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lacto starter, first sour attempt

jtoots

Grandmaster Brewer
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Waltham, MA
It's time to get out of my comfort zone, so I'm giving a Berliner Weiss a go. First question as I make my way through this:

What's your experience with lacto starters? 

I've got one going, pitched it on Monday, not seeing any real activity.  It's at room temp. After pitching I continued my research, mostly on Milk the Funk, and 24 hours in turned the stir plate off and added lactic acid to drop the pH.  I don't have a meter or strips yet, probably going to snag some tomorrow along with another vial of WLP677.  Far from perfect but hey, gotta start somewhere, right?

I'm planning on brew day 1 on Friday night or Saturday and kettle souring through the weekend.  I'm a bit anxious about holding temp above 100 for days on end, how does that go for you kettle sour-ers?

 
Didn't get any responses, but here's an update if anyone is curious:

It was an exciting weekend and I think it all went well.  I pitched on Saturday morning, boiled on Sunday evening.  I forgot to purge the headspace with CO2.  The starter did taste a bit sour.  I kept it between 109-115 throughout by bumping it with heat every 2.5-3 hours (12 gallons).  It only fell below this, down to about 98, overnight. A nice film had developed at that point, and a few hours later it was a pretty impressive pellicle. Smell was pretty bad but not like vomit. My new pH meter will be arriving in the mail today so I'm excited for the next batch with measurements :)

I pitched 5 gallons with safale and 5 with European Ale yeast.  The safale will get 3 gallons of blueberries, either at high krausen or in secondary.
 
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