How difficult are sours?

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Paradigm

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We're feeling pretty confident in our techniques at this point, and I think after a couple more simple beer recipes we're looking to try some more complex stuff. Sours seem like they would be one of the hardest beers to do correctly.

Anyone had any luck or tales of woe with making a sour?
 
They are easy, they just take more time and some duplicate post ferm/bottling equipment to decrease the chance of cross contamination.
 
I think patience is going to be your biggest enemy. Aside from sour mashing, you shouldn't have an issue really. My buddy and I did 10 gal of a Flanders last fall and it won't be ready until this fall.
Following Jamils technique, we used an American ale yeast and let it drop to 1.020 and then racked and pitched roselear blend. About 4 months in it got a nice pellicle and tart aroma. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

I think if you just research the style you want to brew and read up one some dos and donts by people whom have brewed said style a few times, you will end up with a good beer.

Good Luck!


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A couple weeks ago I was one of the guests being interviewed for a couple of upcoming Brew Bubba's Radio brewing podcasts and the guest on before me was a sour brewer and he really De-mystafied the whole thing, and his beers were fantastic. He took all the fear away and got me to the point where I'm finally going to do it.

He said he learned everything from our own member "Oldsock" Michael Tonsmier's blog, The Mad Fermentalist.

He basically said, if you have the skills to brew beer, you have the skills to brew sour beers. He said it's really no different than brewing anything else, except you do a true secondary fermentation with "bugs," and you may toss in old hops, and fruit, and even a wooden dowel. Then you wait.

The biggest thing he said was that you dedicate of gear specifically to post primary fermentation of just sours. Your secondary vessel/racking tools, airlocks and bottling gear.

But he outlined the steps as-

1) Brew and ferment a basic, not too high grav, not too highly hopped, simple belgian grain bill, but use standard ale yeast (you don't need to waste money on a dedicate belgian yeast since all those flavors will be blown away. Let it ferment out.

2) Rack it to a (preferably glass) secondary, toss in the bug blend of your choice depending on what characteristics you're ultimately looking for (the specific descriptions can be found on the yeast producers websites, plus reading about specific sours you like will tell you which bugs are in there.) Let a pellicule form, and let the beer SLOWLY finish fermenting over a year or more.

Here depending on whatever you're doing you might stick a chair leg in you bunghole :)) ) or toss in some cheesy old hops, or some fruit (he recommended things like tart cherries or stone fruits, along with the stones.) You can also toss in dregs from whatever favorite sours you like that have the bugs still in it, or grow your own bug starter from one of them, or try harvesting your own wild strain (but this takes a little more time, and finesse to capture your own wild yeast, and depends on where you do it, like in an orchard.)

3) Package the beer, and enjoy or let it age further in the bottle.

Obviously there's a little more nuance to it, and a lot of info on the Mad Fermentalist site, but basically he said that's all there is to it, it's not as intimidating, nor is it as risky for your non sour beers as we all think.

Besides the other guests and I, there was about 20 people in the audience, and just about everyone in there said afterwards that it wasn't as scary or complicated as we all have thought.

He shared a bunch of beers, one of them was a sour Foreign Export Stout with a nice tart cherry finish to it.

I'm not sure when the podcast is airing, but check the brew bubba's site or their facebook page and they'll announce when the new shows come online. And check out Old Sock's blog.

I'm pretty pumped to try it, and I know that one of my next couple brews will purely be a base for a sour.

But from listening to him, if we know our way around brewing a beer, then we know our way around brewing a sour beer...it doesn't take another level of genius to do it.

Have fun
 
At what temps should you secondary at, for a year no-less. Kind of an intimidating prospect to dedicate one of my carboys for an entire year O_O
 
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At what temps should you secondary at, for a year no-less. Kind of an intimidating prospect to dedicate one of my carboys for an entire year O_O

Doesn't really matter, just stick it in a back closet or corner of the basement, and every coupla months makes sure the airlock is topped off. The temp isn't really all that crucial.
 
Another, faster/cheaper option is to do a sour mash and make a Berliner Weiss. Very easy, and you can always add fruit like in other beers. The sour will be predominantly from lactobacillus, and a touch of pediococcus, but the bugs are killed once the acid level is set, by the boil, and you don't need extra equipment.
 
At what temps should you secondary at, for a year no-less. Kind of an intimidating prospect to dedicate one of my carboys for an entire year O_O

Temps arent too meaningful. Cantillions barrel room rides with seasonal temps very high down to quite low. Rodenbachs foudres sit at ~58 F

You should be dedicating that carboy to sours forever. There are people don't use this rule, but it's not worth the risk for me, no matter how small. Also, if tying up fermenters is off putting to you, then sour beer is not for you. Also, sour beers are ready when they are ready, not at a calendar date. Patience is rewarded.



The sour primer on madferm is the best single source of info to start from.


Another, faster/cheaper option is to do a sour mash and make a Berliner Weiss. Very easy, and you can always add fruit like in other beers. The sour will be predominantly from lactobacillus, and a touch of pediococcus, but the bugs are killed once the acid level is set, by the boil, and you don't need extra equipment.

While berliner is a great style, and fast to make, IMO and IME it's much more difficult to make a good berliner than other sour styles.
 
You should be dedicating that carboy to sours forever. There are people don't use this rule, but it's not worth the risk for me, no matter how small. Also, if tying up fermenters is off putting to you, then sour beer is not for you.

Yeah, I don't think we're ready for dedicating a carboy to a style forever just yet. We still have some practice to get in, mostly focusing on ferm temps and off flavors, with relatively short-term batches.
 
I have a carboy dedicated to sours, but I plan on getting some 6.5 gal buckets as well. Easier and cheaper than carboys to move an clean.


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I made a Berliner and a Gose that were the two fastest beers I've ever made, clean or sour. Also probably the easiest. They remain the only example of each style that I've ever had, so I can't say how good they were relative to their peers. However, I enjoyed both, as did the members of my homebrew club who sampled them. If you're looking to get into more complex sours, you can do them a gallon at a time with some wine jugs and bottle dregs without tying up the rest of your equipment.
 
I have a five gallon glass I rarely if ever use, I figure this is perfect for sour secondarying.


Mine became dedicated after a batch went horribly infected... Figured what the hell, on to sours now


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I made a Berliner and a Gose that were the two fastest beers I've ever made, clean or sour. Also probably the easiest. They remain the only example of each style that I've ever had, so I can't say how good they were relative to their peers. However, I enjoyed both, as did the members of my homebrew club who sampled them. If you're looking to get into more complex sours, you can do them a gallon at a time with some wine jugs and bottle dregs without tying up the rest of your equipment.

My Berliner Weiss experiences have been much the same in my half dozen batches.
I didn't start making them until I had a lot of experience with regular beers, though, and had done a lot of reading.
Plus, the sour mash method doesn't require dedicated sour equipment because all the bugs are killed in the boil.
 
Yeah, Berliner Weisse is a great style to start with. It generally relies only on lactobacillus (or a sour mash), which doesn't require the extensive aging of other beer styles that have Brettanomyces in them.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPEOTkAiwAo&index=2&list=PLibE2BjPG_8GFbrUc0SWfAS2PqMRrwZ7y[/ame]
 
Oh yeah the guy's name was Ron Bridges, and he said that if anyone ever needs help, or info or advice about sour beer brewing not to hesitate to contact him.

Also Tonsmier has tons of articles on his site, but this one looks like a great starter on sour beer primer.

Hopefully he knew what he was getting himself into by putting his information into the Revvy-File.

Thank you, once again, for the detailed and clear writeup (not to mention cited as usual). I have been pondering and discounting the idea of doing sours for a while now and think I should just do it.
 
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