So I made my first Berliner Weiss yesterday and now I have a couple things I'm still up in the air about. Wort came out to 1.030 and I pitched an 800mL Lactobacillus starter that had I had been growing for 5 days. It took off. No Sacch yet. Did this based on a video of Jess Caudill from Wyeast Laboratories (). I plan on pitching my Sacch after the bacterial fermentation hits stationary phase. Now my questions are- 1. Should I make a starter for my Sacch (German Ale) or just pitch directly to fermentor? 2. I have an oxygen tank with a diffusion stone, so should I aerate with the diffusion stone or just do some good splashing? Thanks.
When I've done mine I didn't do either. 1. The beer's OG is low, and by the time the lacto is done it's lower so there's no need for a starter. It won't hurt anything if you do one, but it's not really necessary (don't have mr malty handy but you can look for yourself). 2. Again, the yeast shouldn't have that much work to do. I'd be more worried about oxidation from whatever oxygen is left in solution after the sacch is done.
I second the previous 2 posts, just pitch your sacch strain and do not oxygenate....only thing I would have done different is I would have have made a bigger lacto starter and probably would have stepped it up as well...that shit works so slow and you need a shit ton of it...
So you don't think there's any repercussion to over pitching lacto as there would be with over pitching yeast?
I'm not sure there would be any repercussions over pitching the lacto except maybe it would out compete your sacch strain, but with that being said, I don't believe you'd be over pitching by doing the method of the starter that I described above.
