Gearing up to a first kettle sour beer

[Ciaran]

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. 

[BrewDorg]

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.

[Ciaran]

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. 

[revel_and_chaff]

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!

[Ciaran]

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.

[Ciaran]

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.