Philly Funk III

About This Beer

Third Philly Funk, after the original in 2024 and the second last October. Sour IPA fermented with Lachancea thermotolerans, which makes lactic acid and ethanol in one fermentation, no bacteria and no kettle sour.

Dextrose in the boil is there for the acid rather than the gravity. Lachancea builds lactic acid from glucose and not from maltose, so an all-malt wort caps how far the pH will fall whatever the fermentation temperature.

Lower Hutt, Saturday 12 September 2026.

First brew on the new MaltMuncher. Finest index ran floury and was rejected. The middle one gave broken husks over broken but unpowdered endosperm.

Hops

Bitterness kept low and kept out of the kettle. Whirlpool at 70°C rather than the usual 80, which roughly halves isomerisation, and the weight that would have gone there went into the dry hop instead.

Luminosa across all three additions. Out of the same Oregon State programme as Strata, with no farnesene and no resinous character, which is what suits it over an acidic base. Citra and Superdelic cryo over the top in the dry hop, for aroma load without the polyphenol of the equivalent pellet charge.

Chloride-forward water, inverted from the second version. Acid sharpens bitterness, so the sulfate comes down.

Fermentation

Pitched dry and held warm through the first 72 hours, which is the window the lactic acid is made in. The strain’s published finish is pH 3.2 to 3.5.

Dry hop once primary has gone quiet and the krausen has fallen, yeast still in suspension, at 22°C rather than cold. Warm enough for hop creep to run in the fermenter with live yeast on it rather than in the keg.

Super F into the purged keg ahead of the beer at transfer, first use of the product. The hop bed stays behind in the fermenter, which is the condition it wants.

Wednesday 16 September, 7 pm, four days in. Gravity 1.007 on the pill and the velocity over its peak. Sample off the top read pH 3.4, sour on the palate and the yeast still on the nose. Hops in, lid back on, headspace purged.

Monday 21 September, day nine. Forced diacetyl test clean — two sealed jars, one held twenty minutes at 60°C, both back down to 19°C, nothing to tell between them. Glass hydrometer 1.004. pH still 3.4.

Sour, a lot of hop aroma, dry. The pill had been drifting a fraction of a point below the glass each day while the closed valve sat flat at 20 psi, so the glass is the number and the beer had stopped some days ago.

Crash on. The valve stays shut through it. With no gas line the pressure falls on its own as the beer cools, and the beer goes to the keg under target and gets topped up there.

Kegging

Tuesday 22 September, ten days. Beer at 3°C since midnight, and ten hours cold is enough — chill haze forms fast once it is genuinely down there, and every further hour drops out more of the yeast the finings need to work on.

Super F into the sanitised keg, purged, then the usual closed transfer. It took the whole keg and ran clear, with about 500 mL over into a PET under a carb cap. Hop bed and trub stayed in the fermenter.

Warm off the tap it is already good. Big hop aroma, juicy and fruity, sour without being sharp. The malt sits behind the fruit and it finishes dry.

The pill dropped seven points through the crash, from 1.0028 at 22.5°C to 0.9957 at 3°C, with nothing fermenting. Final gravity is the glass figure, 1.004.