Training Wheels Berliner - good intro to sours

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Since I'm leaving on a plane tomorrow I have to boil tonight.. 5335 not recommended for quick turnaround. Will try again with omega after I'm back.
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Just have a question about the original post here. It says to cool initial wort down to 90F and then ferment 70F - 90F for 1-3 days. If the best I can do is keep my fermenter at 75F, should I cool wort down to 75F instead of 90F??
 
Gentle Jesus said:
Just have a question about the original post here. It says to cool initial wort down to 90F and then ferment 70F - 90F for 1-3 days. If the best I can do is keep my fermenter at 75F, should I cool wort down to 75F instead of 90F??
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I would just cool it to 90, pitch the lacto and just let it sit at room temp and naturally drop over the next few days until you boil.
 
treacheroustexan said:
I would just cool it to 90, pitch the lacto and just let it sit at room temp and naturally drop over the next few days until you boil.
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Ok sweet, I will just do that. I am only going to a 1 gallon batch with this, so I was hoping on skipping the whole starter.

Also I have like 2 more questions, and I think one of them was vaguely answered in this post.

1. If I can only get 75F, should I still only do 48 hours for the souring? I do not have a PH meter and the website says that even 48 hours at 70F is enough to sour.

2. Once the souring is done, can I just dump the batch into the kettle rather than siphon it? The boiling is going to kill off any residual yeast anyway before I add Nottingham.
 
Gentle Jesus said:
Ok sweet, I will just do that. I am only going to a 1 gallon batch with this, so I was hoping on skipping the whole starter.

Also I have like 2 more questions, and I think one of them was vaguely answered in this post.

1. If I can only get 75F, should I still only do 48 hours for the souring? I do not have a PH meter and the website says that even 48 hours at 70F is enough to sour.
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1. 36hrs at 90F was enough for mine to have medium level of sourness (not too much but enough for my taste). I think you are fine at 48 hours.
 
I'm planning to do a Berliner Weiss and a good friend sent me the link to this thread. This looks and sounds super-easy so I'm planning to do this next week. It's my first sour and I've been looking around for ways to do a kettle-sour and this fits the bill. Although I'll have to transfer to a carboy versus souring in my kettle as I'd have to much headspace in my kettle.

I have a 3G carboy that will work perfectly for a 3G test batch and I can fill it up to the neck to alleviate oxygen concerns.

I do plan on using lactic acid to drop the wort ph to 4.5 before pitching the lacto, but without a ph meter I'm going to have to rely on ph strips to tell me where I am. I'm not overly concerned, I was just hoping to get an idea of how much lactic acid I should plan on using. I was hoping that EZ Water (my go-to spreadsheet for water treatments) would have entries for DME but it doesn't. I'm guessing that I can just enter the Pilsner/Wheat ratios from the DME as grain and it should come out the same, no?

In any case, thanks to the OP and all who posted that they've had success with this recipe/process. If it works, I'll likely experiment with AG and hopped-batches in the future, too. For now, I'm looking for a good base recipe to use with syrups for my wife to make varying fruited versions like Passion Fruit, Huckleberry, Raspberry, Guava, etc.
 
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Anyone try Lime? Two Roads has a Perisian Lime Gose, which is obviously a little different, and it is amazing- just need to figure out how much like to add...
 
I just made a lime Gose, start with 3 lime peels (no white pith) and 1 lemon peel (for 5 gal), soak in 100ml of vodka for 2 days, strain and add to taste at kegging/bottling. It's tasty.
 
I'm on my way. I made my starter Tuesday and whipped up 3G using DME last night to get to 1.030 SG. I cooled to 90, pitched the Lacto starter and transferred to my carboy with very little headspace. It's sitting at 90 in my fermentation chamber now and I will check the ph tomorrow morning using ph strips (as I don't have a meter).
The only thing I didn't do that I planned to do was to drop the wort ph to 4.5 before pitching the starter. I realized I ordered lactic acid but not a measured dropper to use with it.
I could have swagged it in little amounts and kept measuring ph, but since it wasn't a *necessary* step I'll do that next time assuming this is a success.
Hopefully, I'll boil tomorrow and pitch the Notty. I'm a bit 'worried' about checking ph today as I don't want to open the carboy and expose it to oxygen - unless y'all tell me that isn;t a concern at this point. I feel a bit like this is my first brew again with all of the unknowns.
 
The starter was Tuesday. It was pitched into the wort last night so it's not even been 24 hours yet.
I'll likely check the ph about 12:00 tomorrow and decide there if I go another day or boil at that point.
 
Today I took a second ph reading and it looks to be just under 3.6. I say "just under" because I'm using ph strips that I bought years ago to check my StarSan and they only increment in 0.4 colors/measurements. When I checked Saturday it looked pretty solid at 3.6 and today it looks a bit lighter so there it is. I know these strips aren't very accurate but at least it verified for me that the ph did drop from the initial measurement of the wort, so that's a positive.

I dumped from the carboy into the kettle (not worrying about oxygen at this point) and brought it to a boil. I just went into auto-pilot instead of stopping to hold it @ 180, but no harm no foul. I let it sit for 10 minutes at that temperature just to be sure and ran off a little through the spigot to pasteurize whatever was in there, too.

Chilled to 70, racked to SS BrewBucket Mini (3.5G), pitched the Notty and set the temp control at 70. I've actually never used Notty before so hopefully it doesn't need too much headspace as I've got just over 3G in the 3.5G fermentor. I don't think I can rig a blowoff to this setup but I can go try if I need to.

Overall, the process was super easy, if not a bit uncertain at times - but it's like that with any new process, really. I'm not concerned about not hitting 3.2 - 3.4 ph because it was an arbitrary number I picked as a target anyway. What I have now is a baseline to determine future brews. If it's not sour/tart enough, then next time I can wait longer and see if it drops more. And now that I have a dropper I can actually measure and use the lactic acid to drop the wort to 4.5 like I intended, too.

One thing I've been reading is that some people run their starters up to 110, which is well over the Omega yeasts STATED recommended temps. Does anybody have experience at that temp?
 
Doing 3 gallons of this again tonight except I'm going to use a few cups of Goodbelly mango to sour it. Last time I racked onto raspberry. I'll probably do pineapple or mango chunks this time.
 
Although I haven't used the GoodBelly yet myself, a buddy did and the flavor was REALLY light. So yeah, I would double up based on his beer and feedback.
 
Kealia said:
Although I haven't used the GoodBelly yet myself, a buddy did and the flavor was REALLY light. So yeah, I would double up based on his beer and feedback.
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Goodbelly isn't for flavor, it's a source of Lacto (L. plantarum).
 
Right, but a few people have used the flavored versions (versus the shots) to try and add flavor to the finished product. The blueberry that he used barely carried through so I'm suggesting to use twice as much to see if that makes the flavor better.
If treacheroustexan is just using that because that is what (s)he has access to and not for the mango flavor then it is a moot point, though.
 
Kealia said:
Right, but a few people have used the flavored versions (versus the shots) to try and add flavor to the finished product. The blueberry that he used barely carried through so I'm suggesting to use twice as much to see if that makes the flavor better.
If treacheroustexan is just using that because that is what (s)he has access to and not for the mango flavor then it is a moot point, though.
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I'm just using it because $2.98 is better than $13 for the lacto the recipe calls for shipped to me.
 
And that is a damn good reason IMO!

My update: This beer is on tap as of a few days ago and it is a hit with my wife, daughter and I. We're using sugar-free Torani syrups to have the option of adding pineapple, hucklberry, peach, raspberry, etc. to each glass for variety. I'm pretty happy with the results of this easy-to-brew BW.

The perfectionist in my wants to do an AG version of this to:
1) Lighten up the color
2) Increase the fermentability of this (mine finished a bit higher than I wanted)
3) Increase the wheat presence. The DME doesn't bring the wheat forward as much as I would like

Mind you, these are nit-picks. The part of me that is lazy says "it came out great, leave it alone". I think time will determine which route I go on the re-brew. Meaning, if I feel like investing more time in the brew I may go AG. If not, I'll leave as-is because it certainly was easy (as advertised).
 
Omega's site specifies a temperature range but not an SG range for the OYL-605. Anyone have experience with how this behaves in high gravity? Looking to sour, pasturize and then dilute for fermentation.
 
This was such a hit at home that the keg kicked quickly. I can't get the Omega yeast locally and it's too damn hot to have it shipped right now (plus half of my state is on fire...) so I decided to do another batch but this time using GoodBelly since I've seen it locally.
Two stops later yesterday and I can't find the Goodbelly shots so I went with the full carton.
I made a starter last night and used 8oz of the GoodBelly (1 serving) in it. It's at 90 degrees as of 'pitching time' last night and will hold that in my fermentation chamber. If all goes well, I'll whip up the DME tomorrow and pitch the starter in there to let it sour until the weekend before boiling and then pitching the Notty again.

If this works, it will be even easier than dealing with getting the Omega yeast shipped to me.
 
Kealia said:
This was such a hit at home that the keg kicked quickly. I can't get the Omega yeast locally and it's too damn hot to have it shipped right now (plus half of my state is on fire...) so I decided to do another batch but this time using GoodBelly since I've seen it locally.
Two stops later yesterday and I can't find the Goodbelly shots so I went with the full carton.
I made a starter last night and used 8oz of the GoodBelly (1 serving) in it. It's at 90 degrees as of 'pitching time' last night and will hold that in my fermentation chamber. If all goes well, I'll whip up the DME tomorrow and pitch the starter in there to let it sour until the weekend before boiling and then pitching the Notty again.

If this works, it will be even easier than dealing with getting the Omega yeast shipped to me.
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I just kegged my batch I used the Goodbelly carton with yesterday. It tastes awesome! So excited for it carb up. I let it sit 3 days at 100 degrees.
 
Congrats!

How much of the cartoon did you use?
Didn't make a starter or just directly pitch the GoodBelly into the wort?
 
Kealia said:
Congrats!

How much of the cartoon did you use?
Didn't make a starter or just directly pitch the GoodBelly into the wort?
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I didn't want to make a starter so I used 16 oz of the mango carton. Pitched right into the wort. I could have gotten away with only using 8 oz.
 
It's always nice to have more data points, thanks. I used 8oz in the starter and this is only a 3G batch so I'm guessing I will be fine.
 
So far, so good. I made the starter on Sunday and it seemed ready to go on Tuesday so I whipped up the DME, cooled and pitched the starter in at 90 degrees.

I've been holding it at 90 since then and tested it with ph strips this morning. The ph showed around 4.6 or so right before I pitched (according to the strips after adding lactic acid). Today the strips show 3.2. It doesn't smell like the last batch using the Omega Lacto blend, but it certainly seems like it did its job.

I can't boil until Saturday at this point so it will sit until then. I assume there is a floor where it won't go any lower over the next few days.....?
 
So if I kill the heat or cool it down into the 60's it will stop dropping the pH?

Would it do that on it's own? Your response seemed to indicate that it would stop at 3.1 +/-. Am I reading that right?
 
Kealia said:
So if I kill the heat or cool it down into the 60's it will stop dropping the pH?

Would it do that on it's own? Your response seemed to indicate that it would stop at 3.1 +/-. Am I reading that right?
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L. plantarum will continue souring in the 60s probably... Until it reaches whatever its floor is (yes, around 3.0-3.2).

Cutting of the heat will reduce oxidation and reduce growth of any contaminants.
 
Thanks for your replies.
I took the safe route and am boiling tonight rather than waiting another 48 hours so I don't have to worry about it.
It's good to know that there is a stopping point, though.
 
Yes, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if trillions of Lactobacilli cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
 

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