Beer Forum

Hey All,

I'm building a sorta incubation chamber to do Lacto starters as I've heard that their replication rate increases at near body temperature. This is for an upcoming berliner weisse brew I'll be doing later this week. I'm testing now it's ability to hold temp and I'll pictures afterwards (after I figure that out) but so far it looks like it will work alright. I don't think I've seen this before but I'm sure it's been done. At least if I post it, someone may find inspiration from it.

It really boils down to a cardboard box lined with the shiny bubble wrap insulation you can get from your local hardware store, with a seedling mat heater and controller to control the temp.

I don't know if it's true but I've heard that like yeast, Lacto can ferment anaerobically and aerobically and for growth it's better to go with aerobic. I'd like to use a stir plate in this setup, but I only have one and I'm planning on doing a triple brew day on Friday/Saturday so my stir plate will be tied up on a starter for a porter. I'll aerate this starter and my other berliner weisse starter with an air pump (using sanitary filters if i can get them). I'll modify up some half gallon mason jars to accept the tubing and an air lock and run my big Erlenmeyer for the porter starter. This may change and I may run a 2L Erlenmeyer on the small berliner yeast starter.

I'm going to try a 50/50 mix of invert sugar and DME for the lacto starter. I've read that an increase in glucose will help replication. I'll throw in some yeast nutrient as well. I'll run it four ~24hr add some silica based clarifier and put it in the fridge to decant.

As I'm writing this I'm running a test to see how accurate the inside temp is. I'm comparing the given controller temp vs a thermoworks thermopop and as of right now with the air pump running, i'm at around 3 degrees of temp difference. However the controller probe is located at the bottom of the box while the thermopop is at the top.

I made an incubator using a dead mini-fridge, a Johnson controller, and an oil pan heater on an aluminum heat sink. The fridge's fan was left intact to circulate air for even temps (which may or may not have been a good idea). No reason why a cardboard box lined with insulation wouldn't work just as well.

I like the idea of the seedling mat better than the oil pan heater and will try that next time.

It seems to be working pretty well. I can get it up to the mid to upper 90's which is ~35 degrees above ambient. It isn't a very pretty solution however.

Cool! The biggest problem with my unit was that the oil pan heater was so energetic that with 1 degree hysteresis on the controller I was getting a 3 degree swing in temperature (+2 over set point). The seedling mat swap ought to fix that.

For Wyeast's 5335 Lacto strain, they recommend a 1.020 DME wort incubated at 30ºC for 5-7 days anaerobically. For one pack in 1L, it should grow 200 Billion cells.

For incubating stirred starters I use a simple heat pad on the stirplate under the flask and control with an STC-1000 wth it's probe taped to the flask. I use a similar set-up in the incubation chamber for plates, slants and non-stirred starters.

Nate

Yes. I agree with the above post. Your will grow more lacto cells by minimizing the O2 available (i.e. as in very little to none) with a lower gravity starter. I would not use a stir plate for this and I would use a traditional airlock to keep out the oxygen. I would also expect a minimum of 5 days for the first generation to complete its activity with this process. Be prepared to step it up again to maybe 2 qts and letting it finish out completely before chilling, decanting and pitching into your Berliner. If you follow these steps you will have a better chance of getting the appropriate acidity required for this style.

here's some (rather poor) pictures of the incubator. http://imgur.com/a/sLrfi

You could probably re-purpose a yogurt maker as an excellent lacto starter incubator.