks) filled to neck so there would be little headspace. I put both carboys in a large home depot bin/container, and filled the container with water, and set a sous vide for the surrounding water to 110.

Question is one of the carboys has no krausen and airlock activity. the other one had a krausen and blowoff. since they essentially came from same kettle with lacto pitched in

1. is lacto supposed to have a krausen and ferment like that
2. prob an infection in the fermenting carboy?

I plan to transfer back to kettle after it hits 3.5 ph and then boil to kill lacto after this.

tks for any help.

 

[Br3w4u]

Did you boil after adding lacto? You aren’t supposed to boil the lacto until after the souring is done which could take 24 hours or up to 3 days. If you didn’t add yeast then you shouldn’t have a Krausen. Usually when I do kettle sours I can’t visually tell that anything is happening but the ph will drop significantly.

 

[crane]

I've never seen Krausen when kettle souring. Check the gravity to see of its dropped. Probably a yeast infection.

 

[ramonallones]

thanks for the input. I figures that's probably the culprit.

I did boil for 5-10 minutes and cool before pitching lacto. I know that's not traditional for kettle sour but I did read some beginners guide to do that.

 

[Sillybilly]

I have had good luck using L. Plantarum, my method is mash and sparge as usual, heat up wort until it starts to boil then cool to 85-ish, and pitch the lacto and let it ride around room temp, i think that strain still sours below 70 but I have always set my heat wrap to 78-ish due to the chilly room I use. I usually check on it at 24 hours and every 6-12 hours after (depending on life) until it reaches level I want, which is usually within 48 hours. At that point, I do a full boil on wort, cool and pitch my yeast and the rest is pretty standard.

my notes, FWIW:

-You can buy L. Plantarum from some yeast labs, but I just use probiotics pills from Swanson.
-I used 5 pills for 5 gallons, didn't really notice a difference using a starter or not.
-Some pre-acidify to pH of 4.5 before pitching lacto, I have done it with and without that step and didn't really notice a difference, .
-To ferment, I have only used US-05, I pitch a full, re-hydrated patch for 5 gallons.