Souring with yogurt for the first time.

I haven't used yogurt, but I have soured many worts with naturally according lacto (from grains), and more recently with GoodBelly. I'm not sure why you need to drop the pH of your starter specifically to 2.9-3.3, unless it's just to say, "There must have been lots of cell growth, because the pH dropped." Also, I don't know how much bacteria there is in 6 tsp of yogurt, but I'll hazard a guess that in 40 hours at 105F in a 2L starter, you'd have most of whatever growth was going to happen. Last thought... my soured worts have looked pretty hazy/murky after souring, so that might be an indication.

I think @jbakajust1 has some yogurt experience.

 

I use probiotics at home, yogurt at work. Let’s just say your method is waaay more involved than what we do.

Mash as usual, collect all your wort in the kettle, chill to 115°, make a slurry of wort and yogurt and pitch.

Chobani is a good brand. Make sure it’s non-fat. We usually achieve sub-3.5 pH in 16 hours. A pH meter is really useful here because different worts respond differently. At the very least, those little pH strips in the beer acidity range. Not terribly accurate, but better than nothing. And most importantly, if you smell any vomit/BO/decay flavors. DUMP! Good luck!

 

Good that you’ll have a pH meter. Make sure to take care of it! Buy the calibrating solution and calibrate every month or so. Keep it in the holding solution when not in use. And despite any temp correction claims it may make, hot samples are always more likely to be inaccurate, in my experience.

Also, you really don’t need too much yogurt, and I’d say a starter is totally unnecessary. We use 2 32oz cups for 18bbl of wort, so a little to-go cup should be plenty. Check the date, you want something that is about a month or more till expiration or souring may lag.

 

Hot samples also lead to premature wear out of probes.

 

I'll agree, looks like your technique is too complicated. Collect the runnings, quick boil, drop to temp, drop a single serve yogurt in the kettle drop to 4.5 pH, pH test until mid-low 3 pH, boil quick with any hops, chill, pitch, ferment. Transferring to a carboy to sour before boiling will add O2 which can lead to all the off flavors that will ruin the beer.

Keep IBUs below 12 for balance. I would whirlpool Ekuinot to play with the citrusy Kviek, and consider a fruit to play with the citrus as well.

 

I think you just solved your own problem there buddy.

 

Bring the kettle inside. Hook it up to your temp controller. Clean the wire and probe really good then wipe down with Vodka. Put it into the wort near the element but not close enough to touch it. The element will kick in when the temp drops too low, it will turn off when the temp gets right.

Just make sure to put the yogurt near the outer edge of the kettle so it doesn't get heated directly by the element.

 

Do you by any chance have a clothes dryer that runs on 240?

 

I’d say mash in early on a Saturday and runoff into the kettle. Go out to the barn every hour or so and hit the heat for a couple minutes to keep it around 115°. Let it fall as it will when you go to bed as most of the souring will be done at that point. Start up the boil Sunday morning.
Or get a control panel...

 

Buy a sous vide stick, it can maintain your 115 for an extended period of time. They have gotten rather cheap.

 

Sound method, and it’ll probably work great!
But I do think kettle souring is one of the huge advantages we electric brewers have over the gas guys. If wired properly, there should be very little fire risk. Lots of people have heating elements in their hot water heaters and leave the house with them on without fear of fire. There are remote heat alarms available too which could be another option to look into. I usually do my kettle sours overnight so that if anything happens, I’m nearby, but it’s not a serious concern for me.

I come from an electrician family. Seen a lot of fire damage from faulty electrical work and some cases where it was incredible that there WASN’T a fire. 99% of the time, it was ignorantly done DIY work, criminally bad pro work, or use of recalled or condemned equipment. All the electric homebreweries I’ve seen were set up great! Basically, if you set up your electric properly (by an electrician or someone who knows what they’re doing), leaving your kettle on is probably safer than the wiring in your house!