Mistake, maybe not

[dag_nabberit]

I took a break for awhile, had too many other things going on. When I jumped back in I thought it was time to do some all grain mashes.
I followed NChooch's recipe on corn and malted barley and got great results. Now for my mistake. After getting my most recent mash ready I put it in the insulated mash tun for conversion. Then some unexpected guest showed up. We had a social evening and I forgot about the mash in the tun. I went to work the next day and when I got home and checked on the mash it had been in the tun some 30+ hours.
The smell is hard to describe other than it was very sharp and unpleasant. I recalled something from past readings about Lactic Souring but had sort of glossed over it. Since yeast is fairly cheap I decided to put it in the fermenting vessel, pitch some white wine yeast and see what happened.
Some twelve hours later it sounded like a glass of freshly poured soda pop and was forming a cap. The sharp smell was still present but by the next day was almost gone and I could smell the aroma of the barley. Hopefully it will be ready to run in a few days and I'll see what I get.
Is this what is meant by Lactic Souring?

[RumBrewer]

Is this what is meant by Lactic Souring?

Yup! Brewers use it all the time. 100% of the beer from Cascade Brewing is made that way and it turns out AWESOME!
This could be a really unique batch for you.

[brewit2it]

Yes and no ~ the way you did it is certainly one method. The only thing is that the barley has a whole host of bacteria/fungi on it and not just lacto. It's just not a very clean way of doing things because you never know what you have growing on there and it is hard to produce the same batch twice that way. The more popular way that I know of is to have a separate vessel of wort(unfermented beer) that that is soured with just lacto which can be added in measured amounts to your beer to give the desired souring effect. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat however. Sounds like you'll have something interesting though.

[dag_nabberit]

I ran this mash yesterday thru a pot still with a thump keg. The thump keg is a fairly recent addition to my set up so there is still a little bit of a learning curve going on for me on that.
I collected in small amounts (150 to 200 ml) at a time to make precise cuts. The transition from heads to hearts was very distinct by smell. The transition from hearts to tails was not discernible by smell alone. I made that cut by abv and the appearance of the distillate (cloudiness and surface film). The characteristic wet cardboard smell did not come thru until very late into the tails and then only slightly.
The hearts, well, they taste like they are supposed to.
While one result does not establish a rule, it appears at least this time, that souring the mash produces cleaner tails. As far as the heads, I don't recycle anything that comes prior to the hearts so I have some really nice feints for my next thumper charge.
I have been reading up on souring mashes since this "accident" and plan to do more, just cleaner with more control over the process.

[blind drunk]

Interesting, thanks for the report dag_.

[RumBrewer]

Yup.
Glad this went well for you dag_nabberit. I will be giving it a try some day.
.... Wonder what an all bret ferment would be like.... mmmmmmmmm.

[dag_nabberit]

I almost hate to admit it but i have accidentally soured another mash. These all grains can be tricky. Here is what happened.

Prepared the mash, put it into the insulated mash tun, checked it periodically stirring each time. After 2 hours it had thinned out nicely.Then placed the mash into the fermentor.

I cheated a little here and decided to add sugar to boost the yield. Yea, that is no longer an all grain but I wanted to see if I could increase production and still maintain the characteristics of an all grain product.

I had mixed 5 pounds sugar into a gallon on nearly boiling water and let it cool. That was added to the mash and then topped with another gallon of cool water. That ratio of sugar to water would be a little high on sg by itself but when mixed with the somewhat lower sg of the grain I figure the ratios should balance out.

Now to wait for the mixture to cool to yeast pitching temp. (A wort cooler is on my to do list)
It was still to warm at bedtime so I left it until the next morning. When I checked on it again (about 8 hours later) I was greeted by a smell very similar to soured milk.

I wondered if that is what lacto is supposed to smell like. Not being sure I pitched a generous portion (about 1/4 cup) of baker's yeast to try to get ahead of anything unfriendly going on.
Several hours later the yeast was working and the combined smell of baker's yeast and the souring reminded me of cream cheese cake frosting. Oh well, I'll see how this turns out.

I know I am not re-inventing the wheel here, many brewers have discovered these things long before me. It is a little refreshing though to stumble upon these discoveries, even if somewhat haphazardly.

Now to go to work refining my methods.