Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by BlackDuck »

mashani wrote:FWIW, the traditional way to "fruit" a Berliner is to add a fruity syrup (think any kind of euro syrup like they would add as shots to coffee for flavor) to your glass of whatever flavor you like... but not really to fruit the actual Berliner.

Not saying you can't do it, but if you were in Germany and you wanted a raspberry flavored Berliner, you'd get a shot or raspberry syrup with the Berliner poured on top.
I know, but since I'm not in Germany and I'm really not trying to do the traditional thing, I'll pick one flavor that I like and use that.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by LouieMacGoo »

Reading through this whole thread I don't see any mention of using a different equipment when brewing a sour so as not to contaminate any future regular brews. I found this article called How to brew your first Sour Beer (with All Grain Recipe) and the method they suggest is to sour in secondary using old (needing to be retired) equipment such as siphon hose and bottling wand and old bucket fermenter then keeping that equipment strictly for producing sour beer.

Also I found it interesting that they handle it pretty much as any other brew day and use US-05 in primary and don't attempt to sour it until secondary which seems to make sense to me and keep things as close to what you're used to doing as possible.

I've been hesitant to brew a sour beer up until now but between this tread and the "How to brew your first sour Beer" article I think I might have to get going on making one.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by mashani »

@Louie: FWIW

The Berliner blend or other sour blend mixed yeasts are composed of a blend of a plain yeast (pretend US-05 if you like, but it is probably an actual wheat beer yeast in a true Berliner blend) and the sour bugs in some ratio, that allows the plain yeast get a foothold first and then the sour bugs kick in a few days into fermentation and help clean up the remains.

That controls the level of sour, and the proportions are built so that you get a nice but not overwhelming sour with an average mash temperature.

With those blends, you can get more or less sour by adjusting mash temperature (higher mash = more sour because the sour bugs will happily eat what the yeast can't).

Same would go for a beer you are souring in the secondary.

The only concern that really would make it different then what you described above would be the potential to contaminate your primary fermenter.

How likely that is depends on what your primary fermenter is. If it's glass, it's not going to happen (if it does happen you should be throwing out that fermenter anyways as your probably getting glass bits in your beer). I didn't contaminate my plastic fermenter when I did the sour, but that is because I'm really careful to never put anything in it that can scratch it, and don't scrape off beer stone without treating it first, and also disassembled the spigot and bleach bombed the whole thing just to be safe.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by FedoraDave »

I don't use glass carboys, but I recently purchased a Big Mouth Bubbler to replace my 5g Better Bottle. So rather than discard it, I'm keeping it around for an exclusive souring vessel.

I hadn't thought about the rest of the equipment, though. I'll be kegging it, most likely, so I really only need to worry about the auto-siphon, but there's no reason I can't buy a new one and use the old one for sours. Same with a bottling bucket if I feel the need to bottle them, but I don't anticipate that happening.

Based on what Mashani has written (and I'll go over this with my LHBS guy, too, as he is pretty well-versed in sours), I'm going to use the Berliner Weisse Blend and just keep my process the same. I might ferment upstairs, rather than in the basement, since a higher fermentation temp can enhance things, and definitely won't hurt anything, but other than that, it's business as usual.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by BlackDuck »

Hey Swen...noticed in another thread that you made your sour. Care to share the details here please?
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by alb »

This overview makes it sound fairly uncomplicated. I'm starting to think I want to do one in the fall, along with a cider.


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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by FedoraDave »

I think something's wonky with that link, alb. It directed me to a page of nothing but clickable links, and I didn't see one on kettle souring.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by alb »

That's strange, it takes me directly to the page on kettle souring. You can go to http://www.northernbrewer.com then hit the "LEARN" tab at the top, then the right-hand box for "Explore the Knowledge Base." Kettle Souring Made Easy is a clickable link at the bottom of the first column. Or you can read this direct copy from their website:

Kettle Souring

Like any trend in the brewing world, specific styles of beers come with specific techniques to make them a reality. New England IPAs, for example, can utilize non-traditional mash ingredients and also unique hopping schedules. When it comes to technique, sour beers are no different. Traditionally, sour beers utilize a long, arduous aging period to allow various bacterial and/or yeast cultures to slowly turn the fermented beer into a wonderfully complex and tart delight. In practice, however, many brewers just do not have the patience to wait up to 24 months for the souring to occur. For these brewers (myself included), there exists a work-around to emulate a traditionally soured beer: Enter the kettle souring method.

Kettle souring is a technique that allows brewers to rapidly sour unfermented wort in just a matter of days, often taking only a mere 24 hours. It could not be more simple – after creating wort and conducting a brief boil for sanitation, the wort is cooled to 75 – 95 degrees F (24 – 35 C) and a cultured strain (or blend of strains) of pure lactobacillus is introduced. Once introduced, the lactobacillus will go to work and begin consuming sugars in the wort transforming them into lactic acid, providing the tart flavor we know and love. Given some time, usually 1 to 3 days, the souring will be complete.

How do you know when it is done? Well, if you are the sciency type, bust out your pH meter and test the wort. For a subtle sourness, target a pH in the mid to upper 3s or if you want that awesome lip-puckering sourness, shoot for a pH in the lower 3s. Don’t have a pH meter? No worries, simply draw a small sample of the wort with a sanitized utensil and taste. When the wort has the desired sourness you can move on to the next step – boiling.

Souring a beer this way has several benefits. First, the time frame. Being able to turn a sour beer in mere days is the obvious benefit. Second, since the wort is soured and then boiled to kill off the lactobacillus, you do not need to worry about infecting any equipment or contaminating any other batches in your fermentation area. Finally, since lactobacillus is extremely sensitive to isomerized alpha-acids (as little as 2 IBUs), this method allows you to make a hoppier sour beer than possible with the traditional method – think sour Imperial Stout for example.

There are a few techniques that can help to make this method a success every time. Pre-acidification of the wort to pH 4.5 using a food grade acid (lactic or phosphoric) will do wonders in inhibiting other bacterial strains that may be present such as enteric bacteria. This acidification will also hamper the action of an enzyme lactobacillus uses to break down proteins, so your resulting beer will still showcase all the head retention and body that you would expect from the same beer fermented with only saccharomyces. Another helpful technique when kettle souring is to make a small starter 24 hours in advance to make sure the lactobacillus is up to the job. This starter does not have to be large – 1 cup of 1.040 starter wort will do the trick. A day after making the starter, create your wort, chill to around 85 degrees and add the entire starter to begin the souring process. Don’t worry if the wort temperature drops to room temperature during the souring, my favorite lactobacillus strain (Omega Yeast Labs OYL-605) works incredibly well at lower temperatures due to its unique blend of bacteria strains. The wort will sour at a slightly slower pace, but it still beats waiting for up to two years!

It may seem a little daunting at first, but trust me, this is an incredibly easy and forgiving technique. Just make sure that your sanitation practices are impeccable as always, and enjoy your adventure into rapid-turn sour beers!

Dive into the world of Kettle Sours with the Heiress de Bourgogne recipe kit. Inspired by the classic Flemish Red Ale, Heiress de Bourgogne is a deeply complex sour red ale with notes of raisins, dark stone fruits, and a delicate tartness. Best of all, we guarantee you’ll have a fantastic result with this proven recipe kit!
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by FedoraDave »

Thanks for the cut-n-paste job, Li'l Sis. This was an interesting read. Though it seems that this method is similar to earlier recommendations of using the White Labs Berliner Weisse yeast and having a dedicated carboy. With the advances being made in yeast hybridization/specialization, I wonder if these are two sides of the same coin. The starter mentioned in your article seems to indicate that the kettle souring will be doing the same thing as boiling as usual and letting the yeast take care of it for two or three weeks.

My LHBS guy recommended that I bring the wort to hot break, flame-out and then add the hops, which will provide flavor and aroma, but won't compromise the work of the lacto.

And I have a carboy that I was going to discard, but which now can be used as an exclusive sour carboy. This is all good information, and I thank you again for posting this. But I think I'm going to go with my evolved plan.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by BlackDuck »

FedoraDave wrote:Though it seems that this method is similar to earlier recommendations of using the White Labs Berliner Weisse yeast and having a dedicated carboy.
Actaully, the Kettle Sour technique allows you to NOT have a dedicated carboy.
since the wort is soured and then boiled to kill off the lactobacillus, you do not need to worry about infecting any equipment or contaminating any other batches in your fermentation area
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by mashani »

And you can't kettle sour with the white labs Berliner Weiss blend, because it's got a Sacc strain in it and is meant to ferment your beer from start to finish. (well maybe you could... but it would be dumb...).

Kettle sour should be done with pure lacto, then a sacc strain pitched when you throw it into your fermenter.

That said, I would just use the Berliner Weiss blend or toss in some of the Omega yeast lacto strain along with whatever Sacc I wanted to use and let it sit for 6 weeks or so at a warmish temp and then just bottle it. To me it's less work to pitch and walk away then to futz around with kettle souring, holding temps, blah blah....

It doesn't take 6 months or 2 years to make a lacto sour like some of those web sites say, whoever said that is doing it wrong. You can get fresh (just weeks old) low ABV lacto sours in Europe, in some places they drink that like lemonade, and they are not kettle soured, they are still effervescent from the live fermentation. The long aging thing is true if it's a mixed culture sour with stuff like pedio or some types of Brett in it, because pedio will make your beer taste like baby puke mixed with butterscotch candy for a while, and Brett might take forever to actually make something sour. But lacto/sacc sour isn't like that as long as you keep it in a temp range it likes and don't put too much bittering hops in it. That's probably the thing that most 'Mericans do wrong more then anything. Just lay off the hops. Dry hop it if you want hops presence in the final product. You don't need more then a pinch in the kettle. Hops are what will kill your sour.

They didn't "kettle sour" in the old world. That's modern mumbo jumbo for paranoid people LOL. :)

If I wanted to do it faster, I'd just use a whole bunch of acidulated malt. You aren't going to get any "complexity" from kettle souring that will taste significantly different then that. It's lacto man, lacto on it's own isn't complex.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by FedoraDave »

Okay, mashani just confirmed a lot of A) what I was thinking and B) what my LHBS guy (who is apparently a sour maven) said.

I have no problem using a dedicated carboy for sours; I just bought a new Big Mouth Bubbler to replace my primary fiver carboy. So that old carboy can be a dedicated sour carboy. I'll have to get a dedicated auto-siphon and a dedicated beer thief, but those are minor expenses.

I like the idea of "set it and forget it." This hobby is supposed to be fun, and fussing over any beer for any period of time is not my idea of fun. I do fewer lagers than I'd like because you have to be mindful of the D-rest. Yes, I'm that lazy.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by BlackDuck »

I'm starting to get ready to do this sour thing. I'm still meddling with the recipe a little bit, but I thought I would do a temperature test to see how long I could hold a higher temperature in my kettle. I filled it with about 8 gallons of hot water from the tap and wrapped it in two heavy blankets and laid two towels on the top. Here's the results:

4/15/17: 10:30 am, starting temp at 108F
8:45 pm, 100F
4/16/17: 10:30 am, 92F
4:50 pm, 88F
4/17/17: 10:30 am, 82F

So there was a 26 degree drop in 48 hours. I figure if I start the souring at 115, I should be around 90 degrees after two days. I'm thinking that should probably be sufficient to get the souring done.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by FedoraDave »

Good luck with it! Post your results.

As I've indicated, I'm going to use a warmer area to ferment, and trust to the yeast to do what I want it to do. So I will probably wait until early June to brew it.
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Re: Gotta make a sour - need some guidance

Post by FedoraDave »

Wow.

My plan has changed. I went to the LHBS yesterday and spoke to the guy at length about what process/technique might be best for me. I mentioned that I was considering just leaving it to the yeast to do its thing. But he said that the only problem with that is that it could be notoriously variable from one batch to the next. I might really love my first batch, and then really hate my second batch, even though I did everything as identically as I could. The vagaries of yeast.

So he mentioned that I could do the following:

Make a starter with lacto and apple juice (lacto apparently likes apple juice). Then bring my wort up to hot break and cool it down to around 80 degrees or so and add the starter until I've gotten the tartness I want. After that, bring it to a boil for ten minutes and add whatever hops I want at flame-out. Chill to 70 or so, pitch a regular German Ale yeast, and ferment at a higher-than-usual temperature.

This will give me more control over the amount of sourness/tartness, dialing it in to my personal taste. Boiling will kill the lacto, so no more activity will occur. The hop addition is minimal, and as long as I keep the IBU under 10, it won't cause problems.

So I think this is what I'll be doing. It gives me more control, and it's something I can do with my facilities/equipment.
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