Lactobacillus rhamnosus / acidophilus

[rubber duck]

I'm getting ready to use a commercial strain of lacto on a corn whiskey this week. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[blind drunk]

Sounds like an interesting endeavor. Found this abstract that has some good stuff about the many many acid strains of Lactobacillus found in scotch - they seem to enhance flavor and so the distilleries like them hanging around their vats -

http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/1007" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[rubber duck]

I'm going to us wlp677 from white labs. I'm going to use a clean fermentor and kill off all the other bacteria in the grain by raising the mash temp after the conversion before adding it. That is if I can get my shit together to day, otherwise I may have to wait till I have more time latter this month.

[hlgtjr0]

Are you planning on adding the lacto towards the end of the fermentation? How long will you let it do it's work before distilling?

[rubber duck]

I was thinking of adding it at the beginning. Here's my thinking, unlike beer most of my ferments are not boiled and are therefor not sterile, so my whiskey mashes are already loaded with bacteria. I'm thinking I will raise my mash temp up to a boil vie steam after the conversion and add the lacto to replace the bacteria that I just killed, or I might just do my regular mash schedule and add a big dose of it to try and overwhelm the bacteria already present.

I guess to really figure it out I'm going to have to try it 3 or 4 different way and compare. I'm finally going to have a chance to try it this weekend so I'll keep you posted.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed before I begin?

[blind drunk]

Begining, you want as muck of the bacteria flavor as possible. Pintoshine does one jar during mashing and two or three jars after pitching yeast. I'm noticing a much fuller taste and more mouth feel.

What's the grain rockchucker22?

[hlgtjr0]

Any suggestions on how much lacto to add by volume of wash? We do a relatively fast fermentation (molasses) and want to make sure the bacteria has time to multiply enough to add some nice flavors. It will only have a few days to do it's work.

[rubber duck]

Well bacteria multiples at a rate of something like 4x that of yeast so there's a starting point.

I'm going to do a two to one bacteria to yeast pitch rate but I'm just pulling that ratio out of my ass, I don't really know.

[hlgtjr0]

Well bacteria multiples at a rate of something like 4x that of yeast so there's a starting point.

I'm going to do a two to one bacteria to yeast pitch rate but I'm just pulling that ratio out of my ass, I don't really know.

Thanks. I wasn't aware that it multiplied so quickly.

[jake_leg]

I have tried adding a L. acidophilus capsule to flaked corn in twice its height of tap water. After 2 days it was pH 4 there was a cheese smell like sharp provolone and lots of bubbles. I have used this as a sour corn starter and to preserve spent grain for use as chicken feed.