Sour Ale

[yardy]

g'day

there are some good threads here that cover sour mashes, berliner weisse etc but none that i can find cover a technique that I'd like to try, inoculating the pre boiled wort in the kettle.

there's a few questions i've got if anyone can answer them,

would 250gm of crushed wheat, (in a hopsock or similar so as not to extract tannins in the boil) for 2 days be ok ?

out of the dry yeasts available, K-97 German Ale, Munich Wheat, US-05 or Notts at a push ?

after souring the wort and boiling will there still be a chance of nasties in the Kettle ?

still a few more questions but that'll do...

Cheers
Yard

 

[joshuahardie]

In the basic brewing radio archives, there is a podcast on sour mashing

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing...-08sourmash.mp3

it gives a rundown on the process.

However, I have found it easier, to by a sour culture like Wyeast 5335 from one of the site sponsors

 

[yardy]

In the basic brewing radio archives, there is a podcast on sour mashing

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing...-08sourmash.mp3

it gives a rundown on the process.

However, I have found it easier, to by a sour culture like Wyeast 5335 from one of the site sponsors

thanks for the link Josh,

have you brewed by inoculating the wort or mash ?

Yard

 

[joshuahardie]

thanks for the link Josh,

have you brewed by inoculating the wort or mash ?

Yard

I brewed a Berliner Weisse earlier last year, by inoculating the wort. I pitched a lacto culture (which i bought, not made) a day before I pitched my yeast.

In general I would say that my finished beer was no where near as sour as I would of like it. Prehaps delaying pitching my yeast would of helped.

 

[yardy]

so that lacto went straight into the fermenter a day before pitching the yeast ?

i got my info from Brewing Classic Styles (page 216 ) but he only just touches on the subject of throwing a handful of grain into the wort, wort being the operative word here, i don't want to muck around fouling up my mash tun when perhaps i can do it all in the Kettle and have the added bonus of boiling off any remaining nasties once the wort reaches the desired sourness.

Cheers
Yard

 

[joshuahardie]

so that lacto went straight into the fermenter a day before pitching the yeast ?

Spot on.
Supposedly the longer you wait until you pitch the main yeast, the more sour it will get, but I have only made one sour beer, so I don't have much else to go on as far as experience goes.

I know there are quite a few ways to do a sour mash, for my first experiment I chose the easy way out.

Off the top of my head I cannot remember how to make the sour mash from scratch. I am sure the podcast I sent you covers it.

 

[pmolou]

the easiest one iv heard of is heat some water up in a pint put grains in fill to the brim (as any o2 space can cause molds to grow) put glad wrap over leave for a day-3 depending on how sour and crazy you are

off a byo flying fish farmhouse ale recipe

 

[yardy]

yeah, there's good thread here by Les the Weizguy detailing his sour mash but it's all done in the mash tun, perhaps Jamil is referring to the mash tun....

i'll have a listen to your link and Jamils and go from there.

Cheers
Yard

btw, how did your beer turn out, was it low hopped ?

 

[yardy]

the easiest one iv heard of is heat some water up in a pint put grains in fill to the brim (as any o2 space can cause molds to grow) put glad wrap over leave for a day-3 depending on how sour and crazy you are

off a byo flying fish farmhouse ale recipe

thanks pmolou,

I'll have a search around for it.

Cheers
Yard

 

[pmolou]

btw, how did your beer turn out, was it low hopped ?
[/quote]

well its hard to say how the sour mash affected it as i had a problem with yeasts as my temps wernt high enough but its defidently got a big barnyard aroma and if i made it again i'd have more carbonation and more late hops preferably citrus flavouring ones

but id defs recommend a sour mash if thats what u want to achieve without waiting years

 

[newguy]

The one time I intentionally set out to make a sour beer, I used the drip tray from my keg setup to innoculate the beer. Really. That's what I did. I just dipped the tray in the beer and left it in a covered pot for about 2 weeks.

I used about 5l of leftover underattenuated dubbel and allowed it to get really funky. I then pasteurised it and blended it with a fresh batch of properly attenuated dubbel to produce a reasonable approximation of a Flanders brown. It was easy and worked really well.

 

[Weizguy]

g'day

there are some good threads here that cover sour mashes, berliner weisse etc but none that i can find cover a technique that I'd like to try, inoculating the pre boiled wort in the kettle.

there's a few questions i've got if anyone can answer them,

would 250gm of crushed wheat, (in a hopsock or similar so as not to extract tannins in the boil) for 2 days be ok ?

out of the dry yeasts available, K-97 German Ale, Munich Wheat, US-05 or Notts at a push ?

after souring the wort and boiling will there still be a chance of nasties in the Kettle ?

still a few more questions but that'll do...

Cheers
Yard

G'day,

As designated sour guy of the day (self-proclaimed), I'll have a go at your questions, however belatedly.

To get things straight, up front, do you plan to boil the wort (pre-boil, as you put it) then inoculate with bugs, then boil with hops etc...?
If so, I'd recommend that you add some un-crushed barley malt to the wort in the kettle for a couple of days. However, the wort has plenty of goodness that other bugs (mostly wild yeast) would love to eat, and they will add off-flavours.
If you add crushed wheat, there is no husk, so you can't extract tannins so much, but what do you hope to achieve with it? Maled barley has plenty of lacto bugs on the outside of the husk.
Any clean yeast will do the job you want, once the wort has been soured, hopped and boiled. Any live beasties should be dead after a 60 minute boil (hopped for 10 or 15 of those minutes).

Les

 

[yardy]

G'day,

As designated sour guy of the day (self-proclaimed), I'll have a go at your questions, however belatedly.

To get things straight, up front, do you plan to boil the wort (pre-boil, as you put it) then inoculate with bugs, then boil with hops etc...?
If so, I'd recommend that you add some un-crushed barley malt to the wort in the kettle for a couple of days. However, the wort has plenty of goodness that other bugs (mostly wild yeast) would love to eat, and they will add off-flavours.
If you add crushed wheat, there is no husk, so you can't extract tannins so much, but what do you hope to achieve with it? Maled barley has plenty of lacto bugs on the outside of the husk.
Any clean yeast will do the job you want, once the wort has been soured, hopped and boiled. Any live beasties should be dead after a 60 minute boil (hopped for 10 or 15 of those minutes).

Les

Gday Les,

if possible I'd like to mash & sparge to my normal 37lt pre boil volume and then inoculate in the kettle with uncrushed barley, (thanks) for a couple of days and then proceed on as usual with a 60 min boil etc etc.

if the kettle is well sealed whilst inoculating, the chance of unwanted nasties should be minimal, shouldn't it ?

Cheers
Yard

 

[Weizguy]

Gday Les,

if possible I'd like to mash & sparge to my normal 37lt pre boil volume and then inoculate in the kettle with uncrushed barley, (thanks) for a couple of days and then proceed on as usual with a 60 min boil etc etc.

if the kettle is well sealed whilst inoculating, the chance of unwanted nasties should be minimal, shouldn't it ?

Cheers
Yard

It's always a bit of a lottery when you have a large amount of unpitched wort which is cooled and available for opportunistic organisms. You could save most of the wort in a couple of 15 litre jerry cans, and pitch the rest with your barley and leave it for a few days to sour, in a 2 litre (or a series of two litre PET botles). Best to pitch at 50C plus or minus 2C, for best lacto action. Maybe a large vacuum flask might be the best for a starter for your lacto culture, then culture into the 2 litre bottles and then pitch the lacto culture to the remaining wort, and when sour enough, pitch the yeast. Alcohol kills the lacto bugs.

Can I offer any more assistance?
Les

 

[pmolou]

The one time I intentionally set out to make a sour beer, I used the drip tray from my keg setup to innoculate the beer. Really. That's what I did. I just dipped the tray in the beer and left it in a covered pot for about 2 weeks.

I used about 5l of leftover underattenuated dubbel and allowed it to get really funky. I then pasteurised it and blended it with a fresh batch of properly attenuated dubbel to produce a reasonable approximation of a Flanders brown. It was easy and worked really well.

so i now that pasturising is heating the wort up (not sure how hot) then rapidly cooling in order to kill the yeast but does this affect the beer like a know that alcohol evaporates with heat (i think haha) and somethimes i boil yeast to make yeast nutrient so how does the paturising work ive read articles on it but never got it

ps. i have a lambic fermenting atm smells horrid yay

 

[Trent]

Pasuerising is heating up over a certain temp (80C?) to kill all, or most, of the living organisms in there to prevent infection, or making yourself crook. AFAIK, they pastuerise all milk sold in Oz, basically it is just killing microbes, while theoretically, not altering the flavour of the beer. I am reasonably sure that most beers that are bottled after filtering (ie with no yeast in th ebottle, just crystal clear beer) are pastuerised to prevent spoilage.
Hope that helps
Trent

 

[newguy]

so i now that pasturising is heating the wort up (not sure how hot) then rapidly cooling in order to kill the yeast but does this affect the beer like a know that alcohol evaporates with heat (i think haha) and somethimes i boil yeast to make yeast nutrient so how does the paturising work ive read articles on it but never got it

ps. i have a lambic fermenting atm smells horrid yay

I pasteurised mine because I wanted to halt the bacterial activity - basically "lock in" the taste - so that the finished beer wouldn't change over time.

Pasteurisation involves heating whatever you're trying to pasteurise and holding at that temp for a period of time. I can't remember the lowest "threshold" temperature, but I think it's about 65C or so. The lower the temp, the longer your hold time. Since alcohol boils off at about 82C (I think), I heated it up to 73 or 74C and held for 30 minutes. I then just let it cool naturally for a while and then immediately blended it with unsoured beer & bottled.

 

[brettprevans]

Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher covers making saisons, lambics, sours etc quiet well. lots of ideas there.
im more of a fan of getting your sourness/lambic etc ready and adding at bottling/kegging rather than adding to secondary and leaving to mature. more riosk that the infection will take hold in the fermentor and youll never get rid of it. although blasting the hell out of it with bleech should do the trick.

these types of infections take ages to get a lot of character.

 

[pmolou]

cheers guys yer pasturizing sounds alright might try it out with some small quantities first then move my way up

would be a good way to blend with other non-sour beers

 

[muckanic]

there are some good threads here that cover sour mashes, berliner weisse etc but none that i can find cover a technique that I'd like to try, inoculating the pre boiled wort in the kettle.

So which part of the "sour wheat beer" thread http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...ic=22307&hl= didn't you get?