Gearing up to a first kettle sour beer

[Ciaran]

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!

[cunnol]

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...

[armedcor]

Oh any chance of that recipe 😉

[cunnol]

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/

[garciaBernal]

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! 

[Hop Bomb]

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!

[Ciaran]

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.

[Hop Bomb]

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.

[Ciaran]

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.

[garciaBernal]

And if you get really stuck you can consult this site. It covers everything.
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Wort_Souring

[Ciaran]

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/

Time will tell I suppose.  Will report back.

[garciaBernal]

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.

[Ciaran]

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/

[BrewDorg]

How many biokult tabs would you use in a 23L batch?

[garciaBernal]

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.