Quick sour

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Zippox

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I am basically looking for an easy extract recipe to make a sour beer. I've seen a method where you raise the temp of some of the wort to 110 for 3-7 days with lacto in it, then you add some yeast and ferment it at normal temperatures.

Does anyone have an easy extract recipe that uses this method, and where you sour ALL of the wort? (I don't understand why most of these quick sours are really low gravity, i.e. berliner weisse, so maybe suggestions on bumping that up would be great).

I have Safale US-05 in my fridge, perhaps this would work well for this style?

And finally, I'd like this to be as sour as possible so if there are any suggestions please through them out there.
 
Thanks for the reply.

So on the "convert to extract" step I found this conversion: 1lb Base grain = 0.67lb DME = 0.75lb LME

So the original grain bill calls for 6.2lbs of US 2 Row and 5 # German Wheat Malt.

Am I correct that the closest thing to US 2 Row would be Golden Light DME? (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/briess-dried-malt-extract-golden-light.html)
-- It would then be like 4.1 lbs of that
Then what would be the best substitute for the German Wheat Malt?

Lastly, how short of a boil are we talking here?
 
That is the conversion.

Any light DME will likely do.

Be aware that wheat DME has a portion of 2 row already included in it. For instance Muntons wheat DME is 55% wheat and 45% barley.

So I would back into the percentage you are looking for by using mostly wheat DME and then some light DME.

Some AG brewers do no boil Berliners. If I were you I'd do 15-30 min.

This won't be to style, but in the end you should have a tart and light beer.

There is a bunch of info on here, do some searching and you'll find everything you need.
 
I thought that lacto was supposed to eat the sugars for a long time, eventually getting the gravity around 1.00. Is this incorrect?

I just feel hesitant to bottle this in the normal ale time-frame because I thought that the extra sugar the lacto eats would add too much carbonation.
 
Lacto eats a pretty small range of sugars, so it won't get down that low. Even if it did eat everything in its path, changing sugar to lactic acid doesn't drop the gravity the way changing sugar to ethanol and CO2 does. Lacto shouldn't make much carbonation either; changing sugar to lactic acid doesn't result in any carbonation. If you make your wort like you usually would (except with no or almost no hops), you can do a short boil, then ferment on just lacto for a few days. 100 degrees is great, but room temps are okay. It'll get plenty sour in under a week. At that point, you can boil to kill the lacto, or not. Add some yeast, let it ferment out at normal yeast temps and bottle as per your normal routine. US-05 is fine, although you won't notice many differences in yeast character with a pH around 3.

If you don't kill the lacto, your beers will turn into swirling volcanoes upon opening. There's no additional risk of bottle bombs, as the lacto doesn't actually produce any CO2. It just acts as a nucleation site for bubbles. As long as you're prepared for it, it makes it look like slow-developing champagne.
 
If you make your wort like you usually would (except with no or almost no hops), you can do a short boil, then ferment on just lacto for a few days. 100 degrees is great, but room temps are okay. It'll get plenty sour in under a week. At that point, you can boil to kill the lacto, or not.

So when you say make the wort like you usually would, do I top off everything to 5 gallons? Or do I pitch the lacto starter onto the approximate 3 gallons of wort I am able to make in my 5 gallon pot?

If you say I do top off to 5 gallons and then pitch lacto, then I am not sure how I can boil all 5 gallons. Perhaps suggestions on that would be good, because I don't want any gushers/volcanoes!
 
You can top off at any point in the process. The only worry about a concentrated brew is that the lacto will stop prematurely when the ph gets too low, and that that sourness would be insufficient when diluted. I'd top off when you normally do, and just do two separate boils if you want to kill the lacto. You don't need a sustained rolling boil; you just need to get above 160 for a few minutes. Given the extreme pH you're going to end up with, you might consider adding some champagne yeast at bottling, as it's tolerant of acidic conditions.
 
I wanted to clarify on the whole "swirling volcanoes" when you don't boil after letting lacto do its thing.

Does this mean bottle gushers when you open it? I don't understand.
 
I find the lacto Berliner style sour not the style I like, nothing can repro a slow aged sour. Sorry
 
I wanted to clarify on the whole "swirling volcanoes" when you don't boil after letting lacto do its thing.

Does this mean bottle gushers when you open it? I don't understand.

When you open the bottle, it doesn't immediately explode. You'll see a lot of churning activity at the bottom of the bottle that will ultimately result in a gusher. It's kind of cool to watch, totally different from a standard foamy gusher; but I can see where you wouldn't want it. Just heat the wort to pasteurization temps and you won't have to worry about it.

I understand where some people don't like quick sours, given that they lack the flavor complexity of brett beers. In their defense, quick sours allow you to brew sour beers in the same amount of time you'd spend brewing a standard ale. I think it's a little silly to compare quick sours to brett sours. The flavors you get are very different, enough so that they're totally distinct styles that each have their place and their fans.
 
I find the lacto Berliner style sour not the style I like, nothing can repro a slow aged sour. Sorry

I am trying to play both sides of the field here. I have 10 gallons of lambic going and I wanted to give a quick sour a shot while I wait. I'll probably get a 100% brett one in after my fermenter frees up from this quick sour.
 
I find the lacto Berliner style sour not the style I like, nothing can repro a slow aged sour. Sorry

I don't understand this comment. What is constructive about saying you don't like BW. A BW is different from other sours, it is low gravity, and I find it very refreshing. It has it's place as does the more complex sours.

For the OP: I've made some very good BWs with extract. I add the lacto and keep it about 90 F (that is as high as I can manage), and find it is soured after about 5 days. Taste it to find out how sour it is before adding yeast. Once the yeast is added, the alcohol it creates will inhibit the lacto, so you want to get the souring done first.

I would also recommend making the initial wort without hops. lacto doesn't do well with hops. If you want hops (personally I don't think they are necessary in this style) boil some (or all) the wort after it is soured and add the hops then.

Alcohol, hops and PH will stop the lacto, so I wouldn't worry about further action after bottling.
 
get some bottle dregs from cascade and build a culture and it contains lacto brevis which is hop tolerant and will sour your beer just fine.
 
I'd appreciate help with converting the original recipe to extract.

The original recipe called for 6.2lbs of US 2 Row and 5 # German Wheat Malt.

Xpertskir mention before that "wheat DME has a portion of 2 row already included in it. For instance Muntons wheat DME is 55% wheat and 45% barley."

Using what Midwest Supplies carries, anyone have a suggestion on how much/ which extracts I should pick up?
 
You can top off at any point in the process. The only worry about a concentrated brew is that the lacto will stop prematurely when the ph gets too low, and that that sourness would be insufficient when diluted. I'd top off when you normally do, and just do two separate boils if you want to kill the lacto. You don't need a sustained rolling boil; you just need to get above 160 for a few minutes. Given the extreme pH you're going to end up with, you might consider adding some champagne yeast at bottling, as it's tolerant of acidic conditions.

pH is a logarithmic (base 10) scale. Doubling the volume means that your pH only increases by .3, which is significant but not ruinous. I brewed a Berliner recently where I soured only half the wort. I wish it was more sour, but others have said it's spot on or even too sour. People's taste in sourness varies a lot.

So when you say make the wort like you usually would, do I top off everything to 5 gallons? Or do I pitch the lacto starter onto the approximate 3 gallons of wort I am able to make in my 5 gallon pot?

If you say I do top off to 5 gallons and then pitch lacto, then I am not sure how I can boil all 5 gallons. Perhaps suggestions on that would be good, because I don't want any gushers/volcanoes!

If you don't want to top off after pasteurizing (like kingwood-kid suggested), you could also considering giving it a dose of potassium metabisulfite, which could knock out the lacto. After a few days you'd probably be safe to add the yeast (adding to early will inhibit them since they too will suffer from the sulfite).

By the way, if you are pitching yeast after souring, pitch plenty of yeast. The pH will be quite low and the yeast will be unhappy, so a healthy fermentation of the rest of the sugar will require a substantial population. For a Berliner where you're only looking at maybe 25 gravity points or so (after lacto fermentation; rough estimate, don't really know) a packet of US-05 would do, but I wouldn't pitch a smack pack without a starter despite the very low gravity.
 
I'd appreciate help with converting the original recipe to extract.

The original recipe called for 6.2lbs of US 2 Row and 5 # German Wheat Malt.

Xpertskir mention before that "wheat DME has a portion of 2 row already included in it. For instance Muntons wheat DME is 55% wheat and 45% barley."

Using what Midwest Supplies carries, anyone have a suggestion on how much/ which extracts I should pick up?

This is 65% wheat, which conveniently is also roughly the conversion factor between DME and pounds of malt, so 5 pounds of that. That also nets you the equivalent of 1.75 pounds of barley DME, and you need a little over 4, so use 2.5 lbs of this or this.

Berliner Weisse is traditionally brewed with wheat and pilsner malt, which is a particular type of 2-row malt. That's why I linked to pilsen extract. If you want to follow the other recipe which calls specifically for US 2-row, then the golden light extract is more appropriate.
 
This is 65% wheat, which conveniently is also roughly the conversion factor between DME and pounds of malt, so 5 pounds of that. That also nets you the equivalent of 1.75 pounds of barley DME, and you need a little over 4, so use 2.5 lbs of this or this.

Berliner Weisse is traditionally brewed with wheat and pilsner malt, which is a particular type of 2-row malt. That's why I linked to pilsen extract. If you want to follow the other recipe which calls specifically for US 2-row, then the golden light extract is more appropriate.

Thanks McCoy, that's a big help to me. I'll be picking this up shortly and probably brew this weekend. Now I just need to research methods of keeping my carboy at 100 degrees for a week. I'll probably look into the lightbulb cardboard box idea.
 
If you have a container that will fit your carboy, you can do what I do and just keep it in a hot water bath. Unfortunately it cools off pretty quickly. But refreshing that every few hours when I was home resulted in decent souring in a week. I know other people use heatpads or electric blankets. Also, lacto and hops don't play nice, so little or no hops until after you're done with the lacto (or none at all throughout the process).
 
If you have a container that will fit your carboy, you can do what I do and just keep it in a hot water bath. Unfortunately it cools off pretty quickly. But refreshing that every few hours when I was home resulted in decent souring in a week. I know other people use heatpads or electric blankets. Also, lacto and hops don't play nice, so little or no hops until after you're done with the lacto (or none at all throughout the process).

I might go with the hot water idea. The woman is paranoid that I'd be starting fires with the heating pad idea and the crock pot idea, so water seems pretty harmless.
 
You can get an aquarium heater at the pet store for around $20. What you'd do with it after you're done, I'm not sure. If you have a garage, I'd just ferment there. You don't need to be at 100, the lacto will still do its thing in the 80s, albeit more slowly.
 
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