German Brewing

The three jars fit perfectly in my ghetto crockpot/souring reactor. This was then sealed up and set to 49c where it will sit for 48 hours. I will report back with the details of the completed run in a couple days.
Cheers.

Looking good! Thanks for sharing.

So far I have done three batches of beer using my homebrew sauergut for acidification of the mash and boil. Today though, working on a brown ale the mash pH came in lower then predicted (5.38) so I did not need to adjust the pH. I bring this up because this no sauergut batch had a drastic difference in the amount, timing and appearance of the protein break. In the batches where I used sauergut, the break began early, the pieces were very large and dense and the amount, granted only a visual estimation, was less. I've had many egg drop type breaks in the past but nothing like what happens with SG. I do not think the actual kettle pH was a factor because on the previous batches the near end boil pH was a similar 5.1 as today. Very interesting subject this biological acidification.

In this not so great picture the trub chunk there was on the order of 1/2" also with some egg drop type strings.

Ancient Abbey pointed me to this, interesting stuff, I'll definitely try it. When it comes to grains as bacteria source, though, it seems you can fewer unwanted microbes by using probiotic capsules, preferrably lactobacillus plantarum, which works well even when dropping to room temp. I've tried both when kettle souring, and prefer probiotics. Pre-acidifying to 4.5 help keeping nasty things out also. http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Alterna ... ia_Sources
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Lactobacillus


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I like the idea of using sauermalt initially, as it both provides fermentable sugars and drops the pH initially without the use of mineral lacto. Once you have a reactor going, then this is likely a moot point, but makes for easy work to get it going.

Lactobacillus can achieve a dormant state through desiccation, which makes it more tolerant to heat stress. It easily survives the kilning and drying process of pima colored malts, though I am sure some of the cells will die in the process. The risk of course is that lacto isn't the only bug living on the malt that will survive desiccation. There will also be some spore forming bugs and brett as well. Given the concentration of lacto due to malt being sprayed with sauergut, it will have a great competitive advantage starting out, which is the result Bilsch (and Roachbrau) saw with his crock-pot method.

There is no uniform method for how the pH is used during the process.

The Bavarian method is to mash relatively high with a pH around 5.5 and keep it at that value in the boil until break formation. Then brewmaster treat it differently as well. Some adjust to 5.2 immediately after the break to encourage an even brighter end product, some do it 10-15 minutes before the end.

In Germany there is a trend of mashing much lower, some as low as 5.2, with a minimal dose in the boil.

These all are a matter of preference and style.

In the end they all end up with wort at 5.1-5.2 hitting the fermenter and all use Sauergut. It is "de rigeur"