Batz said:
With the interest in sour brews of late I was wondering where brewers get their lactobacillus from. Wyeast 5335 is great but fairly expensive, do brewers make a starter and split it up like yeasts?
I have tried 'Ethical Nutrients IBS Support 30 Capsules' with no luck at all
http://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/buy/49531/Ethical-Nutrients-IBS-Support-30-Capsules?utm_source=dgm&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=Skimbit
I made a starter and kept them at the right temperate for a few days and found they did not sour at all?
I've heard you can use a yogurt culture as well?
Interested in you guys who have done this and brewed with it with good results, rather than I read somewhere...
Cheers
Batz
Hey Batz.
TLR; Have used Ethical Nutrient IBS L.Plantarum caps successfully twice for kettle souring Berliner. Lovely Lactic bite and drops pH well. So worth trying again.
I have just made my 3rd Berliner Weisse using the Kettle Souring method to great success. My first batch was inoculated with Lacto from Raw Grains, however soon got onto a pure strain with the desire of repeat-ability.
I use the Ethical Nutrient Probiotics that you have listed and for my 2nd and 3rd batches this worked really well.
I will go into a bit of detail that may help...I got a fair bit of advice from a local Brewer here in NZ who uses these Probiotics to do kettle sours on a home brew scale. Here they cost me $30 for 30 caps, but using 5 caps means 6 batches - which is significantly cheaper than White Labs which is $18 a vial.
I have a fairly standard Berliner Weisse recipe that is 60% Pils, 35% Wheat and 5% Acid Malt. Mash at 65c to keep dry. OG of my latest batch was 1.042. Mash and Sparge like normal. Heat up to boiling to sanitize my wort chiller. Cool down to 45c. Purge kettle head space with Co2 (i dont bubble through as I have already done a short boil that helps remove O2 from the wort. Adjust pH to around 4.5 with Lactic Acid.Add the contents of 5 caps for 23Lts. Cover kettle with sanitized Gladwrap and then place lid on. Wrap in blankets and let temp fall on its own. I leave for 48hrs. pH was down to 3.2 after 48hrs of kettle souring. I then Boiled for 60min (eliminating any chance of DMS from the pils malt). I added about a few pellets of Amarillo for good measure (prob 2-4ibus worth) for 10mins and then cooled and pitched M44 at 19c.
The Beer finished fermenting in around a week, down to FG 1.008. I have just split this batch in two, half is now sitting on Raspberries, half will be bottled as is.
Post Kettle Souring the wort had a lovely Lemony tartness, along with the sugar from the malt, it tasted like a Honey/Lemon tea. After fermentation, it has a very pronounced Lemony Lactic sourness and is very clean. pH 3.2 is pretty tart, but just the way I like it.
By no means an expert in Kettle Sours but three successful batches from 3 attempts...if you have any questions please feel free to ask!
Cheers
Salt