# Lallemand Philly Sour yeast



## Moad (2/6/21)

I couldn't find an existing thread in the yeast section, apologies if there is one...

Anyone got experience with this?

I brewed a 80% pils 20% sucrose test batch and threw 2 packs of philly sour on it at 25 degrees. After 6 days it's down to 1.010 and has a very nice tartness. 

Haven't tested with my ph meter yet but confident it is more sour than any kettle sour I've done with lactobacillus plantarum.

I've just thrown some passionfruit on it and I'm very excited about this one. Wrong time of year for a sour but I didn't get around to using the packs I had over summer.

It's a shame you can't repitch but for the convenience I think I will use this a lot to play with different fruits in sours.


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## MHB (2/6/21)

I too am looking forward to hearing more about how it performs.

Have had a bit of a look at the notion that it can’t be repitched, worth reading the Lallement technical Sheets on the yeast.
I think this is the relevant bit





To me it looks like if you practice extremely good hygiene it should be ok to repitch, but you will need to be very clean and avoid any other brewing yeast getting in there
Mark


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## mje1980 (3/6/21)

I did a Berliner Weiss style beer with it. It’s not as sour as a genuine sour but it’s a cracking yeast for pleasantly sour beers. A true sour beer enthusiast might not like it, but it’s definitely worth a try. I’ll use it again for sure.


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## Coalminer (3/6/21)

Have done 3 brews with this yeast
my understanding is that the yeast is exhausted after FG is reached
I have been bottling and bulk priming with table sugar and US-05 and the results are good
some fruits have had better results than others. So far have used cherry, raspberry and mango but the mango was less prominent than the others.
there must be some trick with fruit that I have yet to learn re timing
One observation I have is that the krausen starts out pure white whilst it is in the souring phase and then turns to a more familiar brownish colour after several days.
Definitely need to pitch 2 packs in a standard (for me) 25 litre brew
Never tried to re-pitch either but I have never re-pitched a yeast ever so try if you like. personally the cost of losing a brew is a lot more than the cost of yeast
even without the hours of labour
Mark, I will bring a couple of samples up next week as I need some gas anyway
cheers


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## MHB (3/6/21)

Look forward to it.
Be nice to make the odd sour without the danger if getting something hard to kill in your brewery. More than one micro has done a sour, then a lot more without intending to.
Mark


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## Coalminer (3/6/21)

Yeah, I am using the same equipment for all brews with no obvious problems
cheers, see you Wednesday


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## Dozer71 (3/6/21)

Used this in a 10L experimental batch - full packet at 1.040 and went down to 1.007 - kegged it. Added pineapple & passionfruit at end (or near end) fermentation. Certainly brings a nice tartness to it, but not a full on sour - so makes a great summer quencher. Don't have a pH meter but used those dodgy strips which indicated around 4.0 to 4.1. Will be doing this again for this summer, but upping to full batch


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## yankinoz (3/6/21)

MHB said:


> Look forward to it.
> Be nice to make the odd sour without the danger if getting something hard to kill in your brewery. More than one micro has done a sour, then a lot more without intending to.
> Mark


I wonder if any were able to relabel and serve it, and how many discarded. Any thoughts?


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## MHB (3/6/21)

I know of both being done, know a couple that nearly went to the wall because they couldn’t get control of wild infections. Some of them imported deliberately.
I have always been very reluctant to bring anything like that into a brewery. This stuff is very interesting as it is a yeast that throws Lacto and ethanol, but it is a yeast so it’s much easier to control.
Bacteria tend to be way smaller than yeast (you only need around a 400X microscope to look at yeast, bacteria 1000X or better is the go), have much shorter reproductive times (minutes verses hours for yeast) so they breed faster... lots of reasons bring bacteria into my brewery scares the bejesus out of me.
Philly Sour - not so much as I know I can kill it off easily enough.
Mark


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## TheAussieBrewer (3/6/21)

I really enjoy using the Philly yeast in my sours. My last Raspberry Berliner Weiss came down to 3.2pH and I quite enjoyed the clean lactic sourness.

https://share.brewfather.app/gzZ2XyCuP3ihxV


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## sp0rk (3/6/21)

MHB said:


> Look forward to it.
> Be nice to make the odd sour without the danger if getting something hard to kill in your brewery. More than one micro has done a sour, then a lot more without intending to.
> Mark


I've never had issues when kettle souring, boiling in the kettle generally kills everything
I guess if you've got a barrel program on site there's more issues etc
I noticed no real difference between my kettle soured beers compared to my beers fermented with philly sour, they have a very similar flavour profile sourness wise

We could all just be like Hope Estate and dose the **** out of our beers with pure lactic acid if we were really scared about infections...


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## sp0rk (3/6/21)

Awwww auto censored!


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## MHB (3/6/21)

Yes we could, great tasting beers aren’t they (tongue firmly planted in cheek)

Not so much interested in kettle souring, more in beers like Lambics and Flanders.
If you like sour and cherry try to get a bottle of this, scored some from Jason at the International Beer Collector.




Perhaps the best sour/fruit beer I have had. The base beer was lovely, the cherry version truly divine (20kg of cherries/100L). There is another version with a hint of chocolate (a Hint!) not at all bad either, but for mine the cherry one was the nuts.
I dont drink vast amounts of sours, it's more just an occasional thing for me. I'm happy to pay someone that has been practicing for the last hundred and fiftyish years, if they can get it this right.
Mark


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## Simon N (3/6/21)

This is definitely worth a read: Diving Deep In To Philly Sour - Sui Generis Brewing


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## MHB (3/6/21)

good read thanks
Mark


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## Half-baked (3/6/21)

Thanks Simon, interesting blog…

I wonder how much sugar would be converted into acid rather than ethanol. Would it be enough to make a material difference to the abv? From memory, lactic producing bacteria don’t use much sugar (maybe a point or two), I wonder if being a yeast this would be different?


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## yankinoz (4/6/21)

Half-baked said:


> Thanks Simon, interesting blog…
> 
> I wonder how much sugar would be converted into acid rather than ethanol. Would it be enough to make a material difference to the abv? From memory, lactic producing bacteria don’t use much sugar (maybe a point or two), I wonder if being a yeast this would be different?
> [/QUO
> ...


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## Coalminer (4/6/21)

Thanks Simon - excellent read


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## duncbrewer (4/6/21)

Just picked up a packet of this today, before reading this thread. Food for thought now as to what to do with it.

Decisions decisions.


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## Smokomark (4/6/21)

My brew club, BABB's, had a sour meeting a couple of months ago. Two of us, myself and nickxb, Brewed a very similar beer and pitched philly sour. I pitched one pack, let it ferment out, then dumped in 2kg aldi mixed berries. Nick did same but pitched 2 packs and ended up with a lower pH finish, a fair bit sourer. 

Personally I preferred mine as I like a bit of sour but not too much. I'm going to repitch this weekend but will up the fruit and see how it goes. Also got 3 other cubes so will play around with other fruit additions.


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## nothern.brewer (25/11/21)

I made a raspberry berliner weisse, the KegLand recipe, it was absurdly good.

@duncbrewer did you end up using it? I bought 4 packets recently to make sours, I'll use starters from now on.

Also - consider using Philly Sour in ciders. Pitch it after primary is nearly complete and jack the temp up to nearly 30c. I made a Mangrove Jacks raspberry cider, only Philly Sour saved it. My mates loved it, will make again.


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## duncbrewer (25/11/21)

nothern.brewer said:


> I made a raspberry berliner weisse, the KegLand recipe, it was absurdly good.
> 
> @duncbrewer did you end up using it? I bought 4 packets recently to make sours, I'll use starters from now on.
> 
> Also - consider using Philly Sour in ciders. Pitch it after primary is nearly complete and jack the temp up to nearly 30c. I made a Mangrove Jacks raspberry cider, only Philly Sour saved it. My mates loved it, will make again.


Yes I did use the Philly sour, I used it to sour a sour IPA a clone of a Mitch Steele recipe Straight from the Tart. First 4 days at 28 celsius and then when pH had dropped to 3.6 I pitched in some opshaug kveik and bumped the temp up to 30. Certainly came out sour, cleared spectacularly fast but I didn't really capture the dry hop aromas that it should have had. Nearly finished the keg now. I've got another packet to use and will probably use it for a more traditional sour beer than my Sour IPA effort. 
I made a Mangrove Jacks elderflower cider that was very underwhelming even with only a small amount of the sweetener added it was too sweet and lacked the aroma of the elderflower more like medicine than beverage. I wouldn't want to waste a packet of philly sour on that at all.
Have turned on Watch so I won't miss developments on this thread.


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## nothern.brewer (25/11/21)

duncbrewer said:


> Yes I did use the Philly sour, I used it to sour a sour IPA a clone of a Mitch Steele recipe Straight from the Tart. First 4 days at 28 celsius and then when pH had dropped to 3.6 I pitched in some opshaug kveik and bumped the temp up to 30. Certainly came out sour, cleared spectacularly fast but I didn't really capture the dry hop aromas that it should have had. Nearly finished the keg now. I've got another packet to use and will probably use it for a more traditional sour beer than my Sour IPA effort.
> I made a Mangrove Jacks elderflower cider that was very underwhelming even with only a small amount of the sweetener added it was too sweet and lacked the aroma of the elderflower more like medicine than beverage. I wouldn't want to waste a packet of philly sour on that at all.
> Have turned on Watch so I won't miss developments on this thread.


Definitely consider dropping the sweetener and add the yeast. I added the sweetener and hated the flavour, so glad I accidentally cross contaminated with philly because it saved it from going straight down the drain.

Those mangrove jack kits are way too expensive for what you get.


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## duncbrewer (25/11/21)

Agreed price is high, usability low I took off the top carefully to read the paper instructions and found this was pretty much impossible to do without opening the juice bag. The premium stout was dire as well ( bought as a first lockdown panic buy as no grains available) .
I preferred the black rock straight cider kit, I left it for months in primary and then decanted to an allrounder keg , primed it and it carbed up after a few weeks and was great. I was told by a brewshop owner that as it was totally clear when I transferred there was no yeast in it and so it wouldn't carb up. As we know clear beer has yeast in it, I think MHB gave some figures somewhere for the quantities in clear beer. I wouldn' t buy another mangrove jack kit, but have found someone who likes the bottled stout so that's a bonus rather than tipping it.


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