Style Of The Week 9/5/07 -sour Ales

[newguy]

:blink: shoulda whipped your jocks off and dunked them too....

But what would I name the beer if I had?

....Puckered Starfish Sour?....Kchisk Sour Strong?....Pouch Pucker Brown?

BTW, kchisk is Cree (Native tribe around here) for 'shitty arsehole'.

 

[neonmeate]

I also have a block of tamarind sitting in my cupboard and that gear HAS to have possibilites.

Also, has anyone tried making a sour beer using just a sourmash at the beggining of the process rather than a long sour fermentation at the end??

tamarind - now we're talking. red and sour. i like it. i've been thinking of that ever since i was in thailand last year and drank tamarind infused tea (with milk). that was cool.

yes i did a sourmash with my "undrinkable" porter - although completely by accident! owing to all sorts of complications i left the unboiled mash runoff outside on the back deck for a week before i got to boil it. turned out very sour but after a long boil no worries. i did add brett to it and apparently brett responds well to a pre-existing level of lactic acid , can't remember the exact chemical formulae. but anyway a sourmash does get sourness without the two year wait. and without contaminating your fermenter at all. you don't get the same aroma or flavour development over time though. that's why i added brett anyway.

 

[warrenlw63]

But what would I name the beer if I had?

....Puckered Starfish Sour?....Kchisk Sour Strong?....Pouch Pucker Brown?

BTW, kchisk is Cree (Native tribe around here) for 'shitty arsehole'.

Okay, okay... It's about time he appeared again... Howdy Howdy Ho!!

The perfect label. :lol:

Warren -

 

[KoNG]

tamarind - now we're talking. red and sour. i like it. i've been thinking of that ever since i was in thailand last year and drank tamarind infused tea (with milk). that was cool.

hmmm, i have a tub of concentrated tamarind pulp in the fridge... B)
is there any reference to such an ingredient being used before....?? very interesting.

 

[Weizguy]

I'm with bconnery,

Been looking for alternate ways to "sour" a beer that dont involve weird bugs or the dunking of driptrays (I vote cool on that one)

I have experimented a few times with Pomegranate molasses and the results have been promising. Nothing I would call good just yet, but the flavours definately work in beer.

I have only tried blending it with lighter coloured beers so far and the molasses flavour starts to interfere before the sourness gets high enough, but I'm going to try it out with the old ale and dubbel I have in the pipeline. The molasss flavours should work in with them a lot better.

I also have a block of tamarind sitting in my cupboard and that gear HAS to have possibilites.

Also, has anyone tried making a sour beer using just a sourmash at the beggining of the process rather than a long sour fermentation at the end??

Thirsty

You should be able to find my thread on sour mash. I did a sour mash using a double boiler and about 1.5 kg of ale malt at 50ish Celsius for about 5 days, IIRC. I split the soured grain into 3 ziplock bags and froze them until I was ready to brew with them. Then I thawed them out and mixed it into the mash.

It was plenty sour, but if you want sourness without any work, blend in some food-grade 80% lactic acid and leave it to mellow for a while. Easy done. That technique will allow you to dial in the exact sourness that you want, with incremental additions of a small amount.

You might want to add acidulated malt at up to 10% to help with sourness and/or leave the mash overnight for a long acid rest, like I did with my first sour mash Berliner weisse.

FWIW, I also made a Pommie Summer ale with added sour mash (about 250g only), as well as 2 Berliners.

If I can think of anything else, or think that I can answer anyone's questions, I'll post further.

BTW, Stuster, you used the word "mighty" twice in the same sentence, and I'm proud of my mighty (noble) beak. It's a great asset to a recognised beer judge, you know.

Just to add a little more to this post, my "Grand Champion beer" (that's what it sez on the certificate) at the NSW state comp was my third Berliner ever, and the sourness came from the acid rest, lacto inocculation and a lactic acid addition at bottling (to provide enough balance/sourness to suit my taste). (*edit -link and text added)

Beerz
Seth

Has anyone here, apart from Doc, made a Gse? (pronounced gerser, and sounds similar to the Belgian Gueze, according to M. Jackson).

 

[Stuster]

BTW, Stuster, you used the word "mighty" twice in the same sentence, and I'm proud of my mighty (noble) beak. It's a great asset to a recognised beer judge, you know.

 

[neonmeate]

Has anyone here, apart from Doc, made a Gse? (pronounced gerser, and sounds similar to the Belgian Gueze, according to M. Jackson).

sort of - not a sour one, just a wheat beer with salt and coriander. i liked it although i reckon would have been much better with sourness.

had a bayrischer bahnhof gose once and still have the crazy bottle - looks like a medieval potion. the beer wasn't very sour, more like a witbier than anything, but i liked it. the salt is a cool idea.

oh and there's no umlaut in "gose", it's pronounced "goh-ze" (closed o)

more history of it here
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/leippubs.htm

 

[Weizguy]

neon,

I brewed a sour wheat (unintentional) by using the Johann Baptiste recipe from the Weyermann site.

The beer turned out quite sour with the acidulated malt included, but seemed to take well to a pinch of salt to help balance the acidity.
I think it was too sour as I have very soft water where I live and the acidity shines (or pierces) through.

Thanks for the pronunciation tip, and the umlaut tip. Must go back and find that Jackson article, and post back to this thread (as well as link from the Gose thread).

Seth

 

[neonmeate]

Thanks for the pronunciation tip, and the umlaut tip.

sorry i'm a bit pedantic with german and french and stuff, being a singer i have to be precise with these things.

interesting about the soft water. do you think throwing in some gypsum and CaCl2 and so forth would help as well as the NaCl?

did you find the acidulated malt had a different flavour to the sourmash or was it more or less the same?

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

For a while after finding this link (and until SWMBO ordered a stop), our house was full of the sounds of French and Flemish:

http://www.belgianstyle.com/mmguide/pronounce/speak.html

I still can't get my tongue around some of these words...

 

[neonmeate]

Grimbergen is a good one, they don't call it Phlegmish for nothin

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I think I prefer the Phlegmish sound over the Phrench.

Please note that I intended no double entendre... :unsure:

 

[Weizguy]

sorry i'm a bit pedantic with german and french and stuff, being a singer i have to be precise with these things.

interesting about the soft water. do you think throwing in some gypsum and CaCl2 and so forth would help as well as the NaCl?

did you find the acidulated malt had a different flavour to the sourmash or was it more or less the same?

I didn't think about the flavour difference before. I'll do a side-by-side this evening before I commit to an answer on that one.

The Berliner seemed to taste less "soft" if I can use that term, as I used 2 tsp of gypsum in the 25 litre batch.
But the Weissbier was bitey and unbalanced with the acidity of the added acid malt on top of the soft water. I've read that a small amount of acidity "rounds" the flavour of a lager or ale, but this one was sour, not rounded.
Based on those 2 different beers, it may be hard to make an absolute decision, but I think the gypsum made a difference to the balance.

Seth

 

[THE DRUNK ARAB]

An interesting Power Point presentation from Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River here:

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/forum.h...752780&pg=1

C&B
TDA

 

[bindi]

An interesting Power Point presentation from Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River here:

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/forum.h...752780&pg=1

C&B
TDA

Page 19 .

 

[kook]

Cheers for posting that. I really should read the babblebelt more often

 

[bconnery]

Last year I brewed a flanders red type beer using tips from the Classic Beer series. It was an extract beer with a small amount of specialty grains and a long boil, 6 hours, to get the colour profile.
I also used a variety of sour orange to achieve the sourness, rather than a yeast culture. It was one of the best beers I have made.
Now I'm trying to formulate an AG version. I don't want a 6 hour boil, and I've read recently that this is no longer common for these types of beers anyway...
Here's what I've come up with based on my research so far so I thought I'd see if makers of these style of beers had any feedback...
I'm going to go for a belgian liquid yeast but no culture again. These oranges will provide all the sourness I need. (Ross described them as the habaneros of the sour orange world...)
The pale malt listed is a pilsner malt.

Batch Size: 20.00 L
Boil Size: 35.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 15.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Ingredients:
---
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.20 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (2.0 SRM) Grain 49.4 %
1.00 kg Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (3.0 SRM) Grain 22.5 %
0.40 kg Maize, Flaked (Thomas Fawcett) (2.0 SRM) Grain 9.0 %
0.30 kg Caraaroma (Weyermann) (178.0 SRM) Grain 6.7 %
0.30 kg Melanoidin (Weyermann) (30.0 SRM) Grain 6.7 %
0.25 kg Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (1.5 SRM) Grain 5.6 %
15.00 gm Smaragd [8.00%] (60 min) Hops 16.6 IBU
6.00 items Sour Orange Rind (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
8.00 items Sour Orange Juice (Boil 5.0 min) Misc

 

[Screwtop]

Last year I brewed a flanders red type beer using tips from the Classic Beer series. It was an extract beer with a small amount of specialty grains and a long boil, 6 hours, to get the colour profile.
I also used a variety of sour orange to achieve the sourness, rather than a yeast culture. It was one of the best beers I have made.
Now I'm trying to formulate an AG version. I don't want a 6 hour boil, and I've read recently that this is no longer common for these types of beers anyway...
Here's what I've come up with based on my research so far so I thought I'd see if makers of these style of beers had any feedback...
I'm going to go for a belgian liquid yeast but no culture again. These oranges will provide all the sourness I need. (Ross described them as the habaneros of the sour orange world...)
The pale malt listed is a pilsner malt.

Batch Size: 20.00 L
Boil Size: 35.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 15.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Ingredients:
---
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.20 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (2.0 SRM) Grain 49.4 %
1.00 kg Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (3.0 SRM) Grain 22.5 %
0.40 kg Maize, Flaked (Thomas Fawcett) (2.0 SRM) Grain 9.0 %
0.30 kg Caraaroma (Weyermann) (178.0 SRM) Grain 6.7 %
0.30 kg Melanoidin (Weyermann) (30.0 SRM) Grain 6.7 %
0.25 kg Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (1.5 SRM) Grain 5.6 %
15.00 gm Smaragd [8.00%] (60 min) Hops 16.6 IBU
6.00 items Sour Orange Rind (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
8.00 items Sour Orange Juice (Boil 5.0 min) Misc

Would Acidulated Malt work Ben, as in Berlin Sour?

Screwy

 

[kook]

I've got another ~ 45L of flanders red going again now. I used a slightly more simple grain bill this time, and a long boil to help get the right colour. Fermented with US05 in primary, then racked to secondary and pitched roselare.

Also bottled an amber ale with brett (2 bottles of Orval) Waiting for it to carb up now.

 

[bconnery]

Would Acidulated Malt work Ben, as in Berlin Sour?

Screwy

Was mainly just looking for feedback on the grain bill part, with reference to the style.

Sourness is all taken care of!

I'd seen a few recipes in this thread and thought I'd see if others who've made AG versions had any thoughts...


Kook, I've been reading about the whole orval as a source of brett thing recently. Did you put some in secondary, if so for how long, or did you just do it at bottling time?