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Coolship in the Mist

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Coolship

Trying out my first spontaneous inoculation via coolship tonight to test out a theory of mine. My hypothesis is that many primo Lambic producers have legion of good bugs living in their barrels that cleanup any bad funk from wild critters, so why not supplement with known good bugs? My goal is local flavor and a guarantee that it will turn out interesting (and not dumpworthy).

I made an extra dark golden sour base (I threw in a couple oz of Blackprinz to get closer to a darker shade of orange which I enjoy) and I will leave it out in my garden under some lime and kumquat trees and see what critters I can attract. After a day or two I will then pitch a large portion of dregs I recently harvested from a mixed ferment I had in turn pitched from the primo dregs of my clubs’ not-to-be-confused-with Lambic project.

Here goes nothing!

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Optimal Media for Lactobacillus Growth

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I have been meaning to run some experiments for Year of the Sour Mash to determine the optimal medium to grow Lactobacillus, but it seems I have been beaten to the punch! Sam over at Eureka Brewing recently published an excellent writeup on evaluating starter media to propagate Lactobacillus that is far more comprehensive than anything I would have been able to produce. Take a look and I will share my thoughts below.

What I want to share today are the results of an evaluation experiment I performed a couple of months ago to look for MRS media alternatives to propagate lactobacillus at home. MRS media is kind of the golden standard used to propagate lactobacillus. It works very well but with the disadvantage of being a quite expensive media. I therefore tested a couple of cheaper alternative media and compared the growth/propagation efficiency with MRS.

Source: Evaluate starter media to propagate Lactobacillus sp. | Eureka Brewing

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Berliner and Beyond

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I know I have been under a rock for the past month or so; I have been keeping my head down and focusing on my presentation Berliner and Beyond: Sour Mashing and its Applications which I presented this past week at the National Homebrewers Conference. NHC was an awesome time and I really feel like I nailed my presentation, but without further ado I wanted to be sure I get my slides up as a reference.

I will see if I can get a copy of the audio recording and post it up here or a dedicated page. In the mean time, please feel free to ask me any questions you might have about sour mashing!

Update: Grabbed the audio and threw the slides and audio up on a dedicated page.

Lactobacillus Starter Guide

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Brewers make wort, yeast make beer.

Year of the Sour Mash

Part of the Year of the Sour Mash series.

If you have been homebrewing for even a short amount of time you have probably heard that statement. As much as we would like to think that we are in control, it is our microscopic little friends that determine the quality of our batch; brewers are little more than glorified yeast wranglers. Thus, when fellow homebrewers ask me what they can do to improve the quality of their beer the first thing I always tell them is: “make a yeast starter.” Proper amounts of healthy, happy yeast make delicious beer free from off-flavors; simple as that.

Time to let you in on a little secret: yeast are not the only things that make beer! Myriad organisms such as Brettanomyces, wild Saccharomyces, Pediococcus, and Lactobacillus will happily feast upon the wort you just created and leave you with beer (and those are just the organisms that produce favorable characteristics). Indeed, it is these organisms that folks interested in making sour or funky beers will harness to produce the character they are looking for. However, whether you are making a clean beer with “regular” yeast or a sour/funky beer with these other organisms, one thing remains the same: proper amounts of healthy, happy <insert organism(s) of choice> make delicious beer free from off-flavors. When folks tell me their sour mashes go bad I liken it to folks saying their regular beers went bad, only to find out they pitched a single vial of old yeast into 1.090 OG wort at 95ºF. A little bit of preparation practically guarantees a successful souring; whatever your organism of choice is, make a starter!

lactobacillus photo

lactobacillus – isis325

If you have been following along with Year of the Sour Mash you will know we are primarily interested in the fast, clean souring of Lactobacillus to sour our mash/wort. Whether you are pitching a pure culture of Lactobacillus or growing a wild culture from grains, I have created this Lactobacillus starter guide to help you propagate the quantities needed to ensure your beer sours cleanly.

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