BeerBorg

Well, after a lot of research, advice, and preparation, I'm diving into this recipe. This is a collaboration between JimJohnson and I, and the style is very new to both of us, but I was/am quite eager to give this a try. The sour mash technique is something neither of us has done before, and I like sour beers but I just don't know how sour I will like this brew, so the plan is to sour mash half of the grain bill, and sweet mash the other half. This way, if the sour wort is too sour, the sweet wort will balance it out.

Ingredients:
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Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2 lbs Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 36.4 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 2 22.7 %
1 lbs Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 3 18.2 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 4 9.1 %
8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5 9.1 %
4.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.5 %
0.30 oz Cluster [7.10 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 7 18.2 IBUs
0.30 oz Cluster [7.10 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 3.3 IBUs
1.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 9 -
0.40 oz Cluster [7.10 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 5 lbs 8.0 oz
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Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 8.25 qt of water at 159.5 F 150.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.01gal, 1.41gal) of 168.0 F water

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Now the mash schedule is for the full grain bill, so basically I divided it in half for the sour mash. Fermentation will be at the low end, 60*-64*F for a clean, neutral flavor. After mashing in the first half, the wort was sweet but smoky. I really liked it. Fairly dark color, which is on par with this style being described as a mildly sour brown ale.

Will have to keep up on your progress here. Sounds interesting... And the name reminds me of the wonderful New Belgium/Yazoo collaboration, Rufus... which was a sour red ale fermented with two strains of brett, blackberries and blackcurrants, and then blended with "Oscar", New Belgium Brewing's "La Folie" sour base beer.

I remember seeing you post that one on Untappd a while back, and I wanted to try it just because it has my cat's name in it. JJ might call this beer something else. I just liked the name since it's a play on "Lawrence of Arabia".

When I was pouring in the uncrushed 2-row into the mash, I realized a pound of it was overkill, but if anything, maybe it'll compensate for not having a device to maintain heat in it. Hopefully after 15 hours, it won't have dropped below 100*F and it'll be maybe just a bit overly sour so that when I blend it with the sweet wort from the other half of the grain, it'll be just right.

Indeed... if too sour, you can always blend it down... Linus says they blended Fortuitous maybe 12-15 times before they got the balance they wanted. Ended up with 65% sour smoked porter, 30% barrel aged smoked porter, and 5% fresh smoked porter.

Well, power got knocked out last night so I went to bed early, and figured I'd check progress when I got up. 14 hours later at 8 am, I took a small taste sample and it's gotten a little sour but still sweet so I'm gonna let it go for a little while longer. I'll check it again closer to noon and see where it stands. Temperature dropped to 104*F overnight so I poured some near boiling water behind the lining and the temp rose back up to about 120*F. This should keep for at least another 6-8 hours before it drops back down.

18 hours seemed to yield a puckering sour that wasn't going to make my face flip inside out. After mashing the other half of the grain, I sparged using a quart less water than prescribed by beersmith, since I had added a quart of hot water to the souring mash to bring it up to temp. Then I sparged over the sweet mash with the sour wort, and slowly blended the two. The wort came out tart but still a real noticeable sweetness. First wort hops have been added, now just to wait for the boil and chilling in ice bath before pouring into the fermenter!

Mmm... sounds delicious - keep us appraised of the progress!

Ugh... something was bound to happen! It's really not all that bad. I'm using a new bucket that I converted to a fermenter, and I filled it with water to 2.5 gallons and marked the outside of the bucket where the level was at, but when I poured the wort, I didn't make my exact volume, so I poured distilled water into it to where I THOUGHT I made the mark, but was actually a quart more than I wanted. Adjusting for an extra quart of water, BeerSmith calculated my OG at 1.048, and I hit 1.047 so at least I pretty much hit my new target. On the plus side, the original OG of 1.053 was actually too high for the style, and now I'm within spec.

philm00x wrote:Ugh... something was bound to happen! It's really not all that bad. I'm using a new bucket that I converted to a fermenter, and I filled it with water to 2.5 gallons and marked the outside of the bucket where the level was at, but when I poured the wort, I didn't make my exact volume, so I poured distilled water into it to where I THOUGHT I made the mark, but was actually a quart more than I wanted. Adjusting for an extra quart of water, BeerSmith calculated my OG at 1.048, and I hit 1.047 so at least I pretty much hit my new target. On the plus side, the original OG of 1.053 was actually too high for the style, and now I'm within spec.

Don't you just love it when that happens.

Checking on it this morning, I had anticipated seeing some foam in the container I have starsan in for the blowoff setup, but there was no signs of escaping gas. Looked at the lid of the fermenter bucket, and it has expanded to a tall bulge, so I softly pushed down on it to force the co2 through the blowoff tube and flatten the lid. Very good sign that the yeasties are having a party

After some discussion, thinking, and rationalizing (mostly with myself), I decided to pull a gravity sample today and it came in at 1.012, where the new expected FG is 1.011 since I overfilled the fermenter. Dry hop addition was thrown in. I tasted the sample and it was rather refreshing! It could stand to be maybe a touch more sour, but it had a really nice peanut buttery flavor that was not expected at all. I think I'm really gonna like this beer!

Bottled this today. FG 1.012 for 4.6% ABV. I had cold crashed this beer for a few days to settle the hops solids from the dry hopping addition. I also tasted the gravity sample and it had a more noticeable sour bite, but still refreshing, and then finished with that wonderful peanut buttery flavor note.

First pour of this beer tonight with dinner.



Pic came out a little darker than it is, but it's a nice coffee caramel brown color. The sour is more subdued than I anticipated, but I think with a little more time for carbonation and conditioning, and serving it colder than I did, it will peek through. It's actually really refreshing, with a flavor of a good brown ale, and that peanut butter taste in the finish that I really enjoy most. The hops don't offer much aroma, but the bittering is just enough so that the malt is still the star of the show.

That looks and sounds delicious. Nice beer Phil!