Sour not souring

[Rish]

I'm attempting my first kettle sour, so I wanted to keep it simple. I mixed 5 lbs wheat DME with 3 gallons of store bought spring water in my BK with the intent to top up to 5 in the fermenter. Pitched 1 Goodbelly Super (50B count, best by date 05/01/22), holding between 95 and105*F. Checked on every 24 hours. At 24 hours, ph about 4.0, detected very slight sourness. The same at 48 & 72. Pitched another container. Same on at 24 & 48 hours (today). Any ideas on why I'm not getting a decrease in ph since the first 24 hours? I'm wondering if I should just boil, pitch yeast and make a wheat beer but would like to salvage the sour. I would appreciate any thoughts and help on what to do next. Thanks!

 

[VikeMan]

How confident are you in the accuracy and calibration of your pH meter?

Also, keep in mind that a sour wort won't really taste anywhere near as sour as it will in the finished beer, because you have all that unfermented sugar masking it.

 

[Rish]

Thanks for your reply. Not very confident at all since I'm using pH strips right now. Good info on the sugars masking the sour. If it seems stable now is it likely it will drop more with more time? I appreciate your help.

 

[VikeMan]

Yikes. IMO pH strips are borderline useless. I suspect that by now your wort is about as sour as it's going to get.

 

[Rish]

I kinda figured that on the strips. I'll go ahead with the boil and hops, pitch the yeast and see what I get. It'll be beer! Thanks for your input.

 

[Ulisses4677]

Adding lactic acid to your wort and dropping the ph around 4 before introducing the probiotics helps.

 

[Rish]

Pulled a sample for SG today (1.014, hoping it'll go lower). Definitely detect enough sour so fermentation certainly affected this. I'm thinking this method will work for what I want to do. We'll see when it's done!