Any use for my lacto seed grains?

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
eric19312

eric19312

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Dec 5, 2012
Messages
3,821
Reaction score
2,419
Location
Long Island
First sour experiment in progress. Shooting for a Beliner Weisse, made a 1.032 sg wort, heated it to 180, chilled to 125F and added about 2 cups uncrushed grain. Held the wort at 110F for a little more than 48 hours, strained out the grain and heated the now nicely sour wort back to 175, held at 175-180 for 30 min, chilled and pitched a cal ale yeast slurry.

Question is can I use the strained grain for something or are they now garbage? Looks to be nearly a quart now that they soaked up my wort, and they do have a nice sour pop when I bite into them.

I guess I'm thinking to dry them in convection oven on low and use them in future mash as acid malt. Is that a crazy idea?
 
Bump....


What can I do with these?

image-1317071496.jpg
 
loved the question but don't have the experience to answer. as a guess, you could probably dry them out and use them as acidulated malt. no idea what the strength would be, though, so you'll have to add it in small increments until you reach your desired pH (and keep track of how much you add for the next time). or you could dry them and reuse them as lacto seed grains for your next sour mash.

not 100% sure that drying them is going to work, but it's worth a try. concerned about aerobic bacteria kicking in and them smelling like death. but hey, worst case you throw them out, which is what you'd do anyway. I'm curious to know how this turns out because I'm doing my first sour mash soon, and really like the idea of getting more than one use out of the grain.
 
SimonHucko said:
loved the question but don't have the experience to answer. as a guess, you could probably dry them out and use them as acidulated malt. no idea what the strength would be, though, so you'll have to add it in small increments until you reach your desired pH (and keep track of how much you add for the next time). or you could dry them and reuse them as lacto seed grains for your next sour mash.

not 100% sure that drying them is going to work, but it's worth a try. concerned about aerobic bacteria kicking in and them smelling like death. but hey, worst case you throw them out, which is what you'd do anyway. I'm curious to know how this turns out because I'm doing my first sour mash soon, and really like the idea of getting more than one use out of the grain.
Click to expand...

Thanks, they are dry now. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with them yet. I don't own a pH meter so don't normally mess with pH adjustments.

Found the following in Google which gives me idea of how to test it as sour malt.http://brewingbeerthehardway.wordpress.com/category/acid-malt/

Reusing in next sour mash is appealing but am wondering if that might be a way of propagating forward some sort of undesirable bugs.
 
nice link, thanks. I don't have a pH meter either, but I use those little pH test strips to see if I'm in the right ballpark. we have basic water here, so I'm always using acid malt unless I'm making something very dark and roasty. I may have to try this when I do mine for some "free" acidulated malt.
 
No, not yet. Dried them and set them aside. May not do anything with them until I get a pH meter and determine if there is any need for me to attempt to manipulate mash pH.

Also waiting to taste my Berliner Weisse... Here it is in bottles, going to open at next week's club meeting. Primed with sugar to deliver 4 volumes CO2 so went with heavies bottles I had...

2013-05-18-124103-60027.jpg
 
How bad did the grain smell in the oven?

You'll want to pour quick at 4 volumes, but that's what I shoot for on my Berliner, too.
 
I dried them most of the way outside in the sun. Just finished them up in the oven on very low setting with convection. Odor was not too bad. Guess it depends on who you ask...
 

Similar threads

U
Lacto starter
Replies
5
Views
827
user 341102
U
Ragman
Brewing first sour - what to use for Lacto besides goodbelly?
Replies
1
Views
659
Hoppy2bmerry
Hoppy2bmerry
R
Kettle Sour Not Souring (OLY-605)
Replies
2
Views
1K
RPh_Guy
RPh_Guy
LactoBasilisk
I cook my cider for three days. Someone Please Stop Me
Replies
9
Views
2K
Maylar
Maylar
MajorJC
Help me with my Berliner ...
Replies
2
Views
827
MajorJC
MajorJC
CornyKegs 300

Latest posts

Back
Top