Sour Dough for Fermentation

[subbrew]

Has anyone tried using a sour dough starter to ferment a wash? It seems it has all the right attributes, it has yeast, and at least in mine it is a yeast that produces esters. It also has lacto bacillus to give some sour if you are looking for a more sour mash.

Just starting on this hobby but have been brewing beer for 10 years or so. I brewed an amber ale using my sour dough started and it turned out quite well. It was a recipe I had brewed many times before using US-05. The sour dough had the same attenuation. The flavor was more estery like I had used an English ale yeast. And after about 2.5 months in the bottle it started to get sour and was hard to pour as it was all foam.

But given the short fermentation cycle for a wash and desire for esters and such it seems it should work fine, at least for all grain washes and probably others.

Thoughts?

Just starting I need to do some other experiments such as figuring out what I like and how to age it etc. But will eventually give this a try unless someone else has done it and can tell me to beware.

[still_stirrin]

It’ll work.

Just don’t leave your sugar wash in the fermenter for 2-1/2 months before distillation.

In the bottled beer, the bacteria continued to consume sugars, even non-fermentable sugars and soured your beer. But, it also reduced the esters, leaving you an overly carbonated, sour beer. So, although the bread starter didn’t make such a good amber ale, it would suffice to ferment a sugar wash for you to distill.

But, you don’t have to use the starter to make a good distiller’s beer....bread yeast from the grocery store will work fine. It’ll ferment fast, allowing you to run the still within a week or two. No need to wait 2-1/2 months.

Get with it!
ss

[dukethebeagle120]

All my grain ferments are done with my bread baking starter
My last ferment was a rye whiskey that fermented to 7% abv
Just with wild yeast
It makes a flavorfull drop
Usually done in 3 days at65 to 70 degrees f

[subbrew]

It’ll work.

Just don’t leave your sugar wash in the fermenter for 2-1/2 months before distillation.

In the bottled beer, the bacteria continued to consume sugars, even non-fermentable sugars and soured your beer. But, it also reduced the esters, leaving you an overly carbonated, sour beer. So, although the bread starter didn’t make such a good amber ale, it would suffice to ferment a sugar wash for you to distill.

But, you don’t have to use the starter to make a good distiller’s beer....bread yeast from the grocery store will work fine. It’ll ferment fast, allowing you to run the still within a week or two. No need to wait 2-1/2 months.

Get with it!
ss

I agree there are obviously better yeasts for distilling (and for making beer). But in a SHTF situation, store shelves are bare, I was wondering if there was a major downside to using a sour dough starter. Doesn't seem to be if needed.

[Spark_Farmer]

This is on my list of things to try. Not a ton of information out there unfortunately.
Once I have a better handle on distillation (mainly cuts and blending!) My end goal is a sourdough fermented bourbon-ish. Curious to see where this goes

[SassyFrass]

JMHO, but sourdough starter should work, but why waste your bread starter? There's enough natural yeast floating around to get your fermentable working. It might take a bit longer to get started working though.
Lots of the old fellers I knew, never used any store bought yeast. Worked for them, should work for anyone in a SHTF scenerio.
SF

[zed255]

... starter should work, but why waste your bread starter?...

I have no doubt a sourdough starter would work. Might be a little bit of a crap shoot on alcohol tolerance, so I'd edge up gravities gradually to determine where my particular starter craps out and back down from there.

That said, unless you are baking quite a bit, there's always discard starter which makes using some to kick off a ferment no great deal. Heck, you can almost empty your starter and have it built back up in about two days. Easy, available, essentially free and if the starter is healthy you are assured viability.

[Flamethrower1]

I have a batch going now from my sourdough starter.
I tried it a while back on a beer batch because I got a bad smack pack and did not want to dump it out, turned out great.
My batch is rolling along no different than when using any other yeast.
Kind of makes me wonder what they did 100 plus years ago as the options for purchasing yeast were few

[zed255]

Historically wild yeast was the norm. Places like monasteries used the same wooden paddles to mix the wort inoculateing the wort with the same yeasts repeatedly.

[Flamethrower1]

Makes sense, but my sourdough starter is from wild yeast.
Water and bleached flower left out to capture what was floating in the air from 5 or 6 years ago and just keep splitting it and feeding it every week or so.
I dont know, its working.
Makes good bread too.

[zed255]

Sourdough I believe by definition is wild yeasts and bacteria cultured from what is naturally present on the grain. That was how I got my starter going, just whole grain flour and water and a regular schedule of discard and feeding. I suppose one could deliberately encourage wild yeasts in your local environment as well. Any starter will eventually take on a combination of yeast and bacteria that is unique.