Quick lacto wort souring help!

[ProperTing]

I'm looking for advice on quick lacto wort souring. I'm thinking about trying this technique for an Oud Bruin. My plan is to create a starter from dme, add some grist and ferment warm for lacto. In a few days I'll pitch that into my pre-boiled wort and let that sit for a few more days warm. When souring is adequate, I'll boil to pasteurize, lightly hop, chill and add yeast to ferment. Apparently this can give you a sour beer in just over the amount of time it takes to create an unsoured beer. Any tips? What sort of yeast should I add as I assume Roeselare would be out of question? Can you produce good results with this method?

 

[stru]

I'm not sure that I would waste the time boiling twice. You should be able to add your started to your wort, sour for a few days, boil and add yeast as usual.

Not sure what yeast you should use for this experiment, as a true Flemish Ale has more than just lactobacillus and ale yeast in it. It will be impossible to get the same complex flavors from this method, but it's worth experimenting with.

 

[duboman]

Similar in process to my Gose, collect your runnings/wort, boil about 15 minutes. This ensures you have removed any potential bacteria or other things from the wort, pitch your lacto and hold at 90 until the pH is where you want it, then proceed with your traditional boil to kill off the lacto and add your hops as prescribed. Chill and pitch your yeast and allow to ferment as normal.

 

[Rootski]

I did exactly this a couple of months ago in an Oud Bruin recipe. I only soured a portion of the wort. I made up an extract wort on the stove one night and pitched in some 2-row for the lacto after cooling to about 115. I held that temperature for 3 days, then brewed as normal, adding in the soured extract wort to my boil. I used S-05 in the primary for 4 or 5 weeks.
The beer was not very good when young, but now after a couple of months, it's really quite good - I'm hoping even better in a few more months. It's only tart, so next time I'll sour a larger percentage of my wort and for a little longer.

 

[ProperTing]

Interesting! Anyone ever try this technique with Roeselare or another Flemish blend? I'm wondering if you could get similar results to an aged Flanders (12-18 months) this way, in much less time.. Lets say 6 months. I've read that some beers can be one-dimensional using quick lacto souring so maybe fermenting with a blend for 6 months would avoid that. I'm also assuming that the best beers to try this with are maybe like krieks?

 

[davejanssen]

I think you'll get a more 1D character from a quick lacto/sour worting approach. I think that method works well for adding a light tartness (and the gose mentioned above seems like a good candidate for that) or dropping the initial pH to help a sour beer get going, but I don't think you are going to get the complexity of a Belgian sour without the longer fermentation of a mixed culture.

The mad fermentationist has a nice write up the method here:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/07/sour-old-ale-quick-oud-bruin.html

He also covers it in more detail ion the American Sour Beers book (pp.137-141) and he says the results were unspectacular and due to the aging time he needed for the beer to mellow, it didn't really produce a faster sour in the end.

I've got a bit of info on it in my blog as well here:
http://horscategoriebrewing.blogspot.ca/2014/08/introduction-for-pre-primary-souring.html

 

[Rootski]

Wyeast had a couple blends. I have a pack of De Bom and Oud Bruin in my fridge now. There are some posts in here about those blends, but supposedly they work well, and fast (like 2 months). I'll be brewing them both within a couple of weeks so I'll find out first hand!

 

[Calder]

You will never match a traditional sour this way, but can make a really good beer. My suggestions:

- Don't stop the souring too early. Let it get decently sour.

- Ferment with with both sacc and brett, or add brett late. That way you will end up with a Berliner style beer to start with, and can be drinking it within a couple of months. And it will continue to develop complexity as it ages in the bottle.

 

[kingwood-kid]

Sacch+Lacto is quick, and fine for a gose or Berliner. I've done it for browns (not really an Oud Bruin if it's not old), and unspectacular is a good way to describe it. But as a base for fruit, it was fantastic.

 

[youreanimpulse]

Agreed. Just did an Oud Bruin with De Bom and ended up adding more Brett (already some in the blend) just to give it more complexity. It's not too bad young, but very simple tasting.

 

[TipsySaint]

ya the lacto and sacc works great for a berliner weisse but other than something that should be mouth puckering, it's not a lot fun. It is a good way to make an all beer shandy though!

 

[BigPerm]

I think you'll get a more 1D character from a quick lacto/sour worting approach.

He also covers it in more detail ion the American Sour Beers book (pp.137-141) and he says the results were unspectacular and due to the aging time he needed for the beer to mellow, it didn't really produce a faster sour in the end.

This has been my experience. I've made 2 finished batches of berliner weisse - one soured with uncrushed grain for ~ 6 days in the 70s, and the other using a starter of L. delbruckii. While the latter was a little less sour, it took the quick soured version a long time to mellow in the bottle, easily as long as the other. I found it really hard to describe the flavor, gamey and just very rough tasting. After a few months, it really started to get good. This probably has something to do with off-flavors produced by Saccharomyces under low pH conditions.

I agree that the "quick-sour" method is a bit misleading. Yes, it sours faster but it takes just as long to mature. I'll never do that method again (at least not the full wort), but good luck to you!

 

[Calder]

This has been my experience. I've made 2 finished batches of berliner weisse - one soured with uncrushed grain for ~ 6 days in the 70s, and the other using a starter of L. delbruckii. While the latter was a little less sour, it took the quick soured version a long time to mellow in the bottle, easily as long as the other. I found it really hard to describe the flavor, gamey and just very rough tasting. After a few months, it really started to get good. This probably has something to do with off-flavors produced by Saccharomyces under low pH conditions.

I agree that the "quick-sour" method is a bit misleading. Yes, it sours faster but it takes just as long to mature. I'll never do that method again (at least not the full wort), but good luck to you!

I disagree with you. I have made several BWs which I have started drinking at 6 weeks (from initial inoculation), and they have been excellent. I use probiotics for souring, and keep the wort at ~95F for a week before pitching yeast; no boil, and the only hop addition has been dry hops.

 

[TipsySaint]

I disagree with you. I have made several BWs which I have started drinking at 6 weeks (from initial inoculation), and they have been excellent. I use probiotics for souring, and keep the wort at ~95F for a week before pitching yeast; no boil, and the only hop addition has been dry hops.

I agree, with you. the lacto needs warm temps. it's dicey if you have low temps. I can hold 95 or so and that seems to work pretty good. I taste every day to check the sour level. I do however give mine a quick boil just to kill off any lacto once I hit the sour level I want. Usually 10 min or so. may or may not add hops, depends on my mood and what i have kicking around. Almost always dry hop, it just helps the nose of it....Usually I use a kolsch yeast because it's super clean.

 

[Rjppunk]

http://www.hopstotable.com/2014/02/20/award-winning-recipe-raspberry-berliner-weisse/

I rent my house with a few other people and can't commit to aging beer long enough for traditional sours. With that in mind I found that recipe which I'm about to try next week, and also repeat the souring process for a few other beers.

 

[BigPerm]

I disagree with you. I have made several BWs which I have started drinking at 6 weeks (from initial inoculation), and they have been excellent. I use probiotics for souring, and keep the wort at ~95F for a week before pitching yeast; no boil, and the only hop addition has been dry hops.

Im glad it worked for you. Maybe it's the probiotic route, maybe it's the dry hops. I know a lot of people who do it your way, and its obviously working. All I'm saying is when I did it this way, it took a long time to mature before it tasted good, which is relevant to the original post because theres a chance he'll get the same results I did.

It's well known that brewers yeast can act erratically under low pH conditions. Some of these effects are off-flavors that can take time to age out. My kettle soured vs fermenter soured BW did not finish all that differently, but the fermenter-soured version never had the funky off flavors the kettle soured version did (and I used Kolsch yeast, whcih is supposed to minimize this). I also don't think the lower temp had anything to do with it. Lacto is just slower at that temp.

 

[BigPerm]

- Ferment with with both sacc and brett, or add brett late. That way you will end up with a Berliner style beer to start with, and can be drinking it within a couple of months. And it will continue to develop complexity as it ages in the bottle.

I definitely agree with this. Brett can make all the difference in cleaning up any yeast-derived off-flavors that may arise with this method. I didn't do it when I did it, because I was more interested in testing the method, but from a flavor standpoint, I wish I had.

 

[Calder]

It's well known that brewers yeast can act erratically under low pH conditions. Some of these effects are off-flavors that can take time to age out.

I don't think sacc does very well in the low PH environment. When I pitch into a soured wort for a Berliner, I use 3 or 4 times the pitching rate I would normally use for a regular beer. I think pitching high is a key to a good Berliner. Useful to have a fresh yeast cake available.

 

[kingwood-kid]

Apple juice has a pH as low as any beer we pitch sacch into, and cider fermented with ale yeast seems to be enjoyed by many. Maybe apple+sacch is just a better combination of flavors, but I'm in the camp that a low pH doesn't really stress yeast nearly as much as we think it does.

 

[BigPerm]

Apple juice has a pH as low as any beer we pitch sacch into, and cider fermented with ale yeast seems to be enjoyed by many. Maybe apple+sacch is just a better combination of flavors, but I'm in the camp that a low pH doesn't really stress yeast nearly as much as we think it does.

It depends on the strain. Some are very well adapted to lower pH, others don't perform so well. IIRC, most "cider" yeasts are variants of wine strains, which have been selected due to their better adaptation to a lower pH environment. Not to say that beer yeasts can't be used (kolsch, some belgian strains are notable exceptions), but some will not perform well and produce off-flavors.

 

[Calder]

Apple juice has a pH as low as any beer we pitch sacch into, and cider fermented with ale yeast seems to be enjoyed by many. Maybe apple+sacch is just a better combination of flavors, but I'm in the camp that a low pH doesn't really stress yeast nearly as much as we think it does.

Apple juice is in the range of 3.5 to 4.0. A decent Berliner is in the range of 3.0 to 3.2. That's a lot of difference; since ph is a logarithmic scale, 1 point difference = 10 times the acidity.

I've never had a problem with Sacc working in Berliners, but I do pitch large into them.