Philly Sour

[dvarga]

Question guys:

Planning to make a fruited sour and use Lallemand Philly Sour instead of souring with lactobacillus.
Currently I am a production staff of "me, myself and I" and would like to cut down on a day...this yeast seems a decent "practical" alternative to kettle souring with lactobacillus and continuing with the brew the next day once the pH is within range.

A brewing colleague of mine had used it and swears it displays diastaticus character. Said he thought it was an anomaly, and tried it again with another brew and got the same result...said they had to use toothbrushes to clean the filler tubes on their canning / bottling line 28 head filler, so it was a lot of work to remove...so he did not recommend using this product.

Obviously this concerns me, as most of my product is packaged and won't be in serving tanks for the duration of it's availability.

From anyone who has used this yeast, I ask the following:

1). Does this yeast display diastaticus? I Iknow Lallemand says it does not have the gene, but perhaps it may be another not identified yet?

2). Is it a significantly longer ferment than a standard ale yeast (currently planning to use Verdant IPA)?

3). Does this yeast ferment fruit well?

4). Is it harder to clean tanks / brewery equipment brewed with it? Do you need a higher concentration of caustic? Acid cleaning as an additional step?

5). Any practical advice using this yeast?

Plan to order ingredients for the brew this week (Mar 14-19), so if anyone can reply during that time, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

[Lallemand Eric]

Hi dvarga, here are some answers to your questions:

(1) The LalBrew Philly Sour strain is STA1-negative. We have tested this extensively in the lab and PCR tests and activity assays for dextrin metabolism are all negative. We have done tests to add large quantities of Philly Sour to a finished non-sour beer and there is no change in abv, density or lactic acid levels. All over-attenuation complaints that we have received and followed up on were determined to be caused by either a wild diastaticus contamination, or premature flocculation, which is a risk since this is a slower fermenting and highly flocculant strain. Reduce the risk of overflocculation by pitching a bit more yeast (>100g/hL) and fermenting between 25-30'C.

(2) Fermentation speed is a function of pitch rate and temperature, as you would expect. A 12'P standard wort pitched with 50g/hL and fermented at 20'C will ferment in about 10 days. A higher pitch rate around 100g/hL and fermenting warmer at 25-30'C should bring the fermentation time down to 6-7 days. Check out this Lallemand pitch rate calculator, optimized for Lallemand strains.

(3) Fruit ferments well with Philly Sour. Adding at the start of fermentation will boost the lactic acid a bit.

(4) There are no special instructions for sanitation, treat it like a normal brewing yeast strain.

(5) For some practical advice on using this strain, check out this Philly Sour Best Practices document.

Or email me at brewing@lallemand.com