Sanity Check for Raspberry Sour...

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Lumbee

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Hey guys, first time poster. I have been brewing for about a year, and have never done anything more than buy my kit and follow the directions. My neighbor has a stupid big Raspberry patch, so my hope is to brew a Raspberry Sour. I found this theard which sounds like what I want...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/raspberry-sour-beer-experiment-107361/index3.html

So I brought 'Mr. Nice Guys' receipe with me to my local home brew store, and I did not get a warm fuzzy from the owner about helping me out with this recipe. So his suggestion was the following...

Start out with making a regular wort (I'm using a farmhouse/Saison) where I added Briess CBW LME, Weizen Dry Malt Extract, and Candi Sugar Rocks. In addition to this my local home brew owner recommended I add Lactose Sugar to the boil. For the yeast, rather than add Brett (which the farmhouse kit contained) the owner suggested I add Wyeast 3763 Roeselare, and Dry Ale yeast (E491), which I did. So I spent the afternoon brewing this up, and its now (hopfully) fermenting.

So from here my plan is to let this primary ferment for 10 days to 2 weeks or until it becomes inactive, then add about 2 pounds (I am brewing 2.5 Gal total) to the primary. Once I do this the primary should become active again??? This should take a couple of weeks to ferment. then once this is done let settle in a secondary for a couple of weeks. Then bottle with some priming sugar.

So that is my plan, just wanted to sanity check this off everyone and get your feedback. Thanx in advance!
 
So from here my plan is to let this primary ferment for 10 days to 2 weeks or until it becomes inactive, then add about 2 pounds (I am brewing 2.5 Gal total) to the primary. Once I do this the primary should become active again??? This should take a couple of weeks to ferment. then once this is done let settle in a secondary for a couple of weeks. Then bottle with some priming sugar.

sours take months, not weeks. roeselare is pretty slow, i'd keep it in a primary/secondary for at least 6 months (more likely 12-18) before bottling. other than that, the plan is pretty sound. good luck!
 
I brewed a Flanders red in November and it is just now getting tasty...(the sour is getting complex). My plan is to pick raspberries this month, freeze them, then throw them in August sometime. I'll prolly let that sit till September and bottle that.

Don't bottle too fast because the bugs in roselare can take a beer down clear to 1.003 meaning it will still ferment in the bottle. Sours take a while but the complexity and flavors are worth it!
 
Thanks for the responses guys...sounds like I am on the right track, or at least not out in left field somewhere.

So when I add the fruit (I plan on doing that next week) I should see new activity (frementation ie, a bubbling air lock) for at least a few days? Then I can move to a secondary to age for a few months. During this time in the secondary will there be any activity...ie bubbling air lock?
 
there may be occasional bubbling, but most of the activity you will see is pellicle growth
 
Put the fruit in the secondary and rack on top of it. Then let it age on the fruit for the remaining months. Trying to add the fruit to the primary will result in excessive oxygen being introduced.
 
@quaker Good tip. I was just going to toss the fruit into the carboy with all the yeast, hops and sludge. You are saying after everything in my carboy settles, the syphon that off into a secondary (food safe bucket) and add my fruit to this. So there will be enough yeast still present to ferment the fruit?
 
Put the fruit into your sanitized secondary fermenter first. Then rack the beer over onto it. There will be plenty of yeast still in suspension to finish off the sugars in the fruit and develop with age.
 
What temp for the secondary? I have a attic that is 80-90, or a basement at 60-70?
 
Just to add, aging on the yeast cake apparently won't hurt anything when using Roselare. The Brett will clean up any products of autolysis (sp?) and avoid off flavors. So if you weren't planning the fruit, you could have just left it in primary for the whole duration. But you won't deprive it by leaving your sludge behind. The fruit gives plenty of new goodies for everything to feast on. Once you rack it, hide it from yourself and try to forget about it for a year.
 
...The Brett will clean up any products of autolysis (sp?) and avoid off flavors.

...just to clarfy, I did not use any Brett yeast...from my original post...

"For the yeast, rather than add Brett (which the farmhouse kit contained) the owner suggested I add Wyeast 3763 Roeselare, and Dry Ale yeast (E491), "
 
Roe contains brett, as well as a belgian strain, wine strain, lacto & pedio
 
So my primary is done. I am planning on racking it it, and adding my fruit this evening. Would it be smart to heat/boil/cool the fruit before adding it to the primary?
 
I would have tossed in the Brett also... but Lactos? in a sour beer? Me wonders why?
 
I would have tossed in the Brett also... but Lactos? in a sour beer? Me wonders why?

there is brett in it from the roeselare

the lactose i assume is food for the brett/bacteria since they can consume it while sacchro can't. not sure why the LHBS guy recommended that vs malto-dextrin tho
 
...so do you guys think I should boild the fruit or no???

no, you can pasteurize them if you want tho (soak around 160 for 10mins). since its already a sour beer not sure there's a need
 
So I am getting good activity from my air lock after adding fruit, and VERY nice arromas above it.

Adding the fruit has given the yeast more sugar to munch on. This means I am producing more alcohol...no?

What should I expect my final gravity/alcohol content to be?
 
Just to add, aging on the yeast cake apparently won't hurt anything when using Roselare. The Brett will clean up any products of autolysis (sp?) and avoid off flavors. So if you weren't planning the fruit, you could have just left it in primary for the whole duration. But you won't deprive it by leaving your sludge behind. The fruit gives plenty of new goodies for everything to feast on. Once you rack it, hide it from yourself and try to forget about it for a year.

Hey guys, just wanted to clearify something real quick. am I correct that I can leave thefruit in the secondary for the entire aging period (12+ months)? Or should I rack off the fruit into another container for long term aging?
 
Hey guys, just wanted to clearify something real quick. am I correct that I can leave thefruit in the secondary for the entire aging period (12+ months)? Or should I rack off the fruit into another container for long term aging?

Yea, its fine to leave it in there for the whole 12+ months. The fruit flavor will fade a bit over time, so you may want to give it a bit more raspberries ~3-4 months before bottling.

actually the rule of thumb for adding fruit to sours is 2lbs per gallon. So you are about 3 pounds short as it is. I'd say add those 3 pounds next year, give the beer 3-4 months, and then bottle.
 
actually the rule of thumb for adding fruit to sours is 2lbs per gallon. .

the amount varies fruit to fruit. 2lbs/gal of raspberry would be very assertive, but it'd be good for something like peaches. id stick with the 2lb addition (for now at least)
 
If you haven't already put the raspberries in, I would wait at least 6 months before you add them. Any flavor from the fruits will be gone by the time the beer is ready if you add them now
 
My local home brew owner baulked when I said I was going to leave the fruit in longer than 3 months. He seemed to feel it would be rancid after anything more than a few months.

I already added the Rapberries. I only did a half batch of beer, so about 2 1/2 gallons, and I added two one gallon freezer bags (1 lb. per bag?). Just judging by the aroma coming off the air lock, its hard for me to see all the raspberry flavor going away, but we shall see.

I have a cream ale that is brewing now, that I will be adding blackberries to in the same fashion. Thanx for all the feedback. Nice to not feel like I am on an island. :)
 
My local home brew owner baulked when I said I was going to leave the fruit in longer than 3 months. He seemed to feel it would be rancid after anything more than a few months.

Will certainly not get rancid, assuming good sanitation. Also, with healthy populations of all the Roselaere critters chomping away, nothing else is likely to compete. Doesn't sounds like your LHBS owner has ever worked with anything other than Sacc.

As others have mentioned, longer than 3 months and you may start to loose some fruit flavor and aroma as those compounds continue to be broken down by the mixed fermentation
 
Will certainly not get rancid, assuming good sanitation. Also, with healthy populations of all the Roselaere critters chomping away, nothing else is likely to compete. Doesn't sounds like your LHBS owner has ever worked with anything other than Sacc.

As others have mentioned, longer than 3 months and you may start to loose some fruit flavor and aroma as those compounds continue to be broken down by the mixed fermentation

Popped the top on the bucket last night and took a sample. Flavor was good, but would not want to loose any of the Raspberry flavor. Raspberries had all floated to the top. I could see the Raspberries on the very top possibly going bad just because they are not submerged in the liquid/beer. Does that make sense?

Also, I wonder if there is a way to sweeten up the beer. I am assumming I cannot just add sugar, as this would be consumed by the yeast? I wonder if I could us an artificial sweetener (heresy?) of some sort?
 
Popped the top on the bucket last night and took a sample. Flavor was good, but would not want to loose any of the Raspberry flavor. Raspberries had all floated to the top. I could see the Raspberries on the very top possibly going bad just because they are not submerged in the liquid/beer. Does that make sense?

The raspberries are floating because there is yeast in there fermenting and pumping out CO2. Once they're fully consumed they'll probably fall to the bottom. Having them not fully submerged will not cause problems. Here is a picture of yeast eating away at some cherries in a quad I brewed a while back (they started at the bottom, floated during fermentation, then fell to the bottom again after a couple months):

sam1640i.jpg


Dont open the bucket until you're ready to take a sample, maybe a year after brewing. Its a bit late now but I agree with not adding the fruit until a few months before bottling/kegging.
 
OK...so I couldn't wait. It tasted great in the bucket, so I bottled it a few weeks ago, and cracked the first bottle this past week. I love it! Very clean, a little tart, and tons of Raspberry flavor. I have two more batches brewing where basically I followed the same process. One with blackberries, the other with Raspberries. Those will have more time to age/ferment with the fruit. Thanks again for all the input.

rasp_sour.jpg
 
As others have mentioned, longer than 3 months and you may start to loose some fruit flavor and aroma as those compounds continue to be broken down by the mixed fermentation.

I did a Flanders Red on 8 lbs of tart cherries for ~8 months. Scoresheets came back complimenting me on the amount of tart cherry flavor I had gotten into the beer. It also smelled like cherry pie.

Was it the Roeselare? Was it the fresh tart cherries? Who knows.
 
I have two more batches brewing where basically I followed the same process. One with blackberries, the other with Raspberries. Those will have more time to age/ferment with the fruit. Thanks again for all the input.

Those will undoubtedly have more sourness and more good-funkiness. But that's a good thing!

Welcome to the world of sours! :mug:
 
I did a Flanders Red on 8 lbs of tart cherries for ~8 months. Scoresheets came back complimenting me on the amount of tart cherry flavor I had gotten into the beer. It also smelled like cherry pie.

Was it the Roeselare? Was it the fresh tart cherries? Who knows.

That's great! It was probably due to both. My point to OP was that the fruit flavor would likely be stronger at say, 3 months than 8. It's surprising how much a flanders (even sans cherries) can smell and taste like a cherry pie. This is making me thirsty!
 
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