Saving a kettle sour

[MakeDankBeer]

Day 3 on my kettle sour excited to boil it and throw it into the fermenter, checked the gravity 1.020. What the hell. This is the second in a row this has happen to. I changed some things up on this batch to hopefully stop this from happening. Anyway to save this ? Add extract to boil? I do not want separate equipment at this time.

2nd question how is everyone cooling the wort down to 90 to pitch lacto?

 

[Homergah]

Do you short boil wort before you inoculate?

 

[RPh_Guy]

What did you use to sour?
Did you make a starter?
+1 Did you pre-boil & leave in the kettle?
How did you chill it?
Did you pre-acidify?
What items touched the wort after chilling?
How did you seal the kettle?

Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay.

 

[Homergah]

What did you use to sour?
Did you make a starter?
+1 Did you pre-boil & leave in the kettle?
Did you pre-acidity?
How did you chill it?
What items touched the wort after chilling?
How did you seal the kettle?

Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay.

Well, I was going to start with the easy one.

 

[MakeDankBeer]

Per boiled for 15min ran through my CFC into a Star san’d fermenter then transferred back into the kettle. (The last one was an ice bath and it took forever to cool down. )

Did not pre acidify, I pitched a tube if lacto brevis from white labs, wort taste good and sour.
( last one was a good belly)

I put seran wrap on top of wort and around kettle lid. I did not open it the entire time.

 

[Homergah]

I never transfer out of kettle. I boil for 15 minutes with lid on, kill burner, walk away. When wort reaches 100f I inoculate. Not saying you're chill method is definitely the problem, but what else could it be? It just seems like you're picking up unwanted hitchhikers along the way.

 

[RPh_Guy]

White Labs bacterial cultures are frequently contaminated with yeast.
Omega and The Yeast Bay have good Lacto cultures. Swanson's, Goodbelly, other L. plantarum probiotics, and even yogurt are better options than White Labs.

Other tips:
- Do not transferring to and from the fermenter; that drastically increases risk of yeast contamination. Leave the wort in the kettle. Use an immersion chiller or recirc with a CFC, or use an ice bath, or just wait for it.
- Don't put plastic wrap directly on the wort. That significantly increases risk of contamination. Just cover the top of the kettle.

...
For this batch you have two good options:
1. Transfer the beer to your fermenter and let it finish. Even if you're terrible at sanitizing, Lacto honestly will not contaminate your clean beers. Clean beers have hops, which inhibit Lacto.
2. OK so you don't believe some random guy on the Internet; that's fine. Boil it to kill the Lacto. Add sugar to hit your target OG. Transfer to your fermenter. Easy fix.

Cheers

 

[cactusgarrett]

All of what RPh Guy said. All you need to do is saran wrap the lid to the kettle; don't futz with putting it directly on the wort. Did i miss what the OG was?

 

[MakeDankBeer]

thanks for suggestions, I'm going to boil and add some sugar or dme. Next one I'm just going to let it cool naturally. Down the road ill get a sour equipment set up.


Og was 1.040 higher end for a berliner.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I would not add DME. Theoretically your partially fermented beer/wort still has all the same dextrins it did when you made it the first time. Only the more simple sugars were lost due to fermentation.
Adding DME would add a bunch more unfermentable sugars than you intended.

 

[satph]

Did you taste it? Does it taste good? If the gravity drop was from yeast creating alcohol, boiling it will boil off some of the alcohol. I would transfer it to the fermenter and pitch the yeast you intended to pitch. Or let it ride in the fermenter with whatever is in there--and pitch the yeast if it stalls.

 

[shortyz]

guys where did the thing about wyeast being contaminated with yeast come from? is there any statement from them about this?

 

[RPh_Guy]

guys where did the thing about wyeast being contaminated with yeast come from? is there any statement from them about this?

You mean White Labs?

I'm not aware of any statement from them.
It would be very easy to find examples of contamination in their products. It seems like literally every time someone tries to kettle sour with their bacteria it ends up fermenting. That's why "what did you use to sour" was my first question.

Here's one example, right on their own page (under reviews):
"Brewed a berliner with a slightly higher than normal OG at 1.045 fermented with only WLP677 for 4 weeks...."
https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp677-lactobacillus-delbrueckii-bacteria

 

[mashpaddled]

I don't know if WL ever admitted to the problem with yeast contamination in their lacto products but it was observed independently by several people including QC employees at breweries and other yeast labs. I thought WL let out a few informal statements admitting to it but I might be wrong.

I seem to think this was a topic discussed across most of the homebrewing forums/social media groups in 2015 or 2016.

 

[shortyz]

can someone post some pictures of what a kettle sour should look like before you boil. i used brevis on saturday, checked ph today 3.7. i have the same brown skum floating on the top like last time i used delbrucki.

seems to be a pain in the butt to find pure lacto, maybe ill start buying that good belly stuff

so lacto plantarum is present in spit, perhaps we should save our spit and dump it into the beer... hmmm

 

[Wayne1]

seems to be a pain in the butt to find pure lacto

I have used the Lallemand Wild Pitch dry Lacto very successfully

http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/canada/product-details/wildbrew-sour-pitch/

 

[RPh_Guy]

can someone post some pictures of what a kettle sour should look like before you boil.

It should look exactly the same as any wort before the boil.
There should not be any bubbling, krausen, or film.
You used the White Labs brevis?

Up above I mentioned 5 quality and easy-to-obtain Lacto cultures.

I wouldn't count on a random saliva sample to contain L. plantarum. (Not sure if you were serious)

@Wayne1
What temperature did you run Wild Pitch?

 

[Wayne1]

I have used it at 100F. I was able to hit 3.5 pH within 24 hrs. Pre-acidified to 4.5.