Hey all been tinkering with making sauergut lately, don’t have all the materials for it yet but just been reading on it. Is there any danger in creating botulism bacteria in it? Ive read that botulinum toxin can thrive in stored wort that sits too long. Wondering if this is an actual issue or fear mongering. Cheers all
C. botulinum (the bacteria that causes botulism) can't grow at the low pH seen in sauergut. And it needs a low oxygen (nearly 0%) environment. I've never heard of a case botulism from a beer made with sauergut (or any beer). I suppose if you want to be extra careful, you could pre-acidify your sauergut reactor's starter wort. Disclaimer: this is not qualified medical advice.
Wort will have a pH of 5.0 or above. Botulism is inhibited at a pH of 4.6 or less. Sauergut will have a pH of 3.5 or less. Most finished beers have a pH below 4.6.
Thanks guys, my only question I have left is. Botulinum can exist when there is no oxygen, but isn’t sauergut supposed to be made lodo style, I plan to keep it in a mini keg and use when needed. Or is the low ph factor enough to thwart it?
Its the low pH that makes it "food safe". Pickled vegetables are food safe if the pH is low enough. My wife uses my brewing pH meter to check the pickled vegetables she makes.
So update to this thread. I made sauergut yesterday but lots of things went wrong, first my ph Meter crapped out and wasn’t able to take a reading and then I was out of lactic acid and the hbs wasn’t open so I wasn’t able to acidify my mash. So I said eff it I was already in too deep with the process and added my wort onto fresh pils malt in jars and placed them into my sous vide to 118F. I figured I’d basically be making a sour mash like how people do their overnight mashes. Any ideas what to expect from this?
I'm not a scientist or anything, and my dick swinging line cook side says go for it, but the chef side that is responsible for peoples jobs and our guests' safety says that this isn't great. Up to you though.
