Awesome information on Sour Mashing

[jivex5k]

http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2014/01/w ... rment.html
Great read I came across on BA in my quest to eliminate cheese aroma, figured I'd share. I'm determined to become a sour mash master.

[BigPapaG]

Received this as a Father's Day gift...

Huge wealth of info... Go get ya' some!

[mashani]

So he basically suggests creating a "sour mash starter". Which sounds like a good idea... if it goes to hell just make another one and less lost... I might try this in my 2L vial.

FWIW, the way the Belgians do it for fully fermented sours is what he talks a bit about - they put the wort into barrels that are loaded with the bugs they want because they got this way over time and barrels that made bad beer were burned up as firewood or the like. Bugs in this case includes sacc and brett, not just lacto and other bugs. The sacc and brett start fermenting while the sour bugs make sour stuff and the nasty bugs try to grow and make nasty stuff. Between the PH the sour bugs throw out and the alcohol the sacc and brett make the nasty bugs die before they can cause harm. This happens for sure by the time it reaches 2% abv, which isn't very long.

EDIT: The "bug farm blends" you can buy try to simulate the barrel contents in this case.

But you don't get that kind of alcohol production in a straight up sour mash, so you are relying primarily on PH.

[Inkleg]

@Jive, good find thanks.

@George, that book is wonderful. Mine is full of green highlighted pages.

@Dave, I have a ECY20 going now. I tasted it at 6 months, WOW. Looking forward to getting different ones to try.

@Inkleg, stop it man, you're becoming obsessed with this brewing thing.

[The_Professor]

I just breezed through the article. I'll check it out more later.

I have been experimenting with both lacto and wild yeast with 1/2 gallon batches.

For a lacto starter I seemed to have good luck using a quart mason jar and adding a cup each of milled raw barley and malted 2 row then filling most of the rest of the jar with a light brine. This sat a week in the 60s.

For wild yeast I used raw honey and water in a quart mason jar and harvested the yeast I got for a recent 1/2 gallon batch of beer that is still fermenting.

[jivex5k]

Yeah I need to get that book. So I was thinking about how culturing the bugs in a starter differs from culturing them directly in the mash, and what the benefits would be from this.

Culturing from the same grains will give you the same bugs, bad or good, is it that the ph will drop more quickly in a starter thus not giving the bad bugs a chance to grow, while the good bugs survive? Another benefit would be not losing a whole batch if it's bad. And possibly a third would be faster lactic acid creation in the mash when the starter is pitched.

I find it interesting that heat is such a concern when souring the entire mash yet apparently not at all in a starter. Seems contradictory, and nothing is said about limiting oxygen exposure to the starter either. So I'm a bit confused on why these are treated so differently when they are essentially the same thing on different scales.

[mashani]

Well 2 things about a starter you can control more for sure are nutrients and inoculation (amount of bugs) in proportion to volume. Nutrients that help the bugs you want to grow to grow (may not apply here). Inoculation does though. The bugs grow exponentially until they run out of nutrients. In a smaller volume the sour bugs might multiply to a level that produces enough of a PH change to kill the bad bugs sooner, as you are probably adding proportionality larger amounts of bugs by volume, so the growth happens faster - it happens faster for the bad bugs you add too - but the good bugs produce the PH changes and kill the bad bugs faster due to growth in proportion to volume (assuming your starter is nutrient dense enough to allow enough growth to reach that PH level). Then you pitch that into your wort to sour, and you are only pitching good bugs and what small amount (by volume) of "offness of flavor" the bad ones made, which is hopefully much more undetectable in the final product being diluted, especially if the starter didn't turn out nasty seeming.

I hope that made sense because the only other way is complicated math showing growth/ph changes over time compared to volume...

I *would* limit oxygen to attempt to prevent any acetobacter from getting a foothold. I think that should be a given assumption.

I *would* try to keep it in a temperature range that the bugs you like are most happy at and/or the ones you dislike are not.

But since you can toss it I guess those things aren't as important as long as you are lucky and willing to chuck it if needed.

[jivex5k]

Makes sense. So I'm thinking I should get an apple juice jug and make near to a gallon starter wort with boiled dme, get it to 1.030, throw in grain and put airlock on and stick it under heat lamp for 4 days. If it tastes good I can pitch the whole thing into my mash.

[mashani]

I think the professor's idea of a "light brine" might be interesting too. Even a small amount of salt will inhibit some of the bad bugs. Might be worth experimenting with.

[jivex5k]

I think the professor's idea of a "light brine" might be interesting too. Even a small amount of salt will inhibit some of the bad bugs. Might be worth experimenting with.

Gose comes to mind.
I talked to the author of that article and he had the following to say about heat and airlock concerns:

I make it like I do my normal starter in a 500mL-2L flask (depending on size), no airlock (you want air in there!) with foil on the top.

(I inquired about heat)
High temps IMO arent a beneficial environment for a sour mash, as the culture is mixed (yeast + bacteria) so you can get off flavors from high temp yeast metabolism. pH is the biggest thing for inhibiting bad flavors/aromas, it kills the nasty bacteria off, adding chalk helps to buffer the acidity as well because lactic bacteria will actually inhibit themselves with their acid production

(inquired about oxygen )
acetobacter need ethanol before they can make acetic acid, in the starter wort there is very little ethanol, and even if you end up with some in the starter when you pitch it into wort and the culture begins to ferment (driving the environment anaerobic) and there is alcohol to convert, there wont be any O2 in solution, with my approach Ive personally never had noticeable amounts of vinegar form

That said, IMO just about any sour benefits from very very small amounts of acetic acid, especially small quantities are difficult for most people to differentiate from other acids (notable lactic) and IMO a small amout improves the depth of flavor slightly

So there are a lot of ways to skin this cat. I'm just going to have to keep a log of the differences they create and try this over time. I've got some planning ahead of me, man....I'm really excited by this all...I haven't been this into brewing since I first started.

[The_Professor]

I think the professor's idea of a "light brine" might be interesting too. Even a small amount of salt will inhibit some of the bad bugs. Might be worth experimenting with.

Gose comes to mind.

Exactly.
I had googled some about brewing beer with salt because I had seen some English beer recipes from the 1800s that would add salt and I wondered why anyone would do that. An article about Gose came up, and a brine sounded like a good way to inhibit other stuff and allow lactobacillus to grow for a lacto starter. I googled some about sour fermenting other foods and went with 1tsp sea salt to 2 cups H2o.

[mashani]

That said, IMO just about any sour benefits from very very small amounts of acetic acid, especially small quantities are difficult for most people to differentiate from other acids (notable lactic) and IMO a small amout improves the depth of flavor slightly

RE: ^this^ - the spontaneously fermented Belgian sours done in barrels theoretically have more depth of flavor for the same reason. Even the bad bugs that we do not want that die off early in fermentation contribute flavors that in very small quantities don't make the beer taste "bad" just "different" and have more "depth" as he says. It's just a matter of keeping that all below a threshold of taste where it starts to become less "deep" and more "off putting". I do think YMMV in this regards too - everyone tastes things at a different level.

[braukasper]

Received this as a Father's Day gift...

Huge wealth of info... Go get ya' some!

Great Book isn't it

[jivex5k]

I think the professor's idea of a "light brine" might be interesting too. Even a small amount of salt will inhibit some of the bad bugs. Might be worth experimenting with.

Gose comes to mind.

Exactly.
I had googled some about brewing beer with salt because I had seen some English beer recipes from the 1800s that would add salt and I wondered why anyone would do that. An article about Gose came up, and a brine sounded like a good way to inhibit other stuff and allow lactobacillus to grow for a lacto starter. I googled some about sour fermenting other foods and went with 1tsp sea salt to 2 cups H2o.

If you haven't had a gose I'd recommend Ritterguts for a more traditional example, or Anderson Valley's Holy something fink something gose, can't remember the real name. It's refreshing and delicious and more tart than the ritterguts.

There is also Westbrook Gose which is regarded as the best in the market now but has limited availability, anderson valley sees more distribution I believe.

From what I've talked to about some local breweries the key to a gose was making a Berliner and adding salt at flameout. The brine would be an interesting way as well. My gut says you could add salt at any point and achieve the saltiness in the beer, since, well it's salt.

[BigPapaG]

I believe a traditional Gose is more than a salty Berliner...

In fact, they are usually spontaneously fermented and more citrus like than lactic... Although some lactic acidity is desired.

I plan on going the Salty Berliner route, but will probably add some corriander to support the citrus aspect...

Here is a link to the 2014 Brewers Association Guidelines for more info...

2014 Brewers Association Style Guidelines