Beer styles and consumer tastes are constantly evolving and to ensure that brewers can fully express their creativity through different beer styles and answer to new expectations, Fermentis is constantly innovating. SafSour™ LP 652 is their latest release to deliver better control to your sour beers.

Sour beer styles are expanding. Originating from Belgium and once reserved for the ‘initiated’, the style has seen its popularity increase dramatically over the last few years. Their lower alcohol with a full flavour makes them perfect for a climate such as Australia, and their non-traditional flavours – especially when blended with fruit – are attracting a whole new audience that has avoided traditional beer styles.

With more drinkers seeking out the style, brewers are developing beers to meet demand. Consistency is key for all beers but the sour beer style has presented special challenges for replicability and control. Fermentis has developed a bacteria that is able to completely control the acidity of the beer and avoid problems during souring process.

We are pleased to present the first bacteria of our range to help brewers create sour beers. This homofermentative lactic acid bacteria called SafSour™ LP 652 has been specifically selected by Fermentis for its capabilities to provide tropical, citrus and fruity notes and, of course, to acidify the beer wort.

Acidification with kettle souring

SafSour™ 652 is ideal for kettle sour beer recipes. Kettle souring is the most popular technique to acidify a wort, consisting of cooling and acidifying the wort before any hop addition. This method is used as the iso alpha acids present in hops would inhibit the bacteria’s growth and its metabolism if you pitch it after hop additions.

How to use SafSour LP 652?

The optimum dosing rate for this product is 10g/hL

As many of our products, SafSour™ LP 652 is certified E2U™. This means you can pitch the bacteria directly into the non-hopped wort without a rehydration step. It simplifies your work and we guarantee the same results in term of acidification time or organoleptic profile.

We recommend to pitch the bacteria in a wort cooled to between 30 and 40°C (86-104°F). The optimum dosing rate for this product is 10g/hL.

In those conditions you can reach a final pH between 3.2 and 3.6. Brewers still have the choice of the sour level they want to reach in their final beer. Depending on the target sourness, the acidification process will take between 24 and 36 hours as you can see on the graph below.

The optimal temperature is 37°C

For an optimal use, the acidification should be done at a temperature not higher than 40°C (104°F), our precise recommendation is 37°C (98,6°F). We demonstrated that at higher temperatures, lactic fermentation is not performed because of an important negative impact of high temperatures on lactic acid production.

SafSour™ LP 652 impact on the final beer

To characterise the organoleptic profile of our products, Fermentis has created an expert sensory panel. The panel aims to measure and characterise each product.

The Fermentis Beer Panel consist of 40 specially trained staff from different sectors and disciplines within the business.

In the case of the SafSour™ LP 652, the panel undertook a blind evaluation of three different beers: a Pilsen non-hopped wort at 12°P, this same wort with addition of 10g/hL of SafSour™ LP 652 in a kettle souring method and the same wort again with addition of 100g/hL of product.

It’s clearly visible with the graph on the left that SafSour™ LP 652 has a huge impact on the organoleptic profile. First, by increasing acidity and general voltile acidity, which was expected, but it’s not the only change. It decreases significantly the malt character of the beerof the beer: cereal, honey and sweetness perception are lower with SafSour™ LP 652.

At the opposite end, the fruity perception is enhanced. The panelists have described this in terms of tropical (mango, passion fruit) and citric (lemon, grapefruit) notes.

The perception differences between the two dosages of SafSour™ LP 652 are not significant, so pitching more will definitely reduce the final pH and the acidification time but will not have an organoleptic impact. It’s the reason why we recommend an optimum dosing rate of 10g/hL.

Available on our App and website!

Discover more about the SafSour™ LP 652 and all our others products on the Fermentis App (available on App Store and Android) and on our website available by clicking here!