Dave Marliave was on the Sunday Session recently talking about adjuncts in sour beer. One interesting thing he mentioned was the ways in which they try to get starch into their wort. A traditional turbid mash will do this, but he also mentioned getting starches by adding adjuncts, in particular by steeping flaked oats after the mash so that their starches do not convert.
I was rereading Wild Brews recently, and I noticed that Jeff Sparrow mentions something along the same lines with respect to the use of corn in Flanders Reds and Browns. This is from pp.122-3 (my bold):
The idea behind all of this is that the starches take a long time to break down, which gives the souring bacteria more food over the course of the fermentation. Dave Marliave also mentioned that, since these starches will initially breakdown into sugars, and this itself might take a long time, the overall effect can be one of slight sweetness and body in a beer that is already a year or more old---a flavour profile he seemed to like. (This seems to go a little against what Peter Bouckaert says int he quote from Wild Brews.)
Presumably these sugars will eventually be fermented as well, and you'd have to keep that in mind if you were bottling a year old beer. But the overall effect seems to be a more complex and developing flavour profile over the course of the beer's lifetime. Dave Marliave says that this is something you won't get from maltodextrin (or, I presume, from mashing high) because even though the saccharomyces won't be able to break down these sugars they will be broken down and fermented over the course of a year by the brett and bacteria, long before you would think about bottling. (You would still get added sourness though).
Anyway I'm curious if anyone has tried anything along these lines, beyond a typical turbid mash, and what effect its had. I'm brewing a beer this evening, to be fermented with what's left of a vial of bug county, and I think I'll steep some flaked oats in the wort just after mash out to see how it effects the final product.
I was rereading Wild Brews recently, and I noticed that Jeff Sparrow mentions something along the same lines with respect to the use of corn in Flanders Reds and Browns. This is from pp.122-3 (my bold):
Maize (a.k.a. corn) can comfortably make up around 10% of the grist of a wild beer and can go as high as 20%, although that amount can cause the lauter to seize up. Generally used for both economical and flavour considerations, maize will add starch, considered beneficial to lactic acid bacteria over the course of fermentation. According to Peter Bouckaert, beer brewed with a starch adjunct such as corn is lighter and more digestible.
Two types of maize exist: corn grits and refined corn grits. The former is cheaper, dry milled, and requires cooking times of up to forthy-five minutes, while the latter is wet milled, nearly pure starch (very desirable to bacteria), and requires only about fifteen minutes. As a substitute, flaked maize comes already gelatinized and can be ordered from your brewing supplier, although it will not add as much starch as raw grain with an adjunct mash.
The idea behind all of this is that the starches take a long time to break down, which gives the souring bacteria more food over the course of the fermentation. Dave Marliave also mentioned that, since these starches will initially breakdown into sugars, and this itself might take a long time, the overall effect can be one of slight sweetness and body in a beer that is already a year or more old---a flavour profile he seemed to like. (This seems to go a little against what Peter Bouckaert says int he quote from Wild Brews.)
Presumably these sugars will eventually be fermented as well, and you'd have to keep that in mind if you were bottling a year old beer. But the overall effect seems to be a more complex and developing flavour profile over the course of the beer's lifetime. Dave Marliave says that this is something you won't get from maltodextrin (or, I presume, from mashing high) because even though the saccharomyces won't be able to break down these sugars they will be broken down and fermented over the course of a year by the brett and bacteria, long before you would think about bottling. (You would still get added sourness though).
Anyway I'm curious if anyone has tried anything along these lines, beyond a typical turbid mash, and what effect its had. I'm brewing a beer this evening, to be fermented with what's left of a vial of bug county, and I think I'll steep some flaked oats in the wort just after mash out to see how it effects the final product.