DisturbdChemist

Recipes 

Thats probably one of the reasons that there are such few sour beers out there. That plus contamination, I still have a little more research before i attempt this and how to keep it warm for a couple of days. I'm garuantee sour if i just add the lactic acid to the bottling bucket but same time i think its kinda cheating but good for first timers

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"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
-Dave Barry

barrooze

Recipes 

My method for sour-worting a Berliner Weisse:

My BK has a 10gal volume, so I made a batch size of 9.5gal, preboil volume of 9.75gal.
Grain bill was:
7# pilsner malt
5# wheat malt

Mashed at 149F for ~90 min (until fully converted). Sparge to get a Preboil volume of 9.75gal. Make sure when you drain your tun, your BK is already on your burner. You don't want to move a kettle with almost 10gals of liquid!

At this point, I wrapped my heatwrap around my kettle and put the probe to my temp controller on the outside of my BK to get a pretty decent reading of the wort's temperature. When the temp dropped to 115F, I tossed in a pound of unmilled 2-row. The outside of the grain is covered in lacto bacteria, or so I'm told. After tossing in the grain, I covered the entire surface of the liquid with Al foil, making sure I push out as much oxygen as possible. You want zero air at the surface of the wort, so try to get as much out as possible. Put the lid on my kettle, set the temp controller to maintain a temp of 110-120F, wrap the kettle in blankets, winter coats, whatever it takes to help insulate and maintain the temp.

I left it for 48 hours at this temperature. After the desired duration (the longer you wait, the more sour and tart it'll get) I unwrapped all the insulation, removed the foil, and started fishing out the grain. I used 1# this time. There was a TON of grain in the wort.... I will probably use just 0.5# next time. Try to get out as much as possible.

When you're finished fishing out the grain (there will be a lot at the bottom, fyi), bring your wort to a boil. I boiled for 15 minutes, killing all the bacteria that soured the wort. That's the best part about this method, NO CHANCE OF CONTAMINATION! At the start of the boil I added just 5 IBU of Hersbrucker. At flameout, I turned on my IC and chilled it down. When it got to ~70, I racked 5.5gal to a carboy and pitched WLP029. I fermented at ~62-65.

My OG was 1.032 and FG was 1.001. The beer is super tart, fruity, slightly sweet and very dry. It's quite delicious!

For the other 4 gallons, I kept those in the boil kettle, covered the opening with cheesecloth and left out overnight. Then I racked it to a carboy. Within a few days, fermentation occurred. Now it's got a slight pellicle. I'm going to leave it until about May. It should be quite interesting!!!

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Kegged: Caramel Macchiato stout, NB The Innkeeper w/ 1469, Sour-Worted Berliner Weiss (spontaneously fermented), Bitter Shadows IBA, Black Flash IBA Primary: Wild Texan On Deck: Pilsner/CTZ SMaSH On the Horizon: BM Centennial Blonde, Pliny the Elder clone Updated: 2012/05/22 | My Double-Decker Keezer/Ferm Chamber | Germanic Pale Ale

DisturbdChemist

Recipes 

My biggest dilemma is keeping it at those temperatures for that time period. Your way sounds easy and do able just dont have the equipment aka heating jacket, etc.

Thanks for all yalls help and making me understand how it works and also many ways to do it.

__________________
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
-Dave Barry

barrooze

Recipes 

If you have a garage, just wait until summer. My garage can get to 110 during the summer, pretty easily. Anything over 100F will do the trick.

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Kegged: Caramel Macchiato stout, NB The Innkeeper w/ 1469, Sour-Worted Berliner Weiss (spontaneously fermented), Bitter Shadows IBA, Black Flash IBA Primary: Wild Texan On Deck: Pilsner/CTZ SMaSH On the Horizon: BM Centennial Blonde, Pliny the Elder clone Updated: 2012/05/22 | My Double-Decker Keezer/Ferm Chamber | Germanic Pale Ale

DisturbdChemist

Recipes 

No, i live in a crappy apartment at the moment. Looking to find a house next. If I can save up some money for a down payment. I want a house with a garage because i hate landlords. They never leave you alone. lol

I'm going to make a quick sour this month sometime and when summer(march) ill go a sour the way you describe though i do BIAB but its the same thing so it will keep at temperature

__________________
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
-Dave Barry

smokinghole

Recipes 

Today I am mashing a quick sour saison. I have 5lbs of acidulated malt in the mash. I left it go for 30 min with just 2% acidulated in the mash then I added the 3.5lbs I had planned. I had an additional pound to toss in if I felt like it and I did. I can taste the acid in the mash. The pH of the mash is 4.2 at the moment and I'm getting ready to sparge. I will take a pH again once I cool before I pitch yeast. Then I will have a mini ferment segregated for both yeasts to track pH as it drops.

I am using a grown up culture of Dupont for one fermentor with a back up of some 3711 if or when the dupont craps out because of the low starting pH. The other fermentor is getting my new favorite ECY03 Farmhouse brett. That one I figure won't have a problem because if the sacch dies off the brett will bring up the rear. The Dupont fermentor has 3711 as a back up, and if that craps out, I have some brett blend from ECY04 that I just repropagated. So one way or another they will finish.

Will update with some results hopefully in a week or two.

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Going through life is hard.
Going through life stupid is harder.

40watt

Recipes 

Tell you what I want to do...I want to get a barrel. I want to fill it with wort and ...say Rosalare. I am patient. Sometime between one and two years I want to pull some out and drink it. At that point I will top it off (will also periodically replace the angel's share). I want to repeat this process until either the barrel or myself needs to be replaced.