For later experiments, I’d also like to try:
-not reboiling the wort to leave the Lacto alive
– using Brett rather than German Ale as the primary fermenter,
-fermenting with German Ale and bottle conditioning with Brett
– making it bigger (1.050+)
– making it much hoppier than normal versions with boil/whirlpool/dry hopping experiments.
– lowering the pH using lactic acid before pitching lacto since this appears to speed things up and help with head retention without really effecting the flavor profile.
And I’m sure I’ll come up with other ideas.
So, first the lab setup:
2) 1 oz uncrushed 2 row from Canada Malting
3) 50 tablets of Lactobacillus Acidophilus that are 100 million cells per tablet
Everything I’ve read on people kettle souring, the amount of grain put in is always “a handful” so I thought I’d be a bit more precise and actually measure the amount of grain by weight 🙂
For the tablets, Jess recommends >= 5 million cells / ml which is about 19 billion cells / gallon but I didn’t really want to use 190 tables. Instead I used what should be a bit over 1 million cells / ml which still did well in Jess’ tests it just took a bit longer and allowed me to buy less probiotics 🙂 Here is a picture of the Acidophilus I used:
1 (acidulated malt) : pH 4.81 malty sweet, not sour. clean. no fermentation activity.
2 (2 row): pH 4.14 a little sour like apple juice. still worty and sweet. no fermentation activity.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.97. similar to 2 but just a hair more sour. no fermentation activity.Day 2:
1 (acidulated malt) : pH 4.59 big foamy kreusen with a strong horse blanket / goatie aroma with an edge of dirty diaper. no malt aroma. seems very sketchy so not tasted. very hazy.
2 (2 row): pH 3.89 super weird foam that is like big soap bubbles that are a bit reflective and alien looking. really strange. malty aroma w/ a little lactic tart nose. also very sketchy so not tasted.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.77 no foam at all. malty aroma w/ a hint of sour aroma but comes across more malty then sour. pretty tart flavor. 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. clean sourness surrounded by wortiness.pictures of Day 2:
1 (acidualted malt)
1 (acidulated malt) : pH 4.05 no kreusen. odor is a bit of sour lactic and some funk -> brett. tasted it since no sick smell. worty. funky – bretty. a bit sour.
2 (2 row): pH 3.40 no kreusen. smell is sweet wort w/ an edge of sour. otherwise clean. flavor is sour – 7 out of 10 (10 being the most sour beer i’ve had). a bit of sweet wort flavor.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.42 still no kreusen. seems to have dropped clear? nose is mostly wort (more than 2) w/ just an edge of sour. flavor is also pretty worty but 6 out of 10 on sour scale.Day 4:
1 (acidulated malt) : pH 4.09 no change
2 (2 row): pH 3.28 similar to day 3 but a hint more sour in nose and flavor. get a bit mouth puckering. nice level of sour. 8 out of 10.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.40 similar to day 3 but a shade more sour. 7 out of 10.Day 5:
1 (acidulated malt) : pH 4.05 no change
2 (2 row): pH 3.14 nose is a bit more tart. flavor is similar but getting very tart. throat constricting 🙂 9 out of 10. about the level i would want if i’m looking for a very sour beer. clean. still malty/worty.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.34 similar to day 4. nice and tart but not as tart as 2. clean. still malty/worty. 7 out of 10.
Day 6:
Work …. Boooooo
Day 7:
1 (acidulated malt) : pH 4.09 no change
2 (2 row): pH 3.10 similar to day 5. i’m really enjoying these samples 🙂 pretty darn tart.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.30 nice sour level but not as sour as 2.
Day 8:
1 (acidulated malt) : no change. dumped.
2 (2 row): pH 3.08 similar to day 7. TART.
3 (acidophilus): pH 3.30 similar to day 7.
I took 2 and 3 and did the following:
put through strainer into boil kettle to remove solid matter.
boiled for 15 mins with ~5 IBUs of centennial (.15 oz) since that is what i had laying around
cooled to ~60F and pitched half a smack pack of german ale into each (~50ml of slurry)
pitched on 12/13/14
12/14/14
8am
2 (2 row): no activity
3 (acidophilus): has thin kreusen and seems to be bubbling a little bit but not much
8pm
2 (2 row): no activity
3 (acidophilus): 1″ kreusen and steady bubbling but nothing crazy
8am
2 (2 row): no activity
3 (acidophilus): still kreusened but bubbling has slowed12/16/14
8am
2 (2 row): no activity
3 (acidophilus): still kreusened but bubbling has slowed to ~4 sec12/17/14
2 (2 row): no activity
3 (acidophilus): still ~4 sec
12/18/14
8am
2 (2 row): no activity
3 (acidophilus): kreusen dropped. bubble ~60sec
12/19-22/14
no activity
12/22/14
2 (2-row) FG = 1.019 pH = 2.99. aroma – sweet worty smell with a sour edge. flavor – VERY sour but sweet malt edge.
3 (acidopholus) FG 1.010 pH = 3.21 aroma – lightly sour and yeasty with a bit of cardboard. flavor – good level of sour. clean. slight malty sweet flavor and a bit oxidized.
I dumped 2 due to high sugar content (bottle bombs) and very low pH.
I bottled 3 targeting 3.5 volumes. It was .85 gallons @ room temp so I boiled 1.2 oz of sugar in 1/2 cup of filtered water and mixed that in with beer in bottling bucket. this ended up filling 6 bottles. I have them stored in a plastic bin with a locking lid in one of my bath tubs and fully expect to hear some explosions at some point. fingers crossed 🙂
1/5/15
Success! The one batch (3(acidopholus) that I had marked BW1-3) that I bottled carbed up to what seems like the targeted 3.5 (super duper carbonated) and is actually a really nice beer! Definitely no head issues either initially or with retention. Big fluffy pillow that lingers till your done. Probably my only complaint is the weird malt off flavors which are subtle and that it is too dark. Both of these I just chalk up to using wheat DME. I see no flavor issues from the lacto or yeast. And did I mention it is really damn sour 🙂 Here is a picture.
1) raw grains seem fairly risky. acidulated malt was an abject failure. not sure if there was lactic acid but not much lacto or the other bugs just outcompeted. 2-row seemed to work pretty well as far as souring but there was some definite funk so I wouldn’t use this for a large batch since the probability of failure seems high. it works but i have my doubts that it would work consistently. at the very least I would make a starter first and make sure it is clean before pitching into a bigger batch.
3) take gravity readings before boiling 🙂 it seems that one of two things happened with the 2-row. there was some yeast or heterofermentative bacteria that generated alcohol which I then boiled off 🙂 or the german ale yeast did ferment some but conked out in a sub-3 pH. But I won’t know since I didn’t test to see if the gravity drop from 1.031 to 1.019 took place before boiling or after.
4) even low pH friendly beer yeast like german ale have their limits and it appears to be in the < 3.2 pH range since #3 seemed to finish out but #2 never really got started. another experiment 🙂 find at what pH level to pitch the yeast or use really low pH friendly wine yeast or brett.
I am looking to get into more precisely testing pH and was wondering which meter you use and if you are happy with it?
i use the hanna phep 5:
https://www.morebeer.com/products/ph-meter-phep-5.html?site_id=7
i’ve been super happy with it but i haven’t used a different one so i have no basis for comparison.