How to fix sour recipe with low primary FG?

I'm rebewing a sour saison base beer I made a few weeks ago. The last one I put onto cherries and added the dregs of one of Jester King's sour saisons. I want to have a similar un-cherried beer to compare, but last time the primary fermentation finished at 1.002. Not much there to sour.

I mashed at 156, so theres not much room to move up there. I fermented with White Labs Saison 2 from a starter, probably over pitched, and fermented at 73-75 for 3 days.

My current plan is to add dregs from 2 bottles (1 gallon batch) and under-pitch the Saison yeast.

I'm not really sure what a better solution would be. I'd like something with a decent level of bright sourness and some funk (I'm guessing around 1.010).

Maltodextrin? Higher or lower temperature? Under pitch? Co-inoculate? Pitch only dregs for a few days?

Any advice on any of these ideas?

Pitch souring microbes with whatever yeast you are using. Mash higher like 160 and or use a long boil. A long boil will cause some caramelizing which will decrease some fermentability.

smokinghole said:

Pitch souring microbes with whatever yeast you are using. Mash higher like 160 and or use a long boil. A long boil will cause some caramelizing which will decrease some fermentability.

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Good advice, although I'm suspicious of the long boil advice. Caramelization doesn't really start happening until well above the boiling point of wort. You might get some Maillard reactions, but I doubt it would substantially lower fermentability (and I don't believe the melanoidins created are fermentable by the non-Saccharomyces organism anyway, or sour beers would all get paler and paler as they fermented!).

I'd pitch the bugs with the yeast, or sometime after but before primary has finished--while there are still sugars present. I agree that the longer boil probably won't help your situation. I know I have had beers finish much higher after a longer boil, but not sure these will be useful for the bugs. It might help to know what strains you plan to use.

Pull out a decoction or 2 to boost your carmelization.

Oldsock said:

Good advice, although I'm suspicious of the long boil advice. Caramelization doesn't really start happening until well above the boiling point of wort. You might get some Maillard reactions, but I doubt it would substantially lower fermentability (and I don't believe the melanoidins created are fermentable by the non-Saccharomyces organism anyway, or sour beers would all get paler and paler as they fermented!).

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Caramelization is both temperature and pH dependent. It's partly why homebrewers making their own candi syrup are either increasing (in most cases) or decreasing pH. Yes candi syrup like CSI is more than caramelized sugar, the color is developed based on similar principles. At a neutral pH of 7 the temperatures are high with the lowest, fructose, being 110C. Then the temps rise from there up to maltose at 180C. The part I don't know is what the temps for caramelization to occur at a pH like that of wort. I do believe caramelization is happening and I use long boils because I can at home. I figure the cost of propane is not significant, and I'm not waiting to mash in another 2000kg of grain.

Anyhow I stand by a long boil, might not be the best way but it works if you're a stickler for simple recipes like me. My last Flanders I got to stop at 1.010 with no killing off microbes. I used normal malts a little bit of dark crystals to get my color up and a real long boil as if I were making a low alcohol wee heavy. I then just added back water to get my desired gravity.

Forgot say this. Whether it's malliard or caramelization a long boil develops one if not both which likely decreases the ability of the sugar to be fermented. I don't know for sure if melanodins are fermentable or not. There are many forms of melanoidin due to the varying types of sugar and amino compounds. So some may be fermentable by our beloved souring microbes and some might not be.

Pick a yeast that doesn't have such a high attenuation. That one is a monster with a published attenuation of 78 to 85%. That range is actually higher than the published range for the Wyeast monster 3711.

smokinghole said:

The part I don't know is what the temps for caramelization to occur at a pH like that of wort.

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A quick Google search turned up this study on the caramelization and Maillard products on fructose under various pH conditions. As far as my liberal arts education can understand by skimming, they found that the amount of fructose remaining is higher the lower the pH of the boil was. I knew that was the case for Maillard reactions (which is why sourdough bread never browns well), but I wasn’t sure for caramelization. What acid does do it help to split larger sugars into their component parts, which is why it is sometimes added to candi sugar recipes?

While it appears that there is a tiny amount of caramelization even going on at pH 4-6, this is for fructose which comprises a small fraction of the sugars in wort. I’d suspect that there would be a far smaller amount of caramelization seen in wort than in this study.

I enjoy the boiling passed your target volume and topping off for its flavor contribution. I'm just trying to answer the original question posed about the best way to save fermentables for the bugs. It didn't sound like beernoulli was trying to get the FG higher, just save a more carbs for the microbes to go to work on.

Wow, thanks for all the responses.

I really like this yeast because of its pepper/citrus flavor mix, is there a less attenuative or similar version out there somewhere?

Would adding maltodextrin or flaked wheat leave more long chain sugars for the bugs? What would be a good amount if so? (it's already milled with some malted wheat in the mix)

(This last brew I used a 90 minute boil and ended up with a lower OG than when I brewed it a year ago with a 60 minute boil and a table sugar addition and a 146F mash temp. I don't think it makes sense that a long boil means more fermentables, so maybe my 156F mash wasn't as high as I thought.)

yup, try malto.

I've found an article specifically discussing brewing and it carried out various microfermentations with different boil times to demonstrate the apparent extract difference of fermentation (among many other things). The boil times were 30, 45, 60, 90, and 120. Anyhow to summarize the trends in the paper the longer the boil time the higher the final gravity. Instead of splitting hairs and saying whether caramelization or maillard reaction, longer boil will contribute to a higher FG for your souring bacteria/brett yeasts to ferment. This paper also mentions "HPLC analysis did not show the amount of unfermentable sugar fractions present in wort, therefore, effect of wort boiling on sugar levels cannot be ascertained." However I think we can glean from the data that a longer boil increases terminal gravity, that's the only point I'm trying to make. The degree of fermentation possible by the bacteria/brett would depend on the unfermentable sugars present. I believe that the use of caramel malts, or a long boil will produce a higher amount of non-fermentable sugars in a sour beer. Remember even with an apparent degree of fermentation at 100% or more there are still plenty of sugar and carbohydrates remaining in the beer. That would be evident by simply leaving the bottom of a glass of lambic to dry over night into a sticky syrup.

http://dalspace.library.dal.ca:8080...nkita, M Sc, PEAS, August 2012.pdf?sequence=1.

Good find! You are correct, although to be fair looking at the charts it appears the difference from a 30 minute boil to a 120 minute boil is an increase of just .2P for apparent extract. So while "significant" from a statistical point of view, it is a very minor factor in wort fermentability as far as real world brewing in involved. Obviously you may be boosting this with an even longer or denser boil.

I'm also still not sure if those undfermentables will boost the final FG of a sour beer, or if the compounds created are only unfermentable by the primary yeast, and would be added food for the bugs to follow.

I guess the best way to find out would be to get someone to do a masters project on basically the same set of experiments but swapping out the saccharomyces for a wild culture. If I ever pursue my M.S. I will keep it in mind. Unfortunately that probably will never happen though.

I have going three and four hour boils. I also will boil a portion down to a syrup sometimes as some do for scotch ales or other beers. With a long boil I can keep Brett imperial stouts at between 5.5P and 7.0P. Bacteria will certainly change things but as we both said, who knows how much?

Given the high degree of fermentation and their extended boils, I'd guess that the long boil isn't excessively impairing the mixed fermentation. However, as you said, given the real extract hidden by the alcohol, it could be that they’d finish even drier with a shorter boil.

Well if the OP decides to extend his brew day by an hour or two by extending his boil he'll lose an hour or two. It's very low risk, the most that will happen is a little color deepening, loss of fuel, and loss of time. If it turns out to do what he wants then he gets what he was after.

As a side note: The first RIS was boiled down from about 11 gal volume to 6 gallons. It was 1.117 and finished at 1.026. It was mashed at 158 too. I combined everything I learned from brewing the 11-11-11 Old Recipe from this site's trade. That attenuated to 1.016 for me and I figured I'd try a couple other anti-attenuation techniques to prevent a dry RIS. Fermentation went to about 1.045 in the first month. Then somewhere between month 6 and 8 it settled at 1.026 measured by a .0005 precision hydrometer.