Just when you think you know what you are doing…I have to say this lacto. starter I attempted has been a real PITA. I think I made the mistake of listening to advice from no less than 10 people on a good method to do this. After 4 or so days, I see no activity (and this is with a White Labs vial). I could of course break out my PH meter, but it’s still in the box and I really haven’t had the time to figure it out yet.
I think I’m going to simply dump this starter and give the standard DME and raw grains a try next.
This sounds like a bad move to me. Lacto starters don’t always look like sac. starters. Check the pH. I would much rather use a “pure” culture lacto starter than whatever happened to be on the grain.
You should be able to smell if lactic acid has been created as well. Lots of strains of lactic don’t give you visible signs of fermentation like producing co2. I can’t recall on that strain specifically… Not at home.
Keep going with it, you’re just getting started. Assuming you’ve got WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii and it’s been around 100 the whole time, give it a swirl and look for tiny CO2 bubbles, that’s about the only visual indication of activity I’ve ever noticed. I just recently did a 1 gallon starter with 1 vial of WLP677, didn’t really see any activity for 4 or 5 days, pitched on day 9. Soured 15 gallons of Berliner wort for 42 hours, the Lacto ate 17 points and dropped the PH to 3.6.
The commercial lacto are pure strains which can have unusual traits like not producing CO2 or only eating glucose. The lacto found on grains likely contain many strains and therefore I found produce CO2 and eat most sugars in wort. When I grow my own lacto, I can really tell that it is just beginning to work when I see a pellicle - I don’t purge the headspace with CO2.
You may want to try to taste (and spit out) the starter.
+1 to letting it ride. Lacto many times does not produce a typical krausen like sacch. strains do. When I brewed my last Berliner (in January), my 2 qt starter never showed signs of fermentation except when I swirled it up a bit and the airlock moved. You should look for increasing lacto sediment on the bottom of your starter and then you will know if the lacto is growing. That is why I typically give my first step around 7 days to allow for it to completely (and albeit slowly) ferment out the whole starter.
If you plan on stepping it up again, when you decant the spent wort, be sure to taste it. It will most likely taste like a tart apple juice/cider.
On my next lacto starters im going to experiment a bit. 2 quarts of 1.030 of table sugar, water, and nutrients, pressure canned. Flood with CO2, pitch the lacto, set on a small heat pad ~100º for 7 days with a ventable solid stopper. Then pitch the whole shebang to an 8 gallon batch.
You’re not going to see a krausen form with lacto and if you are seeing krausen there’s almost certainly yeast in the lacto you pitched. (At least one lab has confirmed the presence of yeast in some of the lacto pitches from some of the homebrew/pro yeast labs.) You need to check ph or test it with your senses. You should be able to smell or taste the lactic acid.
Just an FYI based on some of the timelines I’m seeing here for a lacto starter. The Omega Yeast Labs Lacto blend apparently works pretty fast and works well at more moderate temps like around 70o F. Here are the instructions from Omega to prepare a starter:
[quote]To use the lacto blend for kettle souring a 5 gallon batch, prepare a 1 liter starter of approximately 1.040 specific gravity and pour contents of pouch into unhopped starter. Incubate 24-48 hours at room temperature to increase cell count.
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They say it will sour the unhopped wort in 24 to 48 hours at around the same temps.
I can confirm the Omega blend works fast. I used it at 85F and it took 10 gallons of Berliner wort from 4.3 to 2.9 pH in 18 hours. I made a 1500 ml starter 6 days earlier and held it at 85F right up to the point of pitching it. I boiled it for 90 minutes and pitched a healthy starter of 1056 then fermented it at 63F. I will be racking to keg this weekend and tasting it - I expect to need blending on this one…
I’m trying to figure out timing, and this throws a bit of a monkey wrench into an already difficult process as far as trying to keep my schedule free for a window to do the post boil souring. I assumed 24 hours would be the soonest it would be ready to roll.
It didn’t get to 4.1 spontaneously. Lacto is doing its thing. You are probably targeting somewhere in the mid or low 3 realm. I’d suggest giving that starter some heat and see if you can encourage more growth.
Worth mixing up another starter (scaled down in size of course) and testing starting pH before tossing your current starter? My experience with Lacto was it didn’t behave like I wanted it to. But still did the job eventually.
I have done three lactic starters using the grain technique. I am 2 for 3 so far. The bad one was caused by not putting enough to co2 in solution to drive out the O2. I never saw bubbling in my starters but i did smell a yogurt like odor after 8 - 12 hours. The bad one smelled like bile or vomit and after listen to the chad yakobsen show on the bn, I now know it was butric acid.