One for the sour experts....
Planning on dipping my toe into sour beer this week and I've got everything I need for a kettle sour berliner weisse - but I have a couple of things that are troubling me.
First one is temperature control.
I already have a tall larder fridge + stc1000 for normal ales and I've an IPA bubbling away in there at the moment. I use a brewbelt for heating but I don't think I can get it to 40 C for the kettle sour (or at least I'd be worried about the safety side of having it constantly on - is this ill founded?). I've spoken to others who suggested using an aquarium heater in a builders bucket of water but since it's an electric kettle and has permanent wiring I can't submerge it.
For this first brew I was planning to get it down to 40 C, pitch the lacto and let it free drop which as far as I understand, is ok but will take a little longer to get there. The question is would I be better putting it into the fridge along with the IPA but risk cross contamination or just leave it at room temperature in a spare room and wrap a sleeping bag around it? For the first option I was thinking about sealing the kettle with gaffer tape to prevent contamination of the IPA - am I right to worry about this or am I being paranoid?
Second question is now that I have a nice shiny pH meter to check when I've got down to a pH of 3.5 - how do I sanitise the probe afterwards? I doubt they can withstand boiling water - will starsan be enough to kill the bugs?
Ta!
Brewed a berliner weisse early last year. It was my first all grain brew so I was flying by the seat of my pants, no ph meter, just tasted it and boiled once I got that acidic tang. Personally, I got it down to around the high 40s I believe, wrapped it in a lagging jacket with a brewbelt and a brewpi I made. No issues keeping it at that temp for a day or two, think it was march when I brewed so a little warmer ambient temp than now. Planning on making another this summer. Had 'Like Weisse' by To Ol in London in the summer of 2015, best summer beer I've ever tasted but you can't get it here so I emailed the brewery and they came back with the recipe in 2 hours so it was based on that. Gonna try it again for the summer, very light berliner weisse with a great mouthfeel, maybe I'll just make it now...
Oh any chance of that recipe 😉
absolutely,
here you go,
can't remember my hopping levels, think I lost the beersmith version of the recipe when I went from my nicked version to a legit paid for one.
My version was a lot more sour but still very nice so that prob clouded some of the hop flavour, plus it was my first ever AG and 3rd brew all told so I aint got much advice on it.
35% Pilsner
5% Biscuit
10% Cara Pils
30% Wheat Malt
5% Melanoidin
15% Unmalted Wheat
OG 1035
FG 1006
Add Lactic bacteria after mash until it reaches 3,5 ph then boil.
Citra for boil and Motueka for Dry hopping.
Ferment with a German Ale yeast of your choice.
Website link for a little more info
http://shop.to-ol.dk/product/likeweisse/
What I did was make a 1 litre starter and added a spoon of Glenisk and left for a few days with no oxegenation at 40. I added the 1 litre post-mash and severely insulated once temp was down to low 40's. After 18 hours my starter of 3.2pH had my wort down to 3.5pH which is what I wanted so I proceeded with a normal 60 minute boil and made a highly hopped beer(with low bitterness) from it with added mango. Turned out deadly but I did ferment it out with brett. The low pH can affect some yeasts.
With the pH meter I always draw off samples so I'm never directly dipping into a fermenter or a mash or wort so no real worry about cross contamination.
Hope some of this helps!
Your lacto wont effect the IPA, its inhibited by hops. You should kill the lacto with heat after souring - so you can put that soured wort anywhere you want in your setup & not worry about contamination.
Id do a 90 min boil first, then chill to 38c & pitch your lacto for souring. Purge your souring vessel with co2 & if you are setup for aeration, run co2 through your aeration setup when you are chilling your wort from boiling to 38c. Once your desired ph is reached just ramp up the temp to 85c for a bit to kill the lacto, then chill to fv & ferment with your fave sacch strain. Boiling for 90 min before souring means you wont get DMS, or meaty musty aromas developing during your souring period. Not boiling after souring keeps more of those lovely hay, apple & lemon aromatics from the lactic fermentation in the beer.
Im using biocult lacto from Boots or the health food store. Works really well. Happy brewing!
Great stuff folks. The hops thing is obvious now that you've pointed it out so that's settled the head.
I don't have C02 (I've kegs/reg/taps but the C02 is on the list) so I'll have to take my chances this time at least. Hoping I'll be ok since it's not a sour mash nor grain based lacto but rather a pure wyeast lacto culture so fingers crossed.
Thanks for the tip on the 90 boil.
The pH meter I would normally take samples and chill them briefly in the freezer, but I just know some day I'll get lazy and risk infecting something. I guess as long as it's pre-boil you're grand, just need to remember not to dip it into any fermenters.
The recipe I'm following isn't a million miles away from the ToOl one. Using citra and WLP1007 german ale yeast.
Oh I almost forgot one very important thing - You should pre acidify your wort after the boil & before pitching your lacto. Acidify to 4.5 ph. This will prevent any risk from Botulism & its better for foam stability in the finished beer.
Yeah good man that's in the plan, although my lactic acid seems to be way more acidic than the any estimates beersmith is giving me. Last time it called for 5.1ml I was down to 5.2 in the mash with a 1ml addition. Learned that lesson the hard way on a previous brew that the mash ended up at 4.9 and got tipped down the drain after bottle conditioning.
And if you get really stuck you can consult this site. It covers everything.
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Wort_Souring
Brewed this last night and have to say everything went pretty smoothly. Hit all the right numbers and got my pH down to 4.5 before putting it to bed around midnight.
Poking around the web though, I wonder have I made a mistake with my lacto choice of WLP677. I can't say I wasn't warned as some of the descriptions I read before going with it did say it's not great for kettle souring. But the other strains were out of stock so I thought I'd give it a go at least.
I found this which concludes that "Lactobacillus delbrueckii from White Labs was the worst performer with respect to ability to drop the pH at any tested temperature" :) It only ever gets down to a pH of 4.5 - so I'm wondering if starting at a pH of 4.5 means I'll effectively see no change or will it still drop by the same relative level
https://phdinbeer.com/2015/08/05/beer-microbiology-lactobacillus-ph-expeirment/ (https://phdinbeer.com/2015/08/05/beer-microbiology-lactobacillus-ph-expeirment/)
Time will tell I suppose. Will report back.
If you see no movement after 24 hours try the biokult as recommended by HopBomb or you can drop in a spoon of Glenisk Greek yogurt original and it'll do a job too. Cheaper options in the long run than buying lacto from White Labs.
Brilliant, will add them to the grocery list ;)
Is this the ones? These have 7 different types of lacto in them so I'm guessing so...
http://www.boots.com/en/Bio-Kult-Capsules-30_1265929/ (http://www.boots.com/en/Bio-Kult-Capsules-30_1265929/)
How many biokult tabs would you use in a 23L batch?
They're the ones alright. I usually make one litre starters with about 5 of them a few days in advance. Never pitched direct into 25 litres but maybe double it up to ten. I've tried both biokult and Glenisk but prefer the yogurt way of doing it.
Hop Bomb, I found your initial post on kettle souring and saw this note 'bio kult contains spore forming bacteria so you will need to hot caustic soak your souring vessel to kill it'
Would the boil not achieve the same effect?
A boil will kill it but some people transfer over to a vessel seperate from the boil kettle to lower their pH then transfer back to the kettle, so that vessel would need the hot caustic soak.
Quote from: garciaBernal on January 19, 2017, 01:35:13 PM
A boil will kill it but some people transfer over to a vessel seperate from the boil kettle to lower their pH then transfer back to the kettle, so that vessel would need the hot caustic soak.
ah right, cheers
Checked the pH yesterday after 24hrs but no change, still sitting at 4.5. Gave it a gentle stir last night and took a peek this morning and it looks like something is starting to happen, best way I can describe it is it looks like it's starting to fizz. Will check the pH again this evening and fingers crossed it's on it's way (or infected ^-^).
Looking good, dropped from 4.5 down to 4.22 today. Fizzing away and starting to taste like it should, a little tart but still sweet. Hoping that come sunday I'll be fit to give it a 15m boil with some citra and add the German yeast to dry it out and give it some character. I think I'm hooked.
Excellent stuff, Ciaran.
Following this with great interest. Looks like we have a topic (demo??) for our first club meet of the year :)
-Barry
Took another pH reading this evening, and I reckon the low temperature is holding things back as the fermentation chamber is holding about 18.5C to cater for the IPA. Despite that the Berliner Weisse pH has dropped to 4.01 so hopefully another 2 days should get it where I want it.
Still a nice bit of activity going on
(https://gm1.ggpht.com/_1P8pFCxjE4T5blq063Lt0RDBkBGfWxs9aEcVYYleh1Va4RjIMTCNyu8kscFcs7vu00AXcjWzjrMWc79iP58gNcIG8nQTajPj6O67RdxMhSL_REu3GkjNDgifBen6IXLa-ERfyo1PvAh46avXF185BgARH_ulqN250D8E-EMczcycO975zej9KBBhAowL_SRWWatd4pP98_I5ZtE4cV1iwfAmqtmQsN_ztQc273DXLnQ7-sGpkxSbVLXcLsUGj3tgyZKYUWgosUTuFdP2evrKY-ScbaCsNgVkRNPCDSP48wn5sC-cGhjDsxbuQ0uUoB-776Sp6IlbNzbaqj4BgaDH1Cj2AvWGvVofyYI_FITzSOhGW5Fk-vZrtFYRdyF9ZDBz5Yqd1u3fJgjklUGAP5kOCvcAR4GKxHwopvjkOD-92ayuHPSImTbHYusUGiaejehUt1UNyAG_2MhbAxp_gGJUO1XSjSU0kxYgaos-_wnqzuRunuqFA4FJjz2Ev-QWMl5w_aWrPUzBbje5KW_J2l4gzVfggNrJ4ZVqvp4JBaDXdWvz_u-TlMrLylGDHT9zfdUkm7asm8VA0TMZ6ZofGl35vdCkCzWSTpDBzQESvjkzF8wZj1jeefrcN_B3GeUmoIjwaCSa0h9iSMmxGdwNx2ejFCPrExtzavFu4kJCGdD_73THB79o8OLcPGxj7zKwNp6zHOyijQAtkg=w1920-h925-l75-ft)
Made a penultimate pH check last night.
Getting there slowly, now down to pH of 3.81 which is starting to get tart but not as sour as I'd like. Was hoping to get closer to a pH of 3.5.
Either way I'm going to finish it off tonight with a 15m boil. This is the only free night I have this week so it is what it is. Tastes largely like a berliner weisse should - doughy, cracker / biscuit flavors but just lacking that little bit of extra twang for my liking. Hopefully it drops a bit more today while I'm at work and fingers crossed the hops/yeast add a bit more depth and interest to the flavour profile over the next week or so.
Down to 3.71 and I conceded defeat. Not quite sour enough but still decent flavour so I went for it last night about done a 15 minute boil with 8 IBUs of amarillo and pitched my german ale yeast. Already bubbling this morning. Was surprised the gravity had dropped to 1.012 with just the lacto but next time I think I'll go with WLP672.
If your gravity dropped to 1.012 before you added yeast then I'm afraid you had more than lacto in the wort. There should only be a slight drop in gravity from the lacto.
That is what I thought, especially when I read this. I've had it on the latco almost a week - but yeah worried about it. Have to say it tastes grand.
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/100%25_Lactobacillus_Fermentation (http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/100%25_Lactobacillus_Fermentation)
Mystery potentially solved
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/06/100-lactobacillus-berliner-weisse.html (http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/06/100-lactobacillus-berliner-weisse.html)
QuoteLuckily White Labs’ 677 strain is capable of producing an enzyme which allows it to ferment maltose, maltotriose, and raffinose, ensuring a dry finished beer without aid. In addition to lactic acid, WLP677 also produces both alcohol and carbon-dioxide, so the result should be similar to a beer fermented with yeast
...and he also only noticed minimal tartness.
I take it that the drop in gravity is due to the unpure WLP677 culture? edit: you beat me to it
I'm planning my first Berliner in another month or so and I've read some conflicting opinions when it comes to boiling the wort.
First source I read in regards to boiling post-souring:
Quote from: Sour Beer BlogA benefit of this method, that is particularly applicable to Berliner Weisse production, is the fact that the second boil will also volatize away a number of slightly-off flavors and aromas produced by Lactobacillus fermentation. While a healthy Saccharomyces ferment will help to clean up these flavors as well, the second boil does a great job of producing a truly clean and crisp Berliner Weisse.
And from earlier in the thread.
Quote from: Hop BombNot boiling after souring keeps more of those lovely hay, apple & lemon aromatics from the lactic fermentation in the beer.
I respect both sources of opinion, so I don't quite know what to think (analysis paralysis).
Same boat ;D I went for a short boil anyway as I wanted to add some hop flavour to it given the lack of sourness.
You can be the guinea pig so. We'll see how yours turns out in a month ;)
A week is a long time to kettle sour. Was doing some reading on milk the funk last night and it was saying no more than 5 days. I was able to drop my last batch down in about 24 hours.
As mentioned above - You got a sacch yeast contamination. You may have contaminated it yourself or may have been a white labs issue. WL lacto is/was well known for being contaminated (they may have sorted that issue now with pure pitch process).
You need to maintain your temp at 37 ish c. Do you have temp control on your HLT? If you do then you can sour in that vessel. Have your stc cycle on & off the heating element to maintain temp at 37c for the duration of the lactic ferment. Once you achieve desired tartness you can ramp up the temp to kill lacto, them pump over to your boil kettle & boil away with hops etc. Or if convenient you could just boil in the HLT also.
I can sour 4800 litres with just a 50 litre biokult starter in 12 to 15 hours. You just need to pitch enough cells. I found the milk the funk starter method is best. 10% chalk, 10% apple juic with your wort + your desired lacto culture (not white labs)
Yeah totally understand, ideally I wouldn't have done it this way. A current lack of ability to keep the temperature in the 40's and the fact that I could only get WLP677 (and it is not designed for kettle souring) forced my hand to leave it that bit longer just to see if it would get tart enough. You can only play what's in front of you as they say but hopefully I'll get the temperature side of things under control for version 2 and use a more suitable strain in future. All good learning experience - some great tips being shared, thanks all.
Something has just occurred to me. The yeast infection and drop in gravity is one thing but I since it tasted pretty good I reckoned I'd still be able to salvage it . But a drop in gravity means alcohol was produced. I boiled for 15 mins so I'm thinking I've gone and boiled off the alcohol. Haven't seen much happening since pitching the ale yeast. I got signs of fermentation for about a day but I'm starting to think I'm wasting my time bottling this.
Was the gravity 1.012 before adding the standard yeast? If so I cant see much action happening.
Yeah it was. But I reckon I've gone and boiled all that off. Shouldve done what hop bomb suggested and only pasteurised it.
Alcohol free sour? Might have discovered a new genre 😉
Will be throwing on my first kettle sour later this evening or tomorrow. I plan on just throwing in 7-10 BioKult caps to the wort once cooled down. Is this ok to do with no starter to speak of? I saw from Hop Bomb's previous post that he soured an 80L starter with 24 caps, so I suppose it must be ok? Just looking for reassurance :)
So I put the Berliner into the fermenter last night. Here's my notes on the experience, they might help someone else starting out.
1. Remove grains post mash
2. Boil for 5 mins
3. Cool to 38ºC
4. Sour wort to 4.5pH with lactic acid
5. Pitch 10 BioKult tabs, no starter
6. Purge headspace with CO2 and cover opening with cling film
7. Take pH readings until pH reaches ~3.3-3.5
8. Bring wort to a boil and hop as per recipe
9. Cool to yeast pitching temps
10. Pitch yeast and ferment as normal
11. Dry hop 4 days
Brewday Notes:
pH @ 10 mins - 5.39
pH @ 50 mins - 5.57
Pre-Boil Volume - 26L
Pre-Boil Gravity - 1.030 (1.026 @ 35ºC adjusted)
Pre-acidified wort once dropped to 38ºC. 9ml lactic acid drop 5.61 - 4.49
pH reading @ 24 hours - 3.98
pH reading @ 32 hours - 3.72
Gravity reading - 1.029
pH reading @ 36 hours - 3.60 (meter re-calibrated before this reading)
pH reading @ 48 hours - 3.58
pH reading @ 72 hours - 3.45
Boiled for 1 hour. OG - 1.033
Thanks for posting. I'm planning to get a couple of boxes of bio-kult and revisit this in a couple of weeks time myself. Will be taking a similar approach. Did you notice much of a gravity drop during your kettle souring? Also since I now have CO2 I can do a head space purge which I skipped before. Did you re-purge every time you removed the cling film to take pH readings?
My gravity post-mash was 1.030 and it only dropped down to 1.028 by the end of souring. I soured in my kettle so I just used the tap to take samples. Only purged once at the start when I wrapped it up.
Have a disaster with my Berliner. All was looking well, until I dry hopped. Came back to the fermenter 3 days post dry hop to find a pellicle growing on top of my beer. My hop packet had a hole in it coming out of the freezer so maybe they were contaminated, I don't know..
I wasn't planning on dedicating a keg to sours, but I really can't be arsed bottling this. Anyone else have any luck using kegs for sours and regular beers?
http://m.imgur.com/1ws2P7E
Hard luck, what a pain in the ass. I've had a rotten stinky pellicle and used the fermenter again after cleaning and sanitizing
Yep massive pain in the arse. I've take the risk and filled 10L into my small keg. Fermenter is stainless too so should clean up well. I assume you've had no contamination since your incident?
I think I've figured how this happened too. During the kettle souring period, I was taking samples through my ball valve. Stupidly, I don't remember running any boiling wort through it to sanitise before draining the wort into my fermenter post boil. So I think the lacto was carried in from there, not the dry hop. Would make sense too as I've read the pellicle would likely take more than 2-3 days to form.
Was wondering if you couldn't have just transferred it back to the kettle and brought it up to pasteurisation temp again without losing too much flavour/aroma/alcohol.
Kegged up half of this batch and delighted I did (was going to dump it all). Turned out lovely. Dry hopped With Azacca but not getting too much from it tbh. Pleasant, easy drinking Berliner. Head is like meringue too which I'm very pleased with.
Re-brewed this today, but this time with bio-kult. Purged the head space with my new Co2 tank for the lacto process. Fingers crossed for no yeast gets involved and I don't see any significant gravity drop this time. If all goes well I'm planning on adding some frozen raspberries at the end of primary fermentation.
Also bought some WLP672 to try but haven't decided what to do with it yet.
I've been following this thread with great interest as I plan on trying my first kettle sour in about a month or so. I was just wondering - how exactly do you go about purging the head space if you are using something other than a corney keg to sour in? Could you just use say a picnic tap to spray the Co2 in and around the top of a stockpot and then put plastic wrap and the lid on? Bit of a dumb question I know, but I want to make sure I get everything right!
There might be better ways to do it but I just attached some gas line to the regulator and let it run for about a minute with the lid slightly loose. Plan to repeat the process every time I check the ph if it's not down to 3.5
Didn't get far off the ph of 4.5 before ptching the bio-kult. Took maybe 6ml of lactic acid to get it there.
Down to a pH of 3.55 after 48hr, suspect it's taking longer as it's not warm enough (currently free dropped down to 21C, was round about 30 still yesterday). The good news is it hasn't dropped much gravity this time with the bio-kult (maybe half a point) which in turn has made it a little harder to tell if it's time to boil and kill the lacto due to the sweetness. Hopefully the german ale yeast will dry it out and plan to add raspberries which should give it some more acidity. Might leave it another day to see how it tastes again tomorrow evening. Time to get the yeast starter on the go.