Quick Flanders Red

Hey everybody, i'm looking for advice before I attempt this recipe. I know it is not a true wild sour, but I wanted your advice before I attempt it.
It will be my first sour beer.

My plan is to make a quick sour Flemish Red (based on Jamil's recipe) and using a technique I saw on Oldsock's Blog http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/07/sour-old-ale-quick-oud-bruin.html

This is what I have so far.

5 Gallon Recipe - 90 Minute Boil

Vienna Malt 4.25lbs
Pilsner Malt 3.75lbs
Munich 10 Malt 2.5lbs
Honey Malt .5lbs (substitute for aromatic malt - none at HBS)
Crystal 70 .5lbs (Substitute for CaraMunich - none at HBS)
Special B .5lbs
Wheat Malt .5lbs

East Kent Goldings 1oz 60 minutes

After crush set aside handfull of grain
After boil place 2.5 gallon in glass carboy and innoculate with reserved grain, place rest of wort in primary, pitch with nottingham.
After 3 days pour sour carboy into pot and bring to boil.
Cool and add to primary.
Let primary continue one week, rack to secondary

I am debating having the secondary divided with some on fruit (cherries or Raspberries), some on oak chips, and some left plain.

Does this look alright?
Any suggestions?

I've never done this technique without the "starter" for the grain bugs. You'll want to keep the souring portion warm (around 110 F ideally, but lower would be alright) to give the Lacto the best chance to win out over the other microbes on the grain. Similarly you will want to keep oxygen away from the souring beer by purging with CO2 (if possible) or putting it in a vessel without much headspace.

You actually may want to sour the entire wort, and then boil with the hops. The beer I did with 1/2 the wort was only moderately tart.

I just did what the op is proposing with a kentucky common, although I did the sour worting in a corny

it had a definite vomit aroma during the souring and lots of that off gased during the boil and subsequent fermentation. I havent tasted it yet to see how that translates to the flavor. But I think it would work better if you sour mashed in a purged corny so you dont pick up O2 during the transfers. Chriskennedy does this and says that the garbage/vomit smells are eliminated

I carb up a small portion when I get home of the common and let you know how the flavor is if you interested

I have no intention of making anything like this, so have no practical experience, but ..... I thought I read somewhere you can cover the souring wort with saran wrap to keep O2 away from it.

Why boil the sour wort? Just do it ala Berliner Weisse and no-boil the wort and let it run wild for three days before pitching your yeast. It'll become a much more sour beer, and it's way less work. I haven't had anything reminiscent of vomit with any of the brews fermented like this.

El_Exorcisto said:

Why boil the sour wort? Just do it ala Berliner Weisse and no-boil the wort and let it run wild for three days before pitching your yeast. It'll become a much more sour beer, and it's way less work. I haven't had anything reminiscent of vomit with any of the brews fermented like this.

Click to expand...

The point of the original recipe/technique was to make a beer that still retained some sweetness and wasn't completely sour. It also allows the beer to be ready much sooner because you don't have to wait for all the microbes run their course.

Thanks for all of the tips guys.
I'm a little worried about contamination, so I'll probably stick to the carboy as opposed to the corney, and have a quick boil after the souring.

I am tempted to sour the whole lot, before fermentation, but I'm a little worried it would be too tart to drink. (It's my first attempt at a sour beer, and I'm a little chicken)

Well Oldsock , I have been a faithful follower of your blog for a while now, so I'll trust your judgment and sour the lot. It would be one less boil, less work, less headspace in the carboy and worst case scenario I can always rack it onto copious amounts of fruit to counteract the sourness.
I'll keep you updated, wish me luck.

Lacto won't make a beer nearly as sour as Pedio, and without Brett your beer won't end up too dry, so I wouldn't worry about it being too sour. Fruit won't help though, the sugars ferment out and you'll just be left with the citric/malic acid (some lactose or malto-dextrin would help, or you can always blend it with another beer).

Good luck!

Well I mashed this last night and racked straight from the mash tun into a glass carboy. I was a little scared that the hot mash would crack the carboy so I drained it in as slow as I could manage. After the wort cooled to 125 I pitched 1/2 cup of reserved crushed grain. I covered the carboy with a foil hat and moved it into my fermenting room (at 35C or 95F) in the garage.
Not much aroma yet, Certainly not the Devil's Butthole I was expecting.
Maybe tomorrow.

I noticed a small pellicle at the top of the carboy last night. I was surprised as there wasn't any noticeable aroma.
I poured the lot in my boil kettle today, there was a slight aroma when pouring, but nothing too funky. I had to top up the kettle with 1/2 gallon filtered water to bring it up to 6 gallons.
I boiled my wort for 90 minutes adding in 1 oz of EKG at 60minutes and Irish moss at 15.
The wort was then cooled and pitched with nottinghams.
My gravity was slightly higher than I expected, but the wort sample was surprisingly good. Mildly tart and surprisingly fruity.
I'm looking forward to drinking this one in a few weeks.

Keep us posted! I'm interested to see how a full batch of this turns out.

Amanda

I've soured a full batch using this method and I was very happy with the results. The beer had a good sour pucker kick to it. I'll definitely do it again.

Just do it!

So I guess this thread is almost exactly a year old but I'm very curious, how did it turn out? Been reading up quite a bit lately on sour mashes and just settled on a recipe just like this, although I'm not sure how exactly to keep 6 gallons at 100+ degrees. Also thinking of adding an ounce or two of steamed oak chips