On a recent vacation I met with a Head Brewer at a brewery that shall remain nameless (I didn’t check if I could share his technique). He was making a Lacto soured beer. The technique is to keep the wort in the kettle holding the temp somewhere between 100 F and 120 F and innoculating with a Lacto culture from Wyeast. Once he reaches his desired sourness he boils the wort and ferments it. This way equipment is not in contact with a live Lacto culture. I liked the idea so I decided to replicate it home brew style. I mashed my Berliner Weiss tonight. Ran it off into my kettle, held a temp of 180 F for 15 minutes (thank you Chad from Crooked Stave and the BN), cooled it to 120 F and then ran it into an extra 5 gallon round Igloo I had. The Igloo is filled to the top, the temp is 117 F. I pitched the White Labs WLP677. I had read in Wild Brews that it is critical to keep oxygen levels as low as possible for Lacto or to prevent Acetobactor. So I took plastic wrap and covered the wort; pushing the wrap down until it touches the wort. I then placed the Iglo top securely on and left it.
Now my question-Will the Lacto produce a gas like CO2 that might build some pressure? I’m concerned if it does it will blow the lid or something. Long story short question.
IANAMB (I Am Not A Micro Biologist) but I think that lacto does not produce significant gasses. When I make yogurt it doesn’t build any presure in the little cups.
I thought the same thing. I have made yogurt before and had seen no gasses like a yeast fermentation creates. I asked because I was on the Mad Fermantationist website and read about his 100% Lacto Berliner Weisse experiment. It looked like there was a lot of CO2 coming out of the fermenter.
I inoculated wort with WLP677 in a 5 gallon round Iglo water cooler last night. I left very little head space and even placed plastic wrap across the wort to keep out oxygen. I then securely placed the lid on. The wort was at 117 F when I pitched the vial. I am concerned about possible pressure build up in the closed system. I wanted to know if WLP677 will produce any gas while creating lactic acid? Should I be venting gas somehow to avoid blowing the lid off the Iglo or worse?
Lactobacillus makes CO2. Everything living I know of produces CO2 as part of its metabolism, but I’m not a biologist so I could be wrong. In any case, my sour worts appear to produce about as much CO2 as a yeast would.
EDIT: I forgot about plants. Those don’t produce CO2.
If I recall Wild Brews correctly, Lacto Delbruekii, which I assume is what you got, produces 1 molecule of CO2 for each molecule of lactic acid. I’ll try to remember to check at home. Different lactos do different things so experience with yoghurt may not be that helpful.
Anyway Igloo coolers generally allow air in and out so you can drain cold water through the bottom tap. So I wouldn’t worry about the lid blowing off unless you did something to block the vent.
Actually you were right the first time. At night plants release CO2 because of cellular respiration. But, it’s less than they take in during active photosynthesis so it’s a net negative but you were right that they do produce CO2.
If you haven’t tried using wild lacto, it might be a good way to save a few bucks. Those lacto cultures from the yeast lab aren’t cheap. I’ll make a starter of 2-3L, add dextrose to 1.040 or so, then add 1/2 cup of base grain. If you keep it hot, it’ll be sour in a day. Pitch that into the wort, then the wort will be tart in about 24 hours, sour in 48, and really sour in 72. That the procedure I use on all my sour beers. I haven’t used a commercial culture, so I can’t compare the two, but my way works “well enough” for me.
I’ve been saying to myself “I’m not ready to jump into sour beers quite yet” for a while now, but I think this thread has changed my mind. It sounds like I can use this technique with no further equipment needed. Raspberry Berliner, here I come.
What is the purpose for bringing the temp up to 180? Do you really need to pasteurize the wort if you’re planning on souring it anyways?
My thought was to simply pull the grain bag from my cooler after the mash was finished (I use BIAB in a 5-gallon cooler), add enough cool water to bring the temp to 120, then pitch the lacto. Once it hits the sourness level I like, I’d run off to my brew kettle and boil.
Mash temperatures are probably hot enough to kill all the lacto present but not other mean and terrible bugs. Given the proportions of grain in a mash there are probably plenty of them in there.
I’ve read the horror stories of clostridium (sweaty socks / vomit) infections from sour-mashing. I don’t know what’s going on with those. The way I sour the wort after making a sour starter from grain has never given me any noticeable levels of anything unpleasant. I’ve done it that way about 10 times now, fwiw.
I just run-off my mash at whatever mash temp was (150 or so) then let it cool to 110-120, pitch my sour starter, then keep the bucket wrapped with a towel and a heater belt for 2-3 days.
Here’s my question and then the answer I received from White Labs:
White Labs,
I inoculated wort with WLP677 in a 5 gallon round Iglo water cooler last night. I left very little head space and even placed plastic wrap across the wort to keep out oxygen. I then securely placed the lid on. The wort was at 117 F when I pitched the vial. I am concerned about possible pressure build up in the closed system. I wanted to know if WLP677 will produce any gas while creating lactic acid? Should I be venting gas somehow to avoid blowing the lid off the Iglo or worse?
Hi Sean,
Lactic acid production will produce some CO2 so it’s probably best to have some sort of pressure relief in your Igloo cooler, or just put the lid on loosely so the CO2 can escape. The last thing you want is a sour beer bomb in your house!
How long was he (and are you) tying up your kettle to get the desired sourness?
For a commercial brewery, that sounds like a really big drain on production time. Especially since they are already buying lactic cultures (not just relying on culturing lacto from the grain).
Update- The sour worting in the Iglo was a failure. To quote from my Facebook page, “The experiment smells like failure. Sophia walked into the garage and said she thought we had dirty diapers in a diaper genie. A bad sign since that’s a smell associated with enterobacter. Not good. At a double header Futsal game will check it when I get home.”
I definately had an enterobacter infection (the smell was more then horrible- think of super ripe diapers). The bad wort went down the gutter. On day two I didn’t have any ph change so I threw some two row in. The ph was at 4.0 by the next morning but the infection had already taken hold. Who knows how I got it; just need to prevent it going forward.
What I’ve learned- the bad bugs can’t reproduce below 4.3 ph, survive without oxygen, or with 2% alcohol present (all in Wild Brews; pg 115). When I pitched a single vial in 5 gallons I didn’t pitch enough. Make a starter (give the lacto a head start). Chad Yacobson of Crooked Stave recommended bringing the wort up to 180 F for 15 minutes to give yourself a blank slate to work with (on the Brewing Network interview).
I will try again this week- big lacto starter, big yeast starter (Wild Brews states saccharomyces can’t reproduce below 4.5 ph; pg 115). I will make a wort again, bring it to 180F for 15 minutes, drop to 110F, pitch the lacto starter, cover the wort with CO2, seal the fermenter with an air lock, place in my garage (over 100F right now), wait at least 48 hours to check ph and taste, if satisfied with souring pitch yeast after droping temp to 68F. I have added 10% acidulated malt to get the ph down as well in the grist. My grist is 50% pilsner/two row, 40% wheat malt, 10% acidulated (Wheat by Stan H is another good book with tips on BW and Gose). I will be adding raspberries if all goes well (haven’t determined how much yet). This will not be to style since I expect a abv close to 6%; guess I will call it an Imperial. I plan on updating so others can get some ideas. By no means would I say this is the only way to sour a beer, so I wouldn’t argue with all the other processes mentioned.
The question about the commercial brewery- This is a brew pub. They have a limited number of fermenters and all appeared to be in use. I didn’t ask since I hadn’t tried this yet about how long it ties up the equipment. I asked how long it took to get to where he wanted it and he said he checks using a wine tritrate kit and when its done he boils like a normal beer. I assume maybe a day or two. I think they must pitch a large amount of lacto to do the work. This beer beat Russian River Supplication and Allagash Mattina Rossa for the gold at the 2012 world beer cup in the American Sour Category.
You still want the heat to accelerate lacto performance. As you point out, there’s no need to hit a certain temperature to try to help lacto outperform and crowd out less desirable bacteria but the heat will still make it ferment quicker so he will actually lose less production time keeping it warm than letting it sit at room temperature.
I mash like a clean beer, sparge, bring it to a full boil, cool to 115F and toss in grain. Once it is sufficiently sour I reboil then treat it like a regular beer. Often I sour wort only part of the wort and let it go for several days and then add it at the beginning of the boil. Never had a problem with nastiness. I do my sour worts in a growler (so you can see why it’s easier to just sour part) but I fill it into the neck so there is very little oxygen contact. That is probably where you are going wrong with the igloo. I would recommend souring in a glass carboy or some other container with a very small opening or at a minimum use saran wrap over the top of the liquid in your cooler and push out all the air bubbles so there is next to no exposure.
Also, make sure you’re not dumping a sour wort that smells the way it should, even if it doesn’t smell delightful. A sour wort will stink a bit. I think it smells like rotten creamed corn. Others have said sour milk, sour grains, etc. It’s not a great smell but it should be distinctly different from a vomit or fecal smell. Before you think it’s gone bad, really ask yourself whether that smell reminds you of creamed corn gone bad. If it does, you are ok. The smell will go away after fermentation. I promise.
If you end up with a bad vomit or fecal smell and you’re especially daring, you could do what Chad also talked about in that interview. Pitch brett. It will convert the foulness into interesting flavors. I’ve never done it but if somebody would know whether it works, it would be him.
That is really weird. I’ve never had a sour wort that smelled like anything but sauerkraut. I remember reading something about how the yeast-lab Brett strains don’t come with very many cells, compared to a Sacc. yeast. I suspect your Lacto culture was just too small to out-compete the other bugs. One of the benefits to using a starter is you can smell/taste it before you use it to make sure your bugs are working correctly.
Tonight I tried again. This time I made a liter starter for the lactobacillus (apple juice) 2 days in advance. It had lots of carbon dioxide activity. I also put the 100 F wort in a fermenter, purged with carbon dioxide until the Star San dissipated. Finally I placed a one way gas valve on the fermenter. I should get the souring results I want.
I heard Chad say the same thing about butyric acid and Brett. I got to tell you this was BAD! The Igloo has been ruined and is permeated with the awful smell. Not even worth the try to me.
I will update just in case some else searches this thread on the subject.