First sour beer

[Muz]

I've been brewing for a couple of years now and I want to take the plunge into sour beers. I've been reading Milk the Funk Wiki and I thought I'd give their Berliner a go:

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Berliner_Weissbier#Milk_the_Funk_Berliner_Weissbier_Recipe

A couple of recipe questions:

WTF is Floor-Malted Bohemian Wheat and what would be a good sub as I can't find it in Australian stores. Would any Malted wheat do or is there something special that the floor imparts?

For bacteria they call for Lactobacillus Blend (brevis, delbrueckii, and plantarum) from Omega Yeast. Again, this doesn't seem to be easily available in Australia. Is this something I can sub?... just noticed they do note you can use Goodbelly or other probiotics. Should I just go into a health food store and ask for a probiotic? Do I still need to do the starter?

Finally, I know its recommended to have a separate fermenter etc when using brett. I assume it's find to use my usual fermenter/keg with lacto so long as I give it a good clean with PBW after?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[donald_trub]

I've had good results just by using Inner Health Plus IBS support pills. I went that way because there weren't any fast souring lactos on the market a couple of years back. These days there's probably fast souring products from all the labs. The IBS pills are a bit expensive compared to a yeast pack, so if you don't take them regularly they might go bad before you use them again for another beer. They were pretty no fuss, though. I think I threw them in around 40C or so and wrapped my kettle in a sleeping bag and left it until the next day.

The good thing about using IBS is you can use it in the kettle to sour the beer, then once soured, boil it to kill off the lacto, then use your regular fermenter. Not the most complex sour ever, but for a BW it does the trick.

 

[ABG]

I'm in the same boat @Muz. I'm currently researching and was wondering whether these probiotic drinks https://perkii.com.au/ might work? Any experienced sour brewers (I'm talking about your beers, not you) that are able to comment? I like the idea of adding some additional fruit flavours into my pending sour, but I would like some feedback about whether I'm going off the rails here with my thinking.

 

[huez]

I've been using the lallemand sour pitch lately. I get good flavour and consistently gets to 3.2pH at around 30c in a few days. i don't kettle sour. The yeast bay and wyeast strains are also good but you will need to make a starter.

I used to ibs capsules once and said never again. Took forever to sour and the flavour was horrible. Waste of money, buy something meant for brewing. If you want fruit flavour, add fruit.

 

[ABG]

Thanks @huez Where have you been buying your Lallemand Sour Pitch? Do they stock it at Hop and Grain?

 

[huez]

Thanks @huez Where have you been buying your Lallemand Sour Pitch? Do they stock it at Hop and Grain?

Not sure if i've seen it there, they might do though. The brew shop in peakhurst have it and also beerco stock it.

 

[Wobbly74]

I've done a couple of kettle sours with ibs tablets no problem. Make sure you don't get any oxygen ingress when souring and open the ibs tablets when adding to pour in the contents otherwise they take longer to sour and increase the chance of unwanted bacteria. I tried souring in a no chill cube last time and seemed to work well.