BeerBorg

I went out on a whim yesterday and brewed a no-boil berliner. After the mash I chilled the wort to 70 and pitched WLP 672 (Lactobacillus Brevis). Only now, 20 hours later, did I realized I never made a starter for the lacto, and it is sitting at 70 degrees in the fermentation chamber. Was I supposed to make a starter for the lacto? If so, what should I do now? LHBS guy said that I could just pitch the lacto by itself, but he never mentioned a starter or anything. Does this just have a long lag time? If so I will just RDWHAHB

Lactobacillus by itself will ferment very slowly. I would have recommended using some type of saccharomyces for initial fermentation, and then adding lactobacillus for the sour (or sour mashing and then adding saccharomyces in the fermenter).

I figured it sounded kinda odd to only pitch the lacto, the guy at the LHBS looked like a new emplyee.. I should have consulted the Borg first! So is the brew doomed? Or will it take off eventually? I know it hasn't been even 24hrs yet I am just used to very short lag times

It's never doomed! I'm certain you should still be able to pitch a packet of 05 or a clean wheat beer yeast to ferment down close to FG and then let the lacto finish it up. I'd probably let it go in the fermenter at least a month before bottling to ensure finishing.

Alright, I can't make it to the home brew store until tomorrow, but will certainly do so! Will the beer still turn out fairly tart even though I am pitching other yeast? The reason I only pitched lacto was because the LHBS guy said it would be more tart if I pitched it without any other yeasts.

It will still be tart. I will say this from my experience with a sour mash collabo beer I did with JimJohnson: The longer it sits conditioning, the more the tartness develops.

Awesome, thanks for the input!

Well, today was the day I was to go to the LHBS and pick up some yeast to jumpstart this fermentation.. However, I woke up this morning to what looked like the onset of fermentation so I figured I would wait a little longer. Now look! Next time I will make a starter

Very nice

A fruit fly has somehow magically made his way into the fermenter and drowned. It is a carboy so I can't really get the thing out. Will this little bug ruin my fermenting beer?

So I looked at the beer this morning and no fruit fly was in there, so it couldn't have been there for longer than 12 hours at most. I took a sanitized turkey baster and managed to suck it out, then swapped in an airlock and took it out of the fermentation chamber to a separate location. My chamber was loaded with those little guys! Well lets hope the beer is still good!

If lucky the one that fell in would have just infected your beer with lacto and/or wild yeast from wherever they came from, and/or your PH/Alcahol was enough to suppress whatever it had in it.

Even if infected with those things you will still get a Berliner.

Only bad thing would be acetobacter.

You may want to be sure to limit oxygen exposure as much as possible to avoid acetobacter issues just in case - IE avoid racking to a secondary, just let it sit and bottle as soon as it's done. You don't want it to really get going with oxygen present, you will end up with your alcohol converted to vinegar.

Sounds good, I will let it ferment out, and once it is done I'll keg it! No one likes a vinegar beer

Today is 3 weeks in the fermenter so I am going to transfer it to the keg. I am going to take a taste when I transfer, my question is can I hit it with some co2 and purge the o2 out of the headspace of the keg and let it sit at room temp to sour up for a few more weeks if it isn't sour enough yet?