Very quick souring

[alexmkuyper]

So I have been establishing a house culture and it is currently on it's 3rd generation. I just sampled the 3rd iteration after only 25 days and it is already getting quite sour. The previous 2 batches showed similar results, but not quite as quick.

Here was my method for the first batch:

• Very simple base beer. 2.5 gallon. 60% Pils DME and 40% Wheat DME. Lightly hopped to 5-10 IBU. This was intended to be a starter of sorts, but ended up tasting really great.
• Chilled to 100F and added 2 probiotic tablet contents and sat next to furnace and water heater.
• 24 hours later added Wyeast 3711 and dregs from a few Holy Mountain beers.
• A few days later I added dregs from FW Sour Opal.
• I bottled after only 3 months because it already had a strong brett character and great acidity (don't have a pH meter unfortunately).

I am curious to see if anyone has experienced such short turnarounds in their sours. I think my results are largely due to the Holy Mountain dregs that I used since my beers taste very similar. They must have some very intense lacto cultures (no pedio in any of the dregs I added).

 

[Weezy]

Jolly Pumpkin drugs are aggressive too. That time frame doesn't surprise me. If your building up a culture to keep around, I've found it beneficial to grow up the bottle dregs in the bottle before adding to the culture, to give them a fighting chance vs. the established culture.

Read this too:
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/03/maintaining-brett-and-lacto-cultures.html?m=1

 

[Grod1]

i have found 3-4 months usually does justice with high cell counts at pitch.even with out any high temp lacto pitches.Then add that 100 degree pitch and the heat wave we have had and you get acid pretty quick.
please share what probiotic tablets you used.

 

[TandemTails]

The probiotic tablets sitting at high temps for 24 hours are probably what contributed a lot of the sourness.

 

[alexmkuyper]

I actually only added the probiotics to the first batch. The subsequent batches had all yeast and bacteria co-pitched. However, I have noticed with each batch that krausen doesn't start to form until 2-3 days post-pitch. I am assuming the lacto is doing some work during that phase.

I used the NOW Probiotic-10 25 billion cell capsules.

 

[Grod1]

NOW® Probiotic-10 "offers a balanced spectrum of live organisms consisting of acid-resistant probiotic bacterial strains..."Blend of 10 Strains of Probiotic Bacteria:
Lactobacillus acidophilus (La-14), Bifidobacterium lactis (Bl-04), Lactobacillus plantarum (Lp-115), Lactobacillus casei (Lc-11), Lactobacillus rhamnosus (Lr-32), actobacillus paracasei (Lpc-37), Bifidobacterium breve (Bb-03), Streptococcus thermophilus (St-21), Lactobacillus salivarius (Ls-33), Bifidobacterium longum (Bl-05)
$17.12

and you only used 2 tablets huh? seems to me like its worth investigating.

 

[deeve007]

NOW® Probiotic-10 "offers a balanced spectrum of live organisms consisting of acid-resistant probiotic bacterial strains..."Blend of 10 Strains of Probiotic Bacteria:
Lactobacillus acidophilus (La-14), Bifidobacterium lactis (Bl-04), Lactobacillus plantarum (Lp-115), Lactobacillus casei (Lc-11), Lactobacillus rhamnosus (Lr-32), actobacillus paracasei (Lpc-37), Bifidobacterium breve (Bb-03), Streptococcus thermophilus (St-21), Lactobacillus salivarius (Ls-33), Bifidobacterium longum (Bl-05)
$17.12

and you only used 2 tablets huh? seems to me like its worth investigating.

Sorry to drag up this old thread, but did these tablets work for you? Looking for a source of Lactobacillus plantarum I can either get someone to bring from the US for me, or find locally.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Hey again. If you hadn't defected from Australia, you'd have plenty of options .

Have a look for Wildbrew Sourpitch at Homebrew stores or Online in Argentina/South America. It's a dry powder in a packet, so should be easier to get than liquid yeasts. It isn't cheap - about $20 here (Hobart) so might be a bit more over there, but it does 100L (with how vigorous it is I actually suspect it could easily sour 1000L). The most popular probiotic for homebrew seems to be 'Goodbelly'. Do you have that one? For some reason, mango flavour (from what I've read) is the most popular for brewing.

 

[deeve007]

I've also been told there's tablets containing L. plantarum that I might be able to find in a pharmacy, so am going to check that out too.

Wildbrew Sour Patch can be bought here, but at price that would double the overall cost of my ingredients. May end up resorting to it, but will see what else I can find.

 

[deeve007]

Actually I'm wrong... Wildbrew Sour Patch you use 1g per 10L, correct? If so then not too expensive at all....

Any idea how I should store it after opening packet? A 10g packet would last me ages even if I brewed a sour every batch...

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Yep, 1g per 10L, so a packet does 100L. I suspect you could easily get away with using a tenth of that and still get similar results - Lactobacillus multiplies very quickly.

The instructions say to not store after opening the packet, but I just roll it shut and wrap it with a bit of electrical tape, then keep it in the fridge. I've used it a few times so far with no issue.

 

[deeve007]

Excellent mate, will give it a go. And really appreciate the help, owe you a beer or two if we ever cross paths once I'm back home!

 

[RPh_Guy]

FYI
These are good probiotic sources of L. plantarum if you can find any of them:
Swanson's Lacto plantarum capsules
GoodBelly probiotic liquid
Renew Life Ultimate Flora capsules

 

[deeve007]

The instructions say to not store after opening the packet, but I just roll it shut and wrap it with a bit of electrical tape, then keep it in the fridge. I've used it a few times so far with no issue.

I actually emailed the makers of WildBrew Sour Pitch asking how you could store it, and this was their reply FYI:

"Please store WildBrew® Sour Pitch in the freezer until you need it next. You can easily freeze/defrost when needed. It is very different than dry yeasts."