Funking Up The Funk!

[alkos]

Ok, here's the story:

1. Made ~1.055 english style ale, with a dollop of homemade amberish malt and EKG hops.
2. Finished unusually high as for Nottingham, 1.018.
3. Dry hopped with EKG, after 5 days removed the hops (strange film on the surface) and tasted - uuugh - meh - sour!
4. Kept in a closed fermenter since (2 weeks), there is no further film developing, sourness stays where it was. Or at least it seems.

The combination of dry hopping and wild-whatever infection (I suspect sourdough) is not the greatest thing I ever tried. Now:

A. Should I bottle in 5L plastic water bottles. simply wait 2-3 years for hops to disappear?
B. Add oak to simulate wooden cask maturing?
C. Some other ingredient to make it work? Tried to mix a little with rapsberry juice - ugh. Doesn't work as for now.

Any ideas, mighty funkmasters?

 

[manticle]

Is it horrible or just not as you'd like?

If it is horrible, tip it down the drain. If it has potential and you have a taste for experimental beers, put it in a fermenter you will only ever use for this kind of beer. Add something like Wyeast Roselare or the dregs of your favourite brett/sour beer (Orval is good). Add some oak, and reduce the headspace as much as possible. Let it sit for a few months or until the pellicle drops and make sure the gravity is below 1010. Transfer to a glass carboy with any fruit or other flavours you think might work, top up and seal with a bung and an airlock and leave as long as you can.

Hopefully it turns out something good.

 

[alkos]

Do I like funk stuff? Tried Rodenbach Grand Cru and liked it, so I assume yesss

Its certainly not horrible. But far from what I'd like indeed.


Headspace - I was thinking about it just in case of acetic infection. That would not let it spread further, true?

Wyeast Roselare - a lambic mix I assume? Will it eat whatever is left down to 1.010? Wouldn't it make it too sour? *

Orval sounds like more fun option. So, dregs from 2-3 bottles will do?


How about the hop aroma / bitterness? Will it go away eventually - from your experience? How long to wait? (currently 25-30IBU)



* yeah, how sour is too sour? ;-)

 

[manticle]

Do I like funk stuff? Tried Rodenbach Grand Cru and liked it, so I assume yesss

Its certainly not horrible. But far from what I'd like indeed.


Headspace - I was thinking about it just in case of acetic infection. That would not let it spread further, true?

Wyeast Roselare - a lambic mix I assume? Will it eat whatever is left down to 1.010? Wouldn't it make it too sour? *

Orval sounds like more fun option. So, dregs from 2-3 bottles will do?


How about the hop aroma / bitterness? Will it go away eventually - from your experience? How long to wait? (currently 25-30IBU)



* yeah, how sour is too sour? ;-)

Roselare is a mixture of bacteria and brett and I think a sacch yeast.

Bear in mind I'm not massively experienced - I've recently bottled one funked beer that I really like and have two others ageing. My experience of roselare is that it will provide funk more than sour, especially on first pitch. If you re-use the dregs, the sour bacteria will increase and so will the sourness. For my first, I used both roselare and orval dregs. The resulting beer has pretty much no sourness but a nice funkiness. Third brew on the dregs is starting to show a little sour but not excessive and well below rodenbach.

Hop aroma will definitely go away - I wouldn't worry about the bitterness. Some people say that bitterness and sour don't mix but Orval is quite highly bittered and the bitter certainly works with the funk. Some commercial wild brews (from my current reading of wild brews) have a reasonable level of bitterness - this is sometimes lessened by later blending with a sweeter beer. There are so many things you can do with this kind of thing as long as it doesn't taste like poo (literally).

I was lucky enough to sample a fellow brewer's Raspberry sour RIS last night (Thirsty Boy on this forum). Delicious balance of sour, sweet, malty and fruity and his brew started as an accident (some brett and lactic picked up from a wooden barrel he was ageing in from memory). He mentioned the result was a bit sour for his tastes so he racked onto raspberries which gave just enough to pull back from over sour and add another element.

With these kinds of beers, time is your friend. Keeping out oxygen will definitely keep away aceto sour and you can age with any flavour you think might fit.

 

[alkos]

Thanks Manticle.

I have one oaked funked stout maturing and it's mighty tasty already - possibly the same infection from sourdough. That's a bold dark roasty motherfunker stout tho (on belgian yeast) - the current one is quite light, pale and does not have much to play along the souriness - hence my worries. The old friend Time will tell I guess.

Thanks for the recommendations (and helping with the hop dillemma), I think I go for Roselare with half of the stuff and Orval dreg for the other one - just to learn the difference. I can mix it later anyway.

Cheers from the land of the black stuff

Alek

 

[kabooby]

How did the sourdough get in your beer? I suspect your homemade amber malt was mashed and boiled so you shouldn't get anything from that.

If you added the grain to the beer without boiling then you may have lacto souring your beer.

Another possibility is you have introduced some oxygen while dry hopping and you have acetobacter. This will turn your beer to vinegar. Once this happens there is not much you can do.

Acetobacter will taste like vinegar while Lacto will be more tangy. In my experience I haven't got a pellicle from Lacto alone so my guess is it's Acetobacter.

I am not saying don't give it a go, just be aware that adding fruit or other strains of bugs will not fix a beer with high levels of acetobacter.


Kabooby

 

[alkos]

I suspect sourdough as an active culture lives in the same kitchen that I brew in, and I'm baking bread every second day... Everything about the beer was done properly, full 90min boil etc.

Thankfully neither sourdough or beer smells of vinegar, but I'll stay vigilant

 

[manticle]

How did the sourdough get in your beer? I suspect your homemade amber malt was mashed and boiled so you shouldn't get anything from that.

If you added the grain to the beer without boiling then you may have lacto souring your beer.

Another possibility is you have introduced some oxygen while dry hopping and you have acetobacter. This will turn your beer to vinegar. Once this happens there is not much you can do.

Acetobacter will taste like vinegar while Lacto will be more tangy. In my experience I haven't got a pellicle from Lacto alone so my guess is it's Acetobacter.

I am not saying don't give it a go, just be aware that adding fruit or other strains of bugs will not fix a beer with high levels of acetobacter.


Kabooby

My recent little experiment in the laundry suggests Calcium carbonate additions will lessen vinegar - the white wine vinegar in a glass with 1/2 a tsp of CaCO4 tastes a lot like sweet wine now with little vinegar tang.

No idea how to calculate the amount for a full batch or what the reaction compound will add to the beer if done. Hopefully it precipitates out and can be left behind with racking. I think calcium acetate is the by-product.