Help with understanding lacto blends

I think the only realistic way to control the lacto is to increase the IBUs, which obviously is not the kind of thing you can fine-tune as fermentation proceeds. That said, I've made several mixed-fermentation sour beers using lacto and sacc. yeast, and I've yet to have one go too sour. Of course I like sour beers, so if you are looking for a mild tartness, you may have trouble dialing it in with this method. I guess another option would be to make another batch without the lacto, but with a lot more IBUs, and then blend to taste (the point of the IBUs being to shut down the lacto once the blending is done). Honestly that's not the road I'd go down though.

 

You'll have more trouble getting the lacto to kick hard enough than getting it to stop. Pitch the lacto at 110 or so and let the wort sour as it cools. Check the Ph as it goes and when you're within a few tenths, pitch the yeast.

Remember that a lot of commercial sours are barrel aged, which means they are adding wort or clean beer to fill out the angels share. The lacto/pedio uses this to get more sour.

 

I'll preface this comment with I've never made a sour beer yet, but am studying for my jump to mixed fermentations.

In the sour hour podcast, most of the Brewers who have been interviewed and asked about barrel top off do not do it. Most mention not wanting to disturb the pelicle which protects against oxygen ingress as the reason.

The interview with dr lambic, very early in the podcasts, talked about the race between lacto and other bugs in regards to sour level. Decent stuff that seems worth a listen.

 

That lacto blend is extremely aggressive, but also very hop sensitive. If you want a pH higher than 3.2-3.4, I would recommend dry hopping once you are close to your desired acidity to inhibit lacto growth.

 

I've never boiled after presouring in the fermenter using Lacto and never had issues with it being too sour. The lacto does its best work when it has full access to the wort at warm temperatures. Once you drop temps and the yeast eats up all of the sugars there isn't much left for lacto.

Granted, I use this method for berliners and tend to drink them pretty fast so I hadn't aged it out. All of my long age sours are mixed cultures that also have Brett and Pedio.