Lallemand Philly Sour questions

[No Outlet Brewing]

I am looking to brew my first sour soon and am going to use Philly Sour yeast for the simplicity of a one step sour/fermentation but I have a few questions and am hoping to find answers from people that have used this strain before.

Bear with me if some of these are dumb questions.

1) Does this strain also contain bacteria for lactic acid production or does it do it by other means?

2) Do I need a separate set of equipment dedicated to sours using this yeast or will proper sanitation with Starsan allow me to use my equipment for both traditional and sour beers? I use all PET equipment for fermentation and bottling bucket.

3) Since I still bottle condition, do I need to add another yeast before bottling? It says on the Lallemand site it is not good for bottle conditioning. If yes, would I pitch this after Philly Sour has finished or at peak fermentation? Would US-05 be a good choice?

4) I am looking to flavor with a fruit puree, so do I add this at the same time as pitching the Philly Sour, midway through primary fermentation, or as a secondary fermentation addition?

Any other input/info for a simple sour would be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

[Nosybear]

No bacteria, the yeast is either selected for or engineered to produce the lactic acid. Not sure on the equipment: It's a yeast and is acid tolerant but with good cleaning it shouldn't out-compete your Saccaromyces. I'd add yeast for conditioning, US-05 is as good as any, and I'd pasteurize the fruit and add it to secondary.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Got a sachet in the fridge myself, just waiting to get it into the queue. Going to try a sour hazy.

I haven't heard much about this yeast family being any harder or easier to clean than a standard sacchromyces, so I'd just use your standard cleaning practices. If you do start to get sour characteristics in your next batches it might be time to replace the plastic components of your setup (or save them for this yeast if you like it).

I think the main thing will be patience. I got the impression that it's going to be slower than a standard sacchromyces to get through the sugars and won't give you as sour a hit as a lactic acid bacteria might. I'll be interested in what you see.

I'd add the US-05 to your bottling bucket, or whatever you use for packaging.

 

[No Outlet Brewing]

Finally got around to brewing my sour and I've found this to be a very interesting yeast so far. Pitched one rehydrated packet into a 4 gallon wort at about 78 F and fermentation started within 12 hours. Initial fermentation was fairly mild in comparison to other yeast I've used in the past, forming a thin krausen and less aggressive movement in the carboy. After about 72 hours the krausen had fallen and I assumed the bulk of fermentation was done and it just had some cleaning up to do over the next 5-7 days. Much to my surprise, I checked in again on day six and it's full on going again and this time a much larger krausen has formed and it's going along much more "normally" and a lot more airlock activity. I knew going in that this yeast forms most of the lactic acid in the first few days and then converts to alcohol production but it did not expect it to come in the form of seemingly two separate processes as it did. I have not yet taken a gravity reading as I will wait until this krausen falls and it is done around the 10 day mark. Just thought I'd share since, to my knowledge, this yeast is relatively new and wondering if others have had the same experience as I have. Always fun to watch how each different strain ferments!

 

[Mark Farrall]

Great timing. It's currently sitting second in my queue at the moment.