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- Roshan NoronhaHow was DNA extracted from the sour beer?Jul 24, 20170
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherWe actually extracted DNA from sour mashes as opposed to sour beer. We used a Zymo Research kit for DNA extraction (bead beating of pelleted microbes followed by numerous spin columns to separate and clean up the nucleic acids). One could do the same thing with beer sample though.Jul 25, 20170
- Roshan NoronhaAwesome. Thanks alot Matthew.Jul 26, 20170
- Travis KnowlesBackerSweet! I mean sour...Jul 06, 20160
- Dan PixleyBackerCongrats!Jul 06, 20160
- Gail Ann WilliamsBackerMay this be the first of many!Jul 04, 20160
- Debbie CerdaBackerAlmost there!!!Jun 29, 20160
- Grant HeuerBackerIndian Joe Brewing in Vista, CA is happy to help!Jun 29, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherThanks Indian Joe Brewing! We'll let you know when we start getting some results in!Jun 29, 20160
- Rick StrayerBackerLooks like a useful cause to this microbiologist and sour head home brewer in SAAZJun 20, 20160
- Rick StrayerBackerLooks like a useful cause to this microbiologist and sour head home brewer in SAAZJun 20, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherThanks Rick!Jun 29, 20160
- Gianpaolo RandoBackerHello Matthew! I'm so happy to see another beer microbiome study on a crowdfunding site. I also cannot wait to see the results. We are expecting 96 beers, 16S and ITS (if all the libraries work well) - would be nice to find a way to benchmark your beers against our collection (we have already another sour beer).Jun 15, 20160
- Gianpaolo RandoBackerAlso, I was able to give you some love on our kickstarter updates: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/489252126/beerdecoded-the-1000-beer-genomes/posts/1605150Jun 15, 20160
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherGianpaolo, thanks for the financial and publicity support! We're really just focusing in on the initial grain and sour mash portion of the process now, but certainly assessing the microbiome of the beer during the ethanolic fermentation and post-bottling would be interesting. I'm excited to see the results of your project too!Jun 15, 20160
- Luc HenryBackerHello Matthew! People in our DIYbio community crowdfunded the BeerDeCoded (http://www.hackuarium.ch/en/beerdecoded/) project a year ago, and we are now about to touch base and release all the data! (hopefully in a few weeks) We're very excited about your project (thought about doing it in a local brewery but can't run every experiment we have in mind) and can't wait to see the results! Good luck!Jun 15, 20160
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherLuc, the BeerDeCoded project looks pretty cool. Are you guys going to publish anything in an academic journal? This is just the kind of stuff we'll be citing when we publish the results from this experiment.Jun 15, 20160
- Gianpaolo RandoBackerAnother BeerDeCoded guy here: We will likely deposit the data in an academic, citable, repository and decide later about peer-reviewed options.Jun 15, 20160
- Matthew CohenBackerHi Matthew, I was wondering what the sour mash process will look like for this experiment. What temperature were you planning on holding at? Will you be purging with CO2? ThanksJun 15, 20160
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherMatthew, Jeff would be the better person to answer your questions, so keep an eye out for his response here soon.Jun 15, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherHey Matthew, I'm going to write up a more detailed description of our souring process under lab notes, but for right now I can tell you that we do indeed purge our incubation tank (40bbl modified kettle) with CO2 and we hold every batch at 113F +/- 2FJun 15, 20160
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherAndrew, those are great ideas. I would love to run a comprehensive experiment surveying many lots of malt from as many major (and even local) providers as possible. That's the kind of thing that would need a larger budget than what we're proposing here though. If you know anyone at Weyermann or Briess who wants to back the research, let's get together and do it!Jun 14, 20160
- Andrew TurnerBackerI would also like to see if/how the microbiome changes as the source grain(s) age. We do kettle sours with starter cultures set up with Weyermanns acidulated malt and local grain from a local maltster to give us a local character. I have noticed that what I see under the microscope changes, for instance the most recent batch showed very little by way of wild yeast. It may just be initial starting conditions, or temperature, or some other factor or combination of factors, but I do wonder if it is mostly driven by what is on the grain and that that may change over time.Jun 13, 20160
- Andrew TurnerBacker...or indeed with different batches of grain.Jun 13, 20160
- Andrew TurnerBacker...and from different parts of the world.Jun 13, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherHi Andrew. I think making starter cultures from Weyer. acid malt is a good idea. I've used many different malts and seen many different results. We inoculate the entire batch of wort with the culture from the grain during the brew day OR we will pitch a bit of the previous beer's sour wort. So we can, and do want to assess "starter cultures" from our particular grain. We use Briess' Carapils as our inoculant. I've also used Weyer Cara Foam and even a few C-10s from different maltsters. We find the best results from the lowest kilned malts. A big factor for us is that we inoculate post-mash with additional malted grain. So the malt has to be basically "crystallized" or the wort will throw one terrible starch-haze! That's why CaraPils has been our grain of choice...although we're looking for alternatives, just haven't seen one that fits our criteria as well.Jun 15, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherFor this particular experiment, we'll start with what we know works (CaraPils) and would like to also test the wort that we collect and save to inoculate the next batch to see how it changes over the course of a week. That's kind of our of scope for this project, but if funds come through, perhaps we can tack on a couple other tests like that. Perhaps start building a library of "the best" grains to make sour-worts with.Jun 15, 20160
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherKlara, the 24 h thing is a great question. I'm going to write a lab note about it so you and the rest of the backers can get into our heads.Jun 13, 20160
- Klara JunkerBackerGreat project, have dreaming of doing the same for food fermentations ;) One question, why only monitor for 24h? Do you think the microbial community will have been established by then? No changes later in time..!?Jun 13, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherHey Klara, if we do everything right in the brewery and hit our target conditions properly, we can achieve our "maximum potential titratable acidity" for the wort generally in well less than 24 hours. As the density of the wort goes up, so does the buffering capacity, and thus so does the wort's ability to resist pH change and allow the souring agents to create acidity until the pH drops below about 3.3. After it drops below a pH of about 3.3, very little additional acidity is created. So as a brewery, we try to get the level of acidity (TA) in the least amount of time. The beer we are tested is a pretty typical gravity wort (around 12P) and we find it hits the level of acidity we desire (around 0.65% as lactic acid) in about 18 hours. So to be honest, the data points will all actually probably be under 24 hours and the last one will be taken when the TA is about 0.65%.Jun 15, 20160
- Jeff YoungResearcherThe really "important" data points will be a) the grain, b) the initial inoculated wort sample, and c) the final inoculated sour-wort sample. We will also be taking corresponding TAs, gravities, buffering capacity, and pH of the samples.Jun 15, 20160
- Kurt RoederBackerBeating all those Belgian monks at their own game. I like the way you think, Matthew L. Bochman.Jun 13, 20160
- Matthew L. BochmanResearcherWe're excited about it too and hope the craft beer community can benefit!Jun 11, 20160
- Cindy WuBackerThis is such an awesome project! I can't wait to see what you find.Jun 10, 20160