Low mash, lots of bugs, faster sour?

I'm starting this as a thread here because it was off topic to where I originally posted it. Basically I've been experimenting with faster sours by mashing low in the 140s and pitching a bunch of active bugs right off. So far in the two batches I've tried the flavor developed and soured up in 6-8 months. I'm not saying that the process will give the exact results for some of the classic styles like lambics and reds, but for beers like american wilds and other farmhouse ales I think this can be a viable option for shortening the process to well under a year.

Basically my theory is that the reason sours take so long is because of long chain sugars and low pitching rates and that by shorting the sugar chains and raising the pitching rates the time frame can be condensed while still getting the desired flavor. Has anyone else tried this successfully? Thoughts?

From my post
I have a theory I've been working on that is to help get a fast sour I mash low and pitch very active bugs up front. So far in the two I've done they were decent at around 5 months and real good at 8. Both had jolly pumpkin dregs which are real aggressive, not sure if the wy/wl bugs or Belgian dregs would do the same.
1 year is generally the minimum. It's similar to smoking meat for 16 hours rather than microwaving it, you "can" do it quicker, buy why?

First reply
There are a variety of ways to easily make a quick sour (sour mash, lactic acid, etc), but none of these methods is going to produce the complexity that makes sours/lambics so interesting. Patience, letting the microbes work slowly over time, is what makes these beers unique and delicious.

I'm doing the same thing. I'm using the agressive ECY cultures like ECY20 and ECY01. I have done a saison in 4-5 months. The only issue is the beer got slightly viscous after bottling when it went completely normal before bottling. Either way. I might be looking at a full six months now that its in the bottle. I just have to wait for the brett to break down the sugary slim from the pedio.

I will be trying this again very soon with a higher pitch rate and two different cultures. One will be ECY01 and the other will be a massive mix of tons of different dredges I've saved up. I will ferment at high temps like I would a normal saison and hop it to about 20ibus.

I like proving the "year minimum" blah blah guys wrong as much as possible.

It takes a year (or 2) because we like to try and replicate the 'great' beers of the style.

For me, I have a decent pipeline that I don't need to find a quicker method.

But ...... from everything I have heard, it seems that pitching onto a sour cake makes the beer sour quicker. My assumption is that the souring organisms are in a greater number that they get to work quicker. Not sure what you lose by this, but it seems there is a way of getting a sour beer quicker.

Certainly longer chain sugars and starches will take longer to break down. However, you shouldn't have too much starch in your beer unless you are doing a turbid mash, mashing incredibly high, or adding starch during the boil. Unless you have a lot of starch, most sours can probably be fermented stable enough to bottle after a year but in addition to breaking down and fermenting sugars and starches there is a wealth of other activity in the beer that produces those complex flavors and some of that goes on well after a year.

What you have in the fermenter is also a factor in the time. Brett alone will dry a beer out in 6-12 months (again, depending on the sugar and starch content). Lactobacillus will peter out in a few months. Pedio is really the laggard but it helps create more depth of acid flavor than lacto and pedio and brett together work real magic over time. That doesn't mean that you couldn't have a tasty beer with pedio and brett (or any other combination) in six months but not letting it ride longer misses out on an improved flavor over time. Some of the biological processes are obnoxiously slow but in my opinion, worth the wait.

Mashing low to speed up the process leaves some of those processes out (particularly brett while brett breaks down the long chain sugars and starches) that produce the flavor complexity. So while you might accelerate the overall process of reaching a stable final gravity you risk producing a beer that's finished at nine months but isn't as complex as a beer mashes a bit higher that might finish at twelve or fifteen months. Is the difference of three or six more months worth the loss in quality? That's an individual question. I do some sour mashing with clean and brett beers and I like the results but they don't compete against my year old lambic. I enjoy all of them but the lambic stands out by metes and bounds in terms of sourness and complexity. I don't mean to discourage experimentation. You might produce an excellent beer in a shorter time frame. I would just like for you to report back the results.

I think lambics are another beast altogether and what I've tried does not attempt to compete with them. For a proper gueuze flavor you really do need aged beer. I actually have a pipeline of lambics aging just for this reason, generally using a modified turbid mash. But for other styles, like what is produced by Fantome or Jolly Pumpkin I feel that the long term aging is not required if other procedures are altered. In fact, the first time i tried this it was with a JP starter and at just over six months it tasted like JP made it.

From what I've been able to gather, the brett and pedio work in tandem to break down the more complex dextrins over many months. By reducing the number of dextrins it reduces the time for fermentation, and in my limited trials not resulting in a lack of complexity. They each seem to still do their thing, but are no longer codependent.

I guess the reason I tried this is because the standard answer on HBT and elsewhere is to pitch bugs and wait a year, but with some thought an planning that's not necessarily the case.

The thing I've been trying to make is something that doesn't really exist anymore. I have been trying to make old versions of more traditional saisons. So I have been using lots of unmalted grains, brett blends and lambic blends in their fermentation. This is not meant to compete with the lambics and gueuzes of the world. Nor is it to compete with the offerings of Russian River. I'm trying to make a style of beer that is not typically produced.

Plus I keep reading that some Jolly Pumpkin beers spend as little as two weeks in a barrel to sour. If you think they need a year I don't know what you guys think about Jolly Pumpkin then.

smokinghole said:

The thing I've been trying to make is something that doesn't really exist anymore. I have been trying to make old versions of more traditional saisons. So I have been using lots of unmalted grains, brett blends and lambic blends in their fermentation. This is not meant to compete with the lambics and gueuzes of the world. Nor is it to compete with the offerings of Russian River. I'm trying to make a style of beer that is not typically produced.

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I can appreciate that. I have a brett saison that I sour mashed. I let it ride nine months in the fermenter because the brett will chew for seemingly ever. I could bottle sooner but it tends to overcarb in the bottle and nine months seems to be when the flavor stabilizes at a good point. I'm sure more aggressive brett strains could work more quickly.

Plus I keep reading that some Jolly Pumpkin beers spend as little as two weeks in a barrel to sour. If you think they need a year I don't know what you guys think about Jolly Pumpkin then.

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It's a good point. I'm not sure what JP has in their beers but from what I've read they are very aggressive strains. So maybe they can sour a beer quickly by pitching on an existing inoculation but I don't think the same thing can be said of the WLP/Wyeast blends. I've never used ECY so I can't speak to how aggressive those blends might be. I would be curious whether there is brett in those JP beers and if so how they limit overcarbonation in the bottle.

Jolly Pumpkin also ferments their beers in primary to near dryness if memory serves. This leaves only a small amount of sugars for the mix. The beers also do most of their developing in bottles, wanted to try this, but buying that many champagne bottles could be expensive.

It was also mentioned in farmhouse ales that the saisons were held in barrels for up to a year or more before being served, making them close to lambics. ( I believe per Yvan de Baets, sp?).

It was Farmhouse Ales that mentioned they would keep them in barrels. However I don't think it specified a time frame. Also just because its in a barrel doesn't mean it's going through a longterm second fermentation the whole time. If they mashed low for a well attenuated wort then the brett and bacteria I think would be done rather quick compared to a turbid mashed lambic with tons of starch and complex carboyhdrates.

Just save the bottles up. I had like six cases worth of champagne and belgian bottles saved up. I've since bottled a ton of beer up in them, and still have a case and a half left. If you don't want to buy them you can always go and scavenge the hotels/bars. Or kindly ask a place that has receptions frequently to box them and set them to the side. It's easy to accumulate the necessary bottles that are strong enough.

Asking local businesses for them is a good idea, hadn't thought about it.

While I agree that the dextrins may not be there to feed them, the brett. may continue to generate esters. Though I do like the idea of this and have tried this on a recent brown ale.

I use champagne bottles with plastic corks with good success (no corker needed, just some muscle). The easiest ones to bottle that way are ones that beer came in, such as the Lindeman's products. Actual champagne/sparking wine bottles sometimes have smaller mouths and it takes some real pressure to shove those plastic corks in. I have some bottles that accept standard caps that I got from a HBS. They aren't as thick as regular champagne bottles though.You can also use the Belgian 750ml with plastic corks. Sometimes the mouths are too big and you won't get a good seal (and lose carbonation) but you can usually figure it out based on how easily the cork goes in. Belgian 330ml (the ones with bumpy necks) are also designed to withhold more pressure. So are weizen bottles. Either would probably be ok for your sours. Of course, if you have a corker that all may be a non-issue.

Another place to check for champagne bottles is restaurants that serve brunch. Mimosas are standard brunch beverages so busy places may go through a lot of bottles each week. Stopping by late in the brunch hours might yield enough bottles to package a full five gallon batch (you need approximately 25 750ml bottles).

You can't do that in Texas, stupid TABC

About the weizen bottles. Are these the 16oz bottles available at northern brewer or are specific weizens packaged in them?

Guess42 said:

About the weizen bottles. Are these the 16oz bottles available at northern brewer or are specific weizens packaged in them?

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I don't know how thick the ones they sell at homebrew stores but the ones you buy filled with any of the German weizen beers (hefeweizen, dunkelweizen, weizenbock, etc.) are thicker bottles.

tom_gamer said:

You can't do that in Texas, stupid TABC

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Yeah, I didn't think about that.

Guess42 said:

Jolly Pumpkin also ferments their beers in primary to near dryness if memory serves. This leaves only a small amount of sugars for the mix. The beers also do most of their developing in bottles, wanted to try this, but buying that many champagne bottles could be expensive.

It was also mentioned in farmhouse ales that the saisons were held in barrels for up to a year or more before being served, making them close to lambics. ( I believe per Yvan de Baets, sp?).

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If anybody has a reference on this, I'd be interested. I have taken possession of a bourbon barrel and plan on filling it by myself with multiple batches. The current plan is to start a pipeline and rack in 5-10 gallons at a time that has fermented 2-4 days in order to avoid dumping lots of sacch yeast into the barrel.

Hmmm I thought mashing low would just mean your Sach strain would plow through the wort too fast, leaving little behind for the Brett?

My next sour was going to be mashed warm (155-157F) with some Malto-Dextrin to give the buggies plenty to chew on that the Sach wouldn't touch. Is this a bad approach?

I did a saison that was mashed at 149 and dextrinized at 158. I split the batch between ECY03 and ECY20. The ECY03 was done in 2.5 months and the ECY20 appeared to be done around 5 months but then got sick in the bottle. The ECY20 as it was fermenting went down to 1.010 and then the pedio and brett fired up and began fermenting the beer. The sacch didn't take it down as far as the ECY03 sacch took it's wort.