Baseline Berliner Weiss

[Kealia]

What the actual hell is going on with this batch.....?

I'm working from home today so I opened the fermentation chamber to see how the blowoff was going and.....nothing.
I decided to pull a sample from the spigot to check on the gravity since it's been 48 hours since pitching....and it is a 1.010, so basically done.
I opened the BrewBucket to see what's what and....nothing. No krausen, no bubbles, no nada.

Taste and aroma are nice and tart, no off flavors.

I didn't bother checking gravity post-mash nor post-boil on Tuesday, but 1 of 2 things has to have happened:
1) The Omega Lacto fermented the beer while it was kettle-souring
2) The US-05 already fermented this, dropped krausen and cleaned up

Neither of these seems plausible. The only other thing I can think of is that my mash efficiency was crap and I started with a 1.010 wort that isn't fermentable at all but that makes no sense either.

I closed the lid and purged as best I could with CO2 again. I guess I'll let it go until Saturday then keg it if it doesn't develop any off tastes during the next 48 hours, but I can say that I am completely stumped on this one.

[BlackDuck]

Without a gravity reading going into the fermenter, you might never know. If the flavor and aroma are tart, I would think something had to happen. Is there any ring of crap around the edge of the fermenter, where you can see that there was some foam during fermentation?

I guess you could finish it off and drink a gallon of it and see how drunk you get. You won't know exactly what the ABV is, but you'll be able to tell if the yeasts did their job.

[Kealia]

A slight brown ring that *could* indicate something minor happened....I just have no idea what or when!

The most it would be is about 3.3% which was my target, unless I overshot my OG. Or, if I severely undershot then I have a no-ferment Berliner on my hands .

We'll see how it tastes on Saturday. Weird.....

[BlackDuck]

If it was supposed to be 3.3%, and that's where it ended up, there may not have been enough to even show a kraussen.

And you might have to drink two gallons to see if it worked!!

[Kealia]

My biggest concern is that the Lacto somehow fermented it before I even transferred it. At that point, I aerated pretty good to prepare for the US-05.
So, I may be asking shortly for everybody's best "fast carb" solution so I can drink this before it oxidizes.

[mashani]

Is there any layer of trub at the bottom of the fermenter, or is that thing such that you can't tell until you bottle it?

I have a hard time believing your mash efficiency was so poor that you didn't have anything to ferment. If anything the way you did it you should have had excess efficiency, with more simple easy to ferment sugars created and a more highly fermentable wort resulting from it. IE while it sat around at 150 the enzymes were probably still busting up complex sugars into simpler stuff.

I have a hard time believing your lacto pitch fermented out the whole thing. In fact I don't think it's possible. I think lacto can really only ferment about 1°P of wort on its own (IE a 1.03 wort would never make it to even 1.02). By then it's grown to it's maximum cell density. It doesn't need a lot of sugar to grow. It also has a PH limit where its cells stop working right that is somewhere around 3, so it will just stop if it gets there. And it slows down the lower the PH gets too.

I don't have a hard time believing that S-05 dropped it 20 points or so in 24 hours and dropped out though. That seems entirely plausible assuming you pitched a full pack and it was fresh, and you were fermenting at real ale temperatures instead of being a weenie and trying to keep it at 59 because "flavor is bad" like a 'Merican. At real ale temperatures, it would likely have had an easy time chewing through the simple sugars.

You likely also had a more oxygenated wort then normal assuming you did everything else the same since you didn't boil it hard for an hour and remove so much during the boil. So that would have made the yeast happy too.

I think I'd just RDWHAHB.

[Kealia]

Is there any layer of trub at the bottom of the fermenter, or is that thing such that you can't tell until you bottle it?

It's stainless steel, so I won't know until I keg it.

I have a hard time believing your mash efficiency was so poor that you didn't have anything to ferment.

Agreed.

I have a hard time believing your lacto pitch fermented out the whole thing. In fact I don't think it's possible. I think lacto can really only ferment about 1°P of wort on its own (IE a 1.03 wort would never make it to even 1.02).

I didn't know that, but I assumed something similar, thanks.

I don't have a hard time believing that S-05 dropped it 20 points or so in 24 hours and dropped out though. That seems entirely plausible assuming you pitched a full pack and it was fresh, and you were fermenting at real ale temperatures instead of being a weenie and trying to keep it at 59 because "flavor is bad" like a 'Merican. At real ale temperatures, it would likely have had an easy time chewing through the simple sugars.

Yep, all true - I pitched at 75 and let it hold there.

You likely also had a more oxygenated wort then normal assuming you did everything else the same since you didn't boil it hard for an hour and remove so much during the boil. So that would have made the yeast happy too.

Yep, true.

I think I'd just RDWHAHB.

I'm hoping to do just that. I just hate not knowing what happened, but that's a character flaw. I suppose I'll chalk it up to the beer gods doing what they want.

I'll post an update tomorrow after I keg it.

[Kealia]

I did keg this on Saturday as planned.
What I saw was a "little" trub in the fermenter, it looked mostly like pure yeast but with a little trub indicating some fermentation had taken place. Likewise, at the advice of the Dawg, I checked gravity with a refractometer which read around 1.022 IIRC - indicating the presence of alcohol.

It still tasted good (no off flavors, just tart and wheat-y) so I split it into two 2.5G kegs. I'm keg-hopping one with a bit of Strat and Citra that I had left over. It is about an ounce combined, so nothing outrageous. Both are chilling and the non-keg-hopped version is carbing up.

So, as long as something doesn't go awry while in the keg, it will be drinkable. I'll never know what really happened here....but at the end of the day it's not really important - other than to satisfy my own curiosity, that is.

[mashani]

One thing I'll throw out there is that I've found while slow chilling in the mash & boil I've gotten much less fermenter trub then I did chilling and dumping it in other ways. I think the very long time standing around is letting all sorts of particulate stuff settle down to the bottom below the spigot. IE although I'm not getting a hard "break" like if I rapidly chilled, stuff still is dropping out and in significant amounts.

What I mean by that is a trub that is mostly yeast doesn't sound weird to me with this process, it's similar to what I'm getting unless I dry hop or unless I tip the mash & boil trying to get every last drop and dump kettle trub into my fermenters.

[Kealia]

I pulled a small 4oz pour of my dry-hopped keg of this beer and......it was delicious!

I ended up keg-hopping for about 5 days with some Nelson Sauvin and a bit of Strata (1/4oz) I had left over. There's a little Nelson on the nose, mingled with the tartness from the souring. The taste is a bit all over the place but in a good way. There's some wheat presence, some tartness, some Nelson and some weed from the Strata. Nothing is prominent or overpowering, but it sort of changes as the beer works it way across my tongue and finishes.

I'm pleasantly surprised and happy with this. I'm sure my wife and daughter are going to really be happy with the non-hopped version as well since they should get the wheat and tart. All this, in about 3.3% ABV makes this easily drinkable but with plenty of flavor.

[Kealia]

After 48 hours souring, I boiled, added hops and pitched some US-05 yesterday just like I did before.

If you recall the weirdness last time, this time I checked gravity at a few points to see if what I saw last time was an anomaly or not (read back a few posts if you don't remember what happened last time).

3 days ago I mashed and collected 5.25G of wort. Checked gravity before pitching the OYL-605 - 1.035.
Yesterday, checked the ph and all looked good. Tasted and it's tart.

I started draining wort into the fermenter (although in retrospect I should have just left it in the M&B and fermented in there, but I digress...). I just opened the spigot and let it splash into the SS Brewbucket, planning to hit it with a bit of oxygen, too. Halfway through the transfer I collected some of the wort into a hydromter tube and checked the gravity - 1.012

At that point I tried to control the splashing as much as possible thinking that I didn't want to aerate the wort, because it had already fermented. I went ahead and pitched the US-05 anyway thinking that if nothing else, it may use up the oxygen I just added to the wort/beer and fermenter.

I've reached out this morning to Omega to get their input on this. I can't say that this didn't happen when I was making this with DME because I never bothered to check gravity since I knew what the OG of the wort would be when I mixed it up.

What I'm seeing is that I could likely have just brought the wort back to a boil, added my hops, boiled, chilled and transferred to a keg. We'll see what they have to say but I was not expecting that yeast to ferment, just sour.

[Kealia]

Wow, quick response from Omega:

The Lacto itself isn't capable of fermenting wort to that degree. The most likely culprit is introduction of yeast during the starter phase of the process. The Lacto is pretty robust to the extent that you could skip making a starter and just direct pitch. Even a single yeast cell getting into the starter can quickly increase its numbers to cause significant attenuation during souring phase.

It's happened to me twice now and I can't recall ever having issues with any type of wild yeast, but ok.
When I make the next batch of this I will simply direct-pitch the Lacto without a starter (which is nice to know it isn't needed) and see what happens. The beer turned out great last time and I expect this batch will too.

So, maybe I get a few points off the US-05 pitch, or at least it scrubs the oxygen out during the growth and reproduction phase.

[Kealia]

Adding more information for anybody interested. I was exchanging a few emails with Omega on this and was told a few more things that others might find handy:
1) No need for a starter. The liquid pack should be fine for 5G with no starter.
2) Flushing with CO2 and worrying about headspace aren't needed - in fact, he's wondering if flushing with CO2 is where I introduced some yeast into the process.

In terms of headspace, flushing with CO2 and worrying about a pellicle forming, he replied, "Headspace is fine as well. Lacto is a facultative anaerobe, meaning it doesn't use oxygen but can tolerate its presence. When we do kettle sours in house, we simply put the lid on the kettle and call it good."

Had to Google "facultative anaerobe": Some species, called facultative anaerobes, are able to grow either with or without free oxygen - (Source: Britannica.com).

Interesting enough it also says: "Facultative anaerobes can change their metabolic processes depending on the presence of oxygen, using the more efficient process of respiration in the presence of oxygen and the less efficient process of fermentation in the absence of oxygen."

Somebody with a chemistry/biology background will have to break this down to simpler terms because I interpret this as saying something like when oxygen is present they use fermentation to get the job done, but without oxygen they use respiration to get the job done. If this is true, then in the absence of oxygen (like me flushing with CO2), that actually makes sense in terms of what I am reading and what happened.

But now I'm out of my comfort/knowledge zone.

Edit to add: One final exchange from Omega after I sent them my comments above: "For some facultative anaerobes, that would be the case, but Lacto is not capable of respiring. Your takeaways are on point."

I then noticed the signature on the email:
Lance Shaner
Owner

So I'm guessing he knows what he is talking about!

[BlackDuck]

Good information. And a pretty cool conversation with the owner. Nice to see great customer interaction like that.


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[mashani]

I think I mentioned before that there was no way lacto on it's own would do that.

O2 will not hurt lacto. The whole point of the pellicle that forms is that it caps the wort and controls the oxygen that can enter, so in a nutshell the lacto will control it's own conditions if necessary if the amounts of oxygen start to "bother" it. (simplistic way of describing it, but that's pretty much what the pellicle is for all pellicle forming things).

Fun side note - besides lacto, wild yeasts, and *even so called "normal" yeast you might use* (especially some Belgian and Saison strains, but others too) can actually be pellicle forming if there is oxygen present. Lots of home brewers don't notice because of their fermenter being airlocked and them turning over the beer in 2 weeks or less.

I can tell the difference between the normal pellicle that some yeasts for and my Brett C pellicles just by eye now since I semi-open ferment. I have like.. 0.. freak out when I see pellicles form anymore at around 2 weeks with the yeasts I know consistently will make them. The beer turns out just as I expect from those said "normal" yeasts. If I had my fermenters airlocked, I simply wouldn't notice them like most people.

In any case purging the headspace would only really help prevent other types of aerobic bacteria from getting a foothold and adding something like vomit or stinky garbage flavors. But the chance of that is slim as long as you are using good sanitation practices and especially if you are pitching a lot of lacto as the PH changes will suppress them, and then pitching yeast 2 days in and/or getting to about 2% ABV in whatever way will totally murder anything that is left.