I too am intrigued, I've never heard of anyone doing this.

@benvarine there is an ounce of hallertau in the recipe.

traditionally it is aged out to become quite tart. But it's not required to age out. Since you don't' necessarily need brett or peddio in there it doesn't need to age a long time.

Lactobacillus grows and is happiest around 110F. So that's the best temp to make a starter at or to have it start chewing away at your wort at. Once the pH is low enough I will be pitching the ale yeast (after cooling down to about 63F).

I'm not sure which parts you're unfamiliar with so if you have any questions let me know. The basic idea for pitching the lacto first then the yeast was presented at the NHC a few years ago by Wyeast or White Labs... Can't recall which. It's suppose to give the lacto a head start so it can produce more tartness.

Benvarine said:

I had heard of making a mash or wort and souring it for a day to two, more depending on how sour you want it. Can be done by pitching or by throwing some grain into it because grain has lacto all over it. To be held at 100F ideally. Then doing a full boil, 60-90 depending on how you roll. Then when done, cool and pitch yeast. Boil stops and kills the lacto so it won't get any more sour, ferment as usual, carb and serve.

So basic difference is you sour, then pitch yeast without killing off the lacto first. That is the part I was unfamiliar with. Have you done this before or is this your first run? Sounds fun.

yeah, this.... sour mash I am familiar with, this is a whole different methodology...

huh. i would have assumed that the lacto would completely over-run the wort if you didn't boil it after a sour mash. in fact i believe the process of boiling wort in brewing originated as a way of keeping the lacto on the grain from taking over the wort.

mors said:

Yeah if you don't boil the lacto will take hold. If you pitch a yeast first though there might not be enough sugars left for the lacto to produce enough sourness. This is why you let the lacto have head start.

That makes sense, repeatability might be difficult if that's important to you. I can see where you might get varying levels of sourness from batch to batch because it might depend on how quick or how well your yeast fights.