Lacto for Berliner Weisse

[daveooph131]

Brewing my first sour. I made a starter for the Lactobacillus let it go for a few days at about 90 in my attic. I just pitched today into my berliner weisse and took a quick sample of the starter. It wasn't sour at all.

Is this normal or should the starter produce some sourness? I'm hoping this turns out good. I've never had a berliner weisse so I don't have anything to compare too. My one fear is it won't be sour enough. From what I've read this has happened to a fair amount of people when tackling this style.

 

[ardyexfor]

My Wyeast Lacto sat for over a week and never soured. I cultured lacto off of uncrushed grains and had noticeable sourness in less than 24 Hours. Not sure where you got your lacto but I had the same experience with Wyeast atleast.

 

[daveooph131]

I used the wlp lacto.


So do you think it won't sour the actual wort?

 

[ardyexfor]

The one thing I have heard about the commercial lacto cultures is they take a week+ to sour. But everyone says thay only give them 2 days head start over the yeast. Again when my Wyeast was slow I got impatient and cultured some of my own from grain. So I've never actually finished with the commercials bugs and cannot report how it will do on its own.

I have also heard of people reporting a lack of sourness depending on their methods. Maybe someone else can chime in.

 

[kwadric]

I've had good luck with WL lacto at 120f and two to three days. I'd say take a sample and taste it at two days. If it isn't sour enough, try again at four days. It is hard to quantify sourness.

I think the higher temp is important. I've done lacto with both an all DME beer and an all grain Belgian White. Both were not hopped. I've heard that IBUs can impede lacto... and I've heard it was a myth.

 

[daveooph131]

I just checked and there is now a kressen.

I thought there wouldn't be one with Lacto. Did something else make its way in?

 

[kwadric]

I don't know for sure, but I've heard of WL lacto fermenting down like it had sac in it. I also had one pellicle that looked odd. I was a noob and just looked through the pelicle photo sticky until I found one that looked similar.

My lacto pellicles are usually a thin light grey/white with bubbles ranging from 1/4 inch in diameter to maybe 1.5 inches.

 

[kwadric]

You might want to check out:

100% Lacto Mad Fermentationist

 

[MidTNJasonF]

A couple club members in my local homebrew club had some negative experiences with White Labs Lacto Culture. Starter done at 90ish degrees, fermented for close to a weak at 90ish degrees, pitched a sacro strain for another week, and got very little if any sourness. They are both moving on to the Lacto cluture from Wyeasst partially based on the info available in this video.

 

[daveooph131]

A couple club members in my local homebrew club had some negative experiences with White Labs Lacto Culture. Starter done at 90ish degrees, fermented for close to a weak at 90ish degrees, pitched a sacro strain for another week, and got very little if any sourness. They are both moving on to the Lacto cluture from Wyeasst partially based on the info available in this video.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hClp9huB1M

That's what I'm worried about. Anything I can do now to sour it assuming the whitelabs doesn't?

I thought I had read about some people adding was it lactic acid or something at bottling?

 

[kwadric]

If it doesn't sour in a couple of days you can always put a hand full of grain in the fermenter. There is a temp range that favors lacto and not other bugs. I think it is like 110 to 120f. I'll check my notes and post the reference.

I guess I've drawn lucky WL vials in the past, but I might move to wyeast in the future to be safe.

 

[kwadric]

I thought I had a link to BYO where they had a chart with the bugs on grain and what temperatures they were active, but I couldn't find it. This is an article about sour mashing with a handful of grain at warm temps. I'd consider following the process here:

BYO Sour Mash Techniques

 

[Calder]

I think a couple of mistakes people do are:

1) Add hops to the wort before the lacto is added. Lacto doesn't like hops (some will not work at all with any amount of hops).

2) People don't leave it long enough. It can take 4 to 5 days at temperature to start off. Not really sure what it is doing, it is called the lag phase, and can take a few hours to several days. Seems most people using pure cultures are waiting several days. I've found 5 days at 90 F to work.

Once the growth phase starts, it is soured in about 24 hours. This phase is exponential and occurs very rapidly.

3) People add yeast too early. Once the yeast is going and producing alcohol, the lacto slows or even stops. Taste the wort before adding yeast.

I'm sure there are lots of other reasons for problems.

If it doesn't sour in a couple of days you can always put a hand full of grain in the fermenter. There is a temp range that favors lacto and not other bugs. I think it is like 110 to 120f. I'll check my notes and post the reference.

I think different laccto strains like different temperatures. I thought body temperature 98 F was about right. All bacteria (maybe an exaggeration) like warmer temperatures; that's what incubators are for.

 

[kwadric]

I looked in my notes for the article I read online and couldn't find it, but it listed the different temp ranges for various bacteria and their flavor impact on beer. I think lacto was like 90-120, but i think there was a less desirable bacteria that didn't do well above 100. That's the way I remember it, but certainly doesn't mean that I remember it correctly.

Calder's points about hops and lag time are excellent. I don't hop before my lacto ferments and usually only see 24 to 48 hours of lag.

 

[daveooph131]

I just sampled the beer - it is slightly sour but not a lot. Apparently must have gotten another yeast in there because it attenuated 100% down to 1.000?

Very weird. Now i'm not sure if i should keep it or dump it. Doesn't taste bad, and if it were a little more sour it would be good.