Sour brewing in an apartment

deputyandy · 09-30-2011, 12:10 AM

I'm a huge fan of sours and would love to start brewing sours, mostly for the appreciation of the style, but also because sours are expensive. Current living conditions have me in an apartment with limited space and brewing partial mashes. Big life changes are happening (getting married this sunday!) and long story short i know we (me and the mrs.) are going to be in this apartment for at least, but i can't guarantee longer because who knows where we'll be in two years.

is it possible to get a decent sour into bottles in a year? all the clones for sours i like seem to need 22+ months and i'm almost positive i can't move a full carboy without messing something up royally. anyway to fulfill my sour aspirations?

**MalFet** · 09-30-2011, 02:42 AM

Berliner weisse could work, but I've never seen a bigger sour get really good that quickly.

Wernerherzog · 09-30-2011, 04:29 AM

what's wrong with moving a sour vs. other beers?

statseeker · 09-30-2011, 09:02 AM

I would say buy some gallon jugs (10-12 bucks a piece, even less at thrift stores) and use 5 at a time. Easy to move and you wont mess anything up.

Pivzavod · 09-30-2011, 10:57 AM

I am an apartment brewer who wants to do sours as well. I am also like you moving in 2 years to another apartment.

I'm planning on doing this kit http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/recipe-kits/partial-mash-kits/chateau-northern-lambic-grand-cru-partial-mash-kit-1.html and letting it sit in plastic primary for at least 12 months. I'm also going to try to do some 1 gallon kits like statseeker suggested and use dregs from whatever I'll be drinking at the time (JP, Belgian sours, Ommegang Aphrodite, etc)

deputyandy · 09-30-2011, 01:38 PM

My particular problem is my carboys are glass and i live on the second floor of an apartment. I've always had it in my mind that that moving a carboy and disturbing the liquid too much is a bad thing (not to mention that they are glass and might break). I never considered the one gallon solution. they'd be super easy to move and it would make it really easy to use different fruits/oaks/random things. Would you ferment in a primary then use the one gallons for secondaries?

statseeker · 09-30-2011, 03:53 PM

You dont want to shake them up obviously, but shifting the carboys is not a big deal. If you're careful, not much is going to be lost except maybe the pellicle, which will grow back with time and a little O2 in the head space.

You could do it either way I suppose. If you make a good sized starter with the roselare or any other type of lambic blend/dregs that you might use you can split up the starter. Say if you make a 1 liter starter you can split it up into roughly five 200ml pitches. So you can use the five 1-gallons as your only fermenters or you can do the primary 5-gallon and 5 secondaries. That part is up to you, whatever you're more comfortable with. Personally, I'd do the primary and then 5 secondaries just to be able to use different additions to each to get a different outcome during aging.

ReverseApacheMaster · 09-30-2011, 06:40 PM

Congrats on your marriage. You might want to wait on that venture until she moves in. Women tend to have lots of stuff and you may not have room to commit for a year (or more) to a carboy.

ryane · 09-30-2011, 08:43 PM

Splitting to 5 x 1gal jugs is probably your best bet in this case. The danger with moving sours and the pellicle falling is that it might not reform, and the beer could be essentially done fermenting. When that happens and you slosh it around bad things can happen.

I lost a 2yr old F red that way - I moved it to my new house (carefully), I had tasted it before I moved and it was great, but I didnt have time to bottle so I decided to wait, well after moving in I took another taste and.......ethyl acetate. the whole batch was ruined in less than a week

**weirdboy** · 09-30-2011, 08:50 PM

How about sticking it in a keg?