Gearing up to a first kettle sour beer

[cunnol]

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?

[garciaBernal]

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.

[cunnol]

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

[Ciaran]

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  ).

[Ciaran]

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.

[Bazza]

Excellent stuff, Ciaran.

Following this with great interest. Looks like we have a topic (demo??) for our first club meet of the year 

-Barry

[Ciaran]

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 

[Ciaran]

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.

[Ciaran]

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.

[garciaBernal]

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.

[Ciaran]

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

[Ciaran]

Mystery potentially solved

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/06/100-lactobacillus-berliner-weisse.html

Luckily 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. 

[BrewDorg]

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:

A 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.

Not 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).

[Ciaran]

Same boat  I went for a short boil anyway as I wanted to add some hop flavour to it given the lack of sourness.

[BrewDorg]

You can be the guinea pig so. We'll see how yours turns out in a month