Sour dough starter for yeast

[rlmiller10]

Decided to do an experiment. I brewed a small batch (3 gal) of my winter pale ale but used 2 cups of sour dough starter for the yeast pitch.

3 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 45.5 %
1 lbs 12.8 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 2 27.3 %
1 lbs 3.2 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 3 18.2 %
4.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.5 %
4.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.5 %
15.0 g Chinook [11.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 29.3 IBUs
6.0 g Chinook [11.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 5.8 IBUs
2.7 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 2.4 IBUs
6.7 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
6.7 g Chinook [11.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs

Mash for 1 hr in a cooler, initial temp 151, final temp 149

Fermented at 66 F for the first week then come up to 70 F for the last two weeks.

OG: 1.050
FG: 1.003

Notes: Was slow to show much sign of fermentation, about 2 days to get going. Had a small krausen, about 1/2 inch thick. After the krausen feel had little yeast rafts until I cold crashed before bottling. Aroma during fermentation was the same as when I brew this recipe using US-05.

Tasted at bottling and has some ester characteristics. If I had not known I would have guessed I had used an English ale yeast.

Was very surprised at the FG. I have brewed this same recipe numerous times using US-05 and the FG is always 1.012 give or take a point.

Tasting during bottling had no sour notes. The mouth feel and residual sweetness was also greater than I expected for a gravity of 1.003.

After it carbs I will post more tasting notes.

 

[Revvy]

Glad you posted this, I started thinking about this a year ago, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Looking forward to hearing your results.

 

[rlmiller10]

Sorry to take so long to get this updated.

The beer came off fine. Actually had better attenuation than the same beer brewed with US-05, finished at 1.009. My perception of the flavor was that this was an English beer. It has the same esters as an English brown when it was first bottled. Everyone that tried it thought it was a good beer.

Fast forward a few months later. I found I have a few in the back of the fridge. It is a different beer now. It is getting some sour flavors which are overwhelming the esters that gave it an English character . And there is no way to pour it without getting a glass of foam. Still not a bad beer. To me it is better than most of the wild sours I have tasted. Since I am not a fan of sours I plan to finish it off soon before it gets more of the sour characteristics.

Nice to know that when the apocalypse hits, if I can malt grain I can still brew without access to commercial yeast.

 

[rlmiller10]

Sent my sour dough off to the Sourdough Starter Project at Ron Dunn Labs and the results are

Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain 1) 72.57%
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain 2) 27.03%
Kazachstania humilis (strain 6) 0.23%
Kazachstania unispora (strain 1) 0.18%

So now I know at least some of the bugs used for this fermentation

 

[ericbw]

So most of your starter is beer yeast? And no lactobacillus or other bacteria?

Is this a homegrown starter?

I initially opened this thread to say it sounded like a bad idea. I'm still not going to do it, but it's interesting!

 

[rlmiller10]

The above are the yeast. The other bugs are still to be analyzed.

I started the starter from a sour dough starter packet I purchased at a food co-op 17 years ago. The packet was a powder that was added to water and flour. I assume it has evolved over the years and yeasts that do well in my climate have colonized it.

The above mentioned yeast project has tested hundreds of samples and the yeasts above are the most common with that particular combination seeming to be a high % of starters from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.

 

[rlmiller10]

The final results are in. The analysis of my sourdough is

Yeast

• Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain 1) 72.57%
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain 2) 27.03%
• Kazachstania humilis (strain 6) 0.23%
• Kazachstania unispora (strain 1) 0.18%

Bacteria

• Pediococcus sp.1 93.30%
• Lactobacillus sp.7 4.79%
• Lactobacillus plantarum 0.39%
• Lactobacillus brevis strain1 0.37%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.1 0.17%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.2 0.17%
• Leuconostoc sp.1 0.17%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.3 0.14%
• Pediococcus sp.2 0.08%
• Lactococcus sp.2 0.08%
• Lactobacillus paralimentarius 0.06%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.5 0.06%
• Lactococcus sp.1 0.06%
• Enterococcus sp.2 0.03%
• Lactobacillus sp.1 0.03%
• Lactobacillus sp.8 0.03%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.7 0.03%
• Leuconostoc sp.2 0.03%
• Weissella ghanensis 0.03%

My sample seems to have a lot more Pedio than others. I have posted another sample from close to me below

yeast

• Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain 1) 99.63%
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain 2) 0.30%
• Wickerhamomyces anomalus (strain 2) 0.05%
• Candida quercitrusa 0.02%

Bacteria

• Lactobacillus paralimentarius 42.85%
• Lactobacillus brevis strain1 35.90%
• Lactobacillus plantarum 19.25%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.3 0.82%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.1 0.56%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.7 0.31%
• Lactobacillus sp.7 0.11%
• Lactobacillus sp.5 0.07%
• Pediococcus sp.1 0.07%
• Lactobacillus brevis strain3 0.02%
• Leuconostoc sp.1 0.02%
• Lactobacillus brevis strain2 0.01%
• Lactobacillus sp.2 0.01%
• Pediococcus ethanolidurans strain2 0.01%
• Lactobacillaceae sp.5 0.01%

Now I would like to try using a starter with lots of Lacto rather than Pedio just to see the difference.

The website with the sample info is http://robdunnlab.com/projects/sourdough/map/

My sample is 84

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[stz]

My feelings on mixed cultures/wild/spontaneous fermentations is basically does it work, does it taste good and does it stay stable throughout the required window for consumption? You might think that makes a lot acceptable, but I like 6 months stability as a rule. I imagine I've very rarely pitched mono-culture into sterilised medium and managed to package the same so it all goes eventually. Even house yeast needs periodic renewal because it picks up some passengers throughout generations top cropped four times a week. I've had quite a lot of 'successes' which become less pleasant a few weeks after bottling, but then I've a reputation for quite happily tasting anything. Hmm yes, baby sick, cheese rind, butyric acid *goes for a second mouthful* yes! intense vomit flavour.

Milkthefunk is a great resource for interesting flavour specific quirks of various microbes. I enjoy the romance of spontaneous/wild sources of microbes, but generally hate the random rolling of the dice which results. I like to obtain the microbes I want and see if I can get them to reproduce their quirks in a controlled and repeatable manner.

 

[rlmiller10]

Although the initial post was April, I had brewed this on Jan 19 so would have bottled in early Feb. As of April it was not showing sour notes but was by June so about 3 to 4 months of stable flavor before the Pedio really started to show up.

 

[ericbw]

My sourdough grows a pellicle sometimes. Like a kombucha scoby.

Pedio makes it sour?

 

[rlmiller10]

Perhaps the Pedio does not do as well as a Lacto. My sourdough bread is not as sour as many I have tasted. But there is both Pedio and Lacto, just more Pedio.

 

[DesertFox]

very helpful and informative, thanks for sharing.