Little different Sourmash question

I am working through tweaking a Kentucky Common that I am sour mashing and need to ask a question about direction. The first time I made this I made a small batch mash that I inoculated with raw grain and let sit for two days. I then added this to my boil kettle at flame and did a 60 minute boil. The brew came out with barely any noticeable sourness and I want to bump it a bit. I could either make a larger batch, or sour the small batch longer. Then I figured that it might be a matter of adding the sour mash late in the boil--near the end--to hopefully reduce blow off of flavor compounds in the boil. If I do this, do you think adding it the last 15 minutes would help? Do you think it would have any effect?

I don't think it would have an effect. What you said is correct: you need to sour the small portion longer or sour a larger portion of the batch.

when you did it the first time, how much of the mash did you sour?

I only made a gallon size. I also only let it sour for two days. I think I'll let it sour for three on the next batch and make a couple gallons.

cluckk said:

I only made a gallon size. I also only let it sour for two days. I think I'll let it sour for three on the next batch and make a couple gallons.

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so you soured the whole mash?

No sorry. I soured a small mash of about a gallon and added it to about a six gallon boil.

larger portion for sure. two days should be long enough.

Funny, the finished beer has plenty of sourness to it--just as much I imagined it having. I think the sugars were masking it. Now that they have been fermented out the taste is quite nice and just enough astringency on the back end to give a very nice satisfying finish. It goes quite well with the vanilla from the oak chips.

I see that the use of a "sour mash" is not understood here.

The use of a sour mash is a method to counteract the high alkalinity that some water supplies have. For instance in portions of the Appalachian Mountains, the water is quite alkaline due to the limestone formations that are prevalent there. The whiskey makers found that using a sour mash added enough acid to the mash to neutralize the excessive alkalinity from the water source. This was not done to sour anything. It was done to bring the mash pH into a 'good' range so that the starch conversion would be improved. A whiskey maker has no cares about body or flavor from the mash, they just want as much of the starch from the grain to be converted to sugars so that they end up with the most alcohol. That alcohol is then distilled out.

So in the case of a Kentucky Common that is brewed with that high alkalinity water, a sour mash could be effective in providing that neutralization needed for proper mash pH conditions. It would not necessarily be used to produce an overly acidic wort with a pronounced lactic taste. I can assure you that a beer produced in this way is thin and tart and not all that appealing.

A dose of soured wort into the kettle would not necessarily be the way to go if the mash pH was too high due to water alkalinity. The starch conversion in the mash would have already been adversely affected. The only thing that the dose of soured wort in the kettle would provide is a reduction in the overall wort pH that would help reduce the roughness of the bittering that would result if the mash and wort pH were high due to the local alkaline water.

A proper sour mash procedure is going to produce a beer from a poor brewing water source (too alkaline) that is not overly sour.

Enjoy!

mabrungard said:

I see that the use of a "sour mash" is not understood here.

The use of a sour mash is a method to counteract the high alkalinity that some water supplies have. For instance in portions of the Appalachian Mountains, the water is quite alkaline due to the limestone formations that are prevalent there. The whiskey makers found that using a sour mash added enough acid to the mash to neutralize the excessive alkalinity from the water source. This was not done to sour anything. It was done to bring the mash pH into a 'good' range so that the starch conversion would be improved. A whiskey maker has no cares about body or flavor from the mash, they just want as much of the starch from the grain to be converted to sugars so that they end up with the most alcohol. That alcohol is then distilled out.

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Just because it is used for one purpose does not mean it is not available for other purposes. There are many homebrewers and some commercial brewers that sour mash to make sour beers, not just for ph correction.

So in the case of a Kentucky Common that is brewed with that high alkalinity water, a sour mash could be effective in providing that neutralization needed for proper mash pH conditions. It would not necessarily be used to produce an overly acidic wort with a pronounced lactic taste. I can assure you that a beer produced in this way is thin and tart and not all that appealing.

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I'm pretty sure all of us who have made sour mashed beer would disagree that it is thin, tart and not all that appealing. Considering the post above yours is OP talking about how much he enjoys the beer negates your would-be expertise.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I'm pretty sure all of us who have made sour mashed beer would disagree that it is thin, tart and not all that appealing. Considering the post above yours is OP talking about how much he enjoys the beer negates your would-be expertise.

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I am sorry that you misunderstood my post. The point is that a Kentucky Common and the sour mashing performed by whiskey makers is not used to sour the product to make it purposely sour. There is nothing wrong with souring a beer with this method if that is how you want it to be. I love sour beers!

I'm not dismissing a brewer's desire to enjoy a sour Kentucky Common. I was just pointing out that a properly brewed KC might be only slightly sour and the reasons behind its production.

The comment on the result of an overly acidified (soured) mash is quite factual...the brewer will end up with a highly fermentable wort that will have less body. It may also be more tart depending upon the degree of the mash pH drop. That can be fine in some beers and possibly less favored in other beers. This is just a fact, not a dismissing of a brewer's desire for their beer.

Please forgive me for this heinous affront to all sour beer producers!

OK ... Anywho ...

This is my first attempt at a sourmash. It was not an attempt to be perfectly correct to the procedure but to use what I had discovered up until that brew. It is hard to believe how hard it is to find good information on this technique, even on the internet. So far this thread has given me far more information than I discovered to date.

As for the use of the sourmash, we have very alkaline water here in South Texas, where all of our water comes out of the limestone Edwards Aquifer. This is not what inspired my foray into sourmash though, but instead a desire to get to know my beer better and to get more knowledge in brewing. I found some people talk of adding soured mash to the boil kettle and others talk of souring the whole wort after the mash. This is the first mention I've found of adding it to the mashtun during the mash and it makes sense.

Also, I have to wonder if souring was only done to correct PH and increase yield since there is a flavor difference with sourmash whiskey. I understand this difference could be a collateral result of the technique used for mash PH, but it is still there and is part of the flavor profile of a particular form of whiskey.

When it comes to flavor, I wasn't looking for a puckeringly sour ale. I wanted something where the sourness was mostly effect, with a slight hint of taste.