Sourcing Lactobacillus for Berlinerweiss

[BrewDude37]

Ive heard that BSI is the best and the cheapest but according to their website it is $200 for 7bbl pitchable which is as much as we will spend on grain for the brew. Is there a cheaper source? I'd really prefer to not mess with acidulated malt but if it is 5% of the cost I might have to make it work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Dylan Greenwood
Falls City Brewing Company
Louisville, KY

[irishod89]

Try Lance at Omega Yeast. info@omegayeast.com or 312.505.5938

http://www.omegayeast.com/?portfolio=lactobacillus-blend

He is based out of Chicago, not sure how far he ships or how the price compares. Good luck.

Ryan
Baxter Brewing Company
Lewiston, Me

[datamine]

Wish I had an answer for you in regards to other options, but I wills say:


Called whitelabs for my first lacto pitch (kettle addition) a few weeks ago, was going to be ~1kusd for 12hL.

Called Bryan at BSI and he sent me out a 12hL pitch of lacto for something like 250usd. and it worked great, beer was good, just want to run a secondary mash in the future.

They may be a little more than you want to spend but I was very happy with the purchase.

[aaron inkrott]

Have you considered building a starter yourself from a vial? Would take a week or so, but would save and also have super healthy lacto.

[Yeast]

Have you considered building a starter yourself from a vial? Would take a week or so, but would save and also have super healthy lacto.

it's not super simple making a starter for Lactobacillus delb.. or brevis.

anaerobic and in the 90-100F range. MRS broth works well, CBW at 8ºP too.

you can buy a homebrew vial of WLP677 and grow it up to pichable in a air tight container, fill to the brim and it will be anaerobic enough. they're aerotolerant but grow better anaerobic.

it's very hard to get a count of them with a regular hemocytometer though but you can guesstimate. either way you can just sour until you get the titratable acidity you want. 0.090 is the weight equivalent for lactic acid if you titrate with 0.1N hydroxide.

which vessle are you pitching into for the sour stage. or are you going to sour post boil in fermentation with yeast competition?

[AnthonyB]

Using one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Anova-Culinary...dp/B00UKPBXM4/ makes it pretty simple. Do 10-to-1 growth steps and let it go until you reach the pH you want (i.e. start at 100mL, sour until 4pH, pitch into 1000mL, sour until 4pH, pitch into 10L, sour until 4pH, etc.) In my experience, 20L will sour 7BBL wort down to 3.5pH in about 36 hours.

To be clear, you use the circulator in a waterbath to keep whatever vessel you're growing the Lacto in at the appropriate temperature.

[gitchegumee]

Source....

I know that Craft Cultures in Michigan has a lacto... Not sure about pricing, but they've been favorable on yeast....

[Yeast]

Using one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Anova-Culinary...dp/B00UKPBXM4/ makes it pretty simple. Do 10-to-1 growth steps and let it go until you reach the pH you want (i.e. start at 100mL, sour until 4pH, pitch into 1000mL, sour until 4pH, pitch into 10L, sour until 4pH, etc.) In my experience, 20L will sour 7BBL wort down to 3.5pH in about 36 hours.

To be clear, you use the circulator in a waterbath to keep whatever vessel you're growing the Lacto in at the appropriate temperature.

pH isn't a real good measure of sour taste, pH and TA don't go hand in hand necessarily. TA is way closer in relation to perceived tartness. you could have a beer at pH 3.4 and one at 3.5 and the one at 3.4 could be twice as tart in grams/Liter of lactic acid.

[MikeyB]

Lacto: Accept no substitutes

Lesson learned the hard way: Do not use acid malt. The amount you'd need to produce the level of sourness required would also deliver a heapin' helpin' of barfy flavors. Don't do it. (Unless you're into that.)

You can grow up a vial or six of delbruekii in a bucket of wort. Exclude air best you can, with gas purge and minimized headspace.

[Junkyard]

Best results I've had with kettle souring so far is doing a starter with a 1L flask and throwing in 1/8 cup or so of honey malt and wheat malt. After a few days it always has a pellicle on top and smells delicious, I toss it in to our 3 bbl batch and it'll sour to 3.5-3.6 ph overnight.
As for the sourness and PH correlation argument. I think using ph to discuss sourness is just fine personally. I think we're splitting hairs saying its not a good enough indicator for testing sourness.

[Yeast]

Best results I've had with kettle souring so far is doing a starter with a 1L flask and throwing in 1/8 cup or so of honey malt and wheat malt. After a few days it always has a pellicle on top and smells delicious, I toss it in to our 3 bbl batch and it'll sour to 3.5-3.6 ph overnight.
As for the sourness and PH correlation argument. I think using ph to discuss sourness is just fine personally. I think we're splitting hairs saying its not a good enough indicator for testing sourness.

not really, if you make a sour start like that completely aseptic and without pure culture you're 100% assured to have more than a few organisms growing, and really lucky you don't have anything making butyric acid.

for example pickles can all have the same pH and some will taste drastically more sour.

pH is a good measurement for sour if you know you only have one acid present, but you have at the very least lactic and carbonic possibly phosphoric from process and acetic from other contamination.

pH strongly does not correlate with perceived acidic taste if more than one acid is in solution.

take lactic acetic and hydrochloric and make solutions all at ph4 and taste them. you'll find out the HCL is actually the least acidic tasting, but it's the strongest acid. even the lactic and acetic will be quite different.

if you get a homofermentative or heterofermentative lactic producer you may get some acetic with your lactic.

[Junkyard]

From my understanding the nasty flavors and aromas get created from aerobic fermentation so as long as you keep it anaerobic you will be fine. I've cultured my own bacteria for 3 batches now without the slightest bit of pukey or poop flavors or aromas.

You said it yourself, if you know it's all the same acid then ph correlates perfectly with your tastebuds. kettle souring usually takes place at a high temperature. As high as 120 degrees F. If you have a mixed culture like me this favors the lactobacillus strains and produces almost exclusively lactic acid. If you switch to using lactic acid in your process such as mash adjustment then you know You have lactic sourness. From small souring trials with other strains I've noticed if you have enough acetic acid to impact your flavor it's usually a bad beer anyways.

[BrewinLou]

Something tells me in the 16th century they did not have a super clean Lacto pitches available. In the spirit of the Weisse and other sours, super clean off the shelf flavor "pure" strain is not always superior or preferable.