Hey all, thinking about starting a Sauergut culture and I have a few questions.
When making a mini mash at 1.040 what temp and for how long are you supposed to mash? Could you just steep grains? And does it need to be a certain ph or water profile?
Do you have to boil before you inoculate it?
Have you seen this? A Sauergut Reactor – The Modern Brewhouse
Yes, that’s where I got my info but he doesn’t specify for how long you have to mini mash or what temp for the mini mash, just saw that he didn’t boil tho so that answered one of my questions, guess I missed that part lol
I keep a culture going in a 1 gallon mini keg. Feeding it with dilute first runnings From that days brew.
If Lupulous see this, I know he keeps a sauergut culture going for all of his German style lagers. Maybe he’ll weigh in.
Also, since this forum tends to be bit anonymous - let me also state that he brews some of the finest German beers I have ever tasted! In love the occasional invite to come and work evaluations.
And this is a home brewer in the town with the likes of Live Oak and ABGB. Dude’s game is strong!
I can second every point of what Matt says.
It’s not the medium that matters in creating saurergut, its the bugs. Using DME or LME to create a modest gravity wort works fine. Then throw in a handful of raw grain, cover the vessel to prevent any air ingress, and keep the wort in the 100F range.
Yes, that concoction may smell funky or bad for a few days. But as long as you don’t allow any air ingress, the lacto species and other innocuous species will crowd out the stinkers and you’ll likely end up with a nice multi-spectrum culture that produces good saurergut. The only bad thing is that these bugs don’t survive well if you’re not constantly keeping them fed. Breweries that use saurergut, have dedicated fermenters that are used to culture and ferment saurergut.
In using sauer gut, is it added to the beer by volume or by pH measurement and when - in the mash or boil or in the fermenter or at spund? Or more than at one time?
For a 15 gallon batch of helles I will use 1000ml in the mash and 1000 mls at the end of the boil. This gets my ph to about 5.4-5.5 in the mash and 5.2-5.3 at knockout.
This is brewing with RO water and adding about 30ppm of calcium to the brewing water.
To recharge the sauergut culture I collect first runnings during the mash Vorlauf and dilute it down to around 11-12 Plato so the sauergut culture gets fed with 50% new wort. This brings the ph above 4 and the culture will start to grow again. It gets incubated at 100F for 48 hours and then room temp for about 24 hours. Check the ph and it should be under 3.5 and then gets stored in the fridge till next brew. So far storing for 8 weeks hasn’t been an issue.
I initially started the culture with malt extract and pure cultures of lacto plantarum and helveticus. I couldn’t get the culture to start using uncrushed grain so resorted to the pure cultures. I think there will be some evolution in the culture over time?
It has been pretty easy to maintain and use now that I have a process that works. There was some trial and error initially finding the best vessel to use. I ended up with a 1 gallon mini keg which works well since I can purge and dispense with co2. I do open it up to pour in the new wort but purge it quickly after.
It definitely adds a sort of white grape character to the beers. Most noticeable in delicate beers like helles. I feel like it’s a bit more muted in Pilsner where the bitterness and hops are more pronounced.
Curious why you use 30 ppm. I’ve always targeted 50.
Correction. Calcium level in the mash is actually much higher. 30 ppm would be the level in the kettle. For Pilsners I add (.5) grams per gallon of gypsum and (.5) GPG of calcium chloride into the mash and then also into the kettle. For malty styles like helles I only add the mash addition of salts and the sparge water dilutes.
Thx for the clarification.
just brainstorming, but what do you guys think about rather than maintaining a sauergut reactor… essentially making a lactic starter culture about a week before you brew the intended beer?
just like a yeast starter, but inoculating it with the lactic cultures some mentioned above, getting the right temp and letting it sit for a week before you brew the lager, then adding it to the mash?
If you’re going that route, then you might as well just brew a kettle sour style beer and leave it aside. The point of the reactor is to have a constant fresh supply being produced, not for propagating pitchable bugs. You’re boiling the sauergut additions, so you don’t need to worry about keeping living microbes around. If you’re brewing a one-off beer with the sauergut, you can brew a one-off sauergut as well.
oh, no i meant/said adding it to the mash, so yes it would be boiled, but would a 7 day old(or longer if need be?) ~1 litre addition of soured wort provide what the sauergut supposedly provides? or does that require weeks/months of development?
people often suggest leaving out a pint of stout uncovered for a few days, then adding it to guinness mash or boil.
Now when adding the sauergut to the mash would you add it to the strike water or wait til after the grain is mixed in? Either or?
To best distribute that addition, its best add to the strike water and mix thoroughly. After the grain is combined with the water, its more difficult to attain and assure that everything is well mixed. This advice applies to your salt additions too!
Also Brewtan-B and N-Meta if you’re into that.
Am I correct in thinking the purpose of sauergut is to remove O2? Or is it intended as a pH adjustment?
I think mainly to adjust PH, with the added benefit of flavor from biological activity on wort medium vs concentrated acids. I’ve heard it can be an oxygen scavenger in the mash if one were to dough in low enough for activity but I don’t think that is sauergut’s best contribution.