Racked berlinerwiess too late - oxygenation concerns

[Mr. No-Tip]

A few months ago, I dumped some wort over a berlinerwiess yeast cake and it's been in my fermenting keg since. I made sure to vent it every few days, as the lacto was clearly working its way through.

About a week ago it started to not need as much venting, so I decided to rack it. I crash chilled and siphoned into a glass demijon. Unfortunately my siphon stopped mid through and I had to give the autosiphon a few pumps so I already had some oxidation concerns, but thought it would still do some gassing once in the glass.

It's back at 25 degrees now, but I am not noticing any airlock activity. Either the c02 production is very low, or has stopped completely. I am a bit concerned about oxygen in the headspace and pickup from racking.

I had a couple thoughts:

Dump some sugar in and let it eat that up.
Gas line and airstone, but I don't particularly want to put my stone into sour beer.

I guess if it is completely sugarless, aceto isn't going to be able to do anything, but oxidation is still a risk?

 

[Goldenchild]

Why did you rack it?
Taking it off the cake is only lowering the beers contact with all those yeasts and in the end is going to limit the fermentation of the beer if there was anything to eat still.
How many months old is the beer? From my experiance and what i have read 3 months is plenty for a berliner.
Bottle/keg and be dont with it.

 

[adryargument]

I had a similiar issue... No time to do anything and dumped 60L out of a wine barrel into a 60L fermenter with 2 layers of alfoil and gladwrap.

Came back 2 months later and there was slight signs of something vinegarish / oxygen spoilage. Very strong nailpolish smell and a horrendous distinct awefulness.

2 weeks in a keg and all off flavours / aromas are gone and its very lovely.

Happy i kept it

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Why did you rack it?

Because I wanted it off the yeast but still going with suspended lacto. Not sure if that's a justificable approach...trying to avoid autolysis...

 

[Jace89]

Lacto will simple stop fermenting if the environment its in as so much alcohol in it, its also doesnt like pH anywhere below 3.8. Hops can also prohibit the growth of some lacto strains.

I'm assuming its a pure culture of lacto?

What I'm suggesting if you add more sugar it might not work, the pH might simply be to low or the alcohol level is to high. Don't be afraid to have the fermentation temps high also especially pure strains. Lacto loves it around 37C!

Next time if your worried about autolysis throw some Brett into the mix. Brett loves eating dead yeast cell and therefore will stop autolysis, its will also add some complexity. Lacto will also sometimes produce diacetyl, Brett will take sure of that also....

ps. I love Brett haha

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Lacto will simple stop fermenting if the environment its in as so much alcohol in it, its also doesnt like pH anywhere below 3.8. Hops can also prohibit the growth of some lacto strains.

I'm assuming its a pure culture of lacto?

What I'm suggesting if you add more sugar it might not work, the pH might simply be to low or the alcohol level is to high. Don't be afraid to have the fermentation temps high also especially pure strains. Lacto loves it around 37C!

Next time if your worried about autolysis throw some Brett into the mix. Brett loves eating dead yeast cell and therefore will stop autolysis, its will also add some complexity. Lacto will also sometimes produce diacetyl, Brett will take sure of that also....

ps. I love Brett haha

So it's a bit of a lineage...first batch was a 32 degree started pure lacto pitched and held for a week, then I added the BW blend from White Labs - for some reason I thought it had some brett but I can't see any evidence of that now.

The first batch was racked into two glass demis after six weeks - it is still visibly producing bubbles today. I bottled the smaller demi and it was not sour enough.

This second batch went straight onto the cake where it has sat for 12 weeks until the racking the other day.

The intention of the racking was to hopefully let the sour character grow.

 

[felten]

It's the wyeast BW blend that has brett FYI.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

I took a much closer look tonight - there are some tiny, infrequent bubbles coming up along the sides of the demi. I suppose it could just be C02 coming out of solution, rather than being produced...

 

[Jace89]

So it's a bit of a lineage...first batch was a 32 degree started pure lacto pitched and held for a week, then I added the BW blend from White Labs - for some reason I thought it had some brett but I can't see any evidence of that now.

The first batch was racked into two glass demis after six weeks - it is still visibly producing bubbles today. I bottled the smaller demi and it was not sour enough.

Pure lacto should of produced a decent amount of lactic acid if pitched into the correct wort, but some strains really hate hops. Hops can retard the growth of the yeast and therefore really reduce Lactos ability to produce lactic acid. Time wont change this because Lacto is such a soft cock of bacteria that its most likely died early in fermentation.

Those bubbles are most likely C02, check the gravity.

This second batch went straight onto the cake where it has sat for 12 weeks until the racking the other day.

The intention of the racking was to hopefully let the sour character grow.

Patience is need to sour beer especially if you didn't get the level you desired with just Lacto yeast strains. Brettanomyces will produce lactic acid but it can take a lot of time, something else to look into is Pediococcus.

Pedio produces loads of lactic acid but can be harder to manage. I doesn't like oxygen, produces diacetyl, but is hop resilient. I've only used Pedio in blends so far, I personally prefer to get the most out of Lacto.

You might be best off doing a "sour mash" and blending this back into your original beer making it more sour.

Do BW beers usually have Brett etc in them to sour?