Kentucky Common Attempt

+1 on not being too concerned about doing a sour mash in your mash tun. Grain is loaded with Bacteria and wild yeast, so every time you mash you are starting with a level of contamination.

This batch keeps being pushed back on my brew list.

good luck with it.

scone said:

Well, I don't know that I would worry about it as much. You could definitely do what he recommended, but even if some of the bacteria survive on your mash tun, everything you put through that thing in the future is still going to get boiled before it goes in the primary right? So if you contaminate future brews, you'll kill off any living organisms before you ferment anyway. Now if you are reusing that thing as a bottling bucket or something, then I'd be a little concerned...

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The sour flavor is already imparted by the time you boil the wort, that is why a sour mash works in regards to souring. Boiling does not remove the sour flavor, even if it does kill off living organisms - or else sour mash would not work. Thus, any souring agents created by doing the sour mash that are left behind in the mash tun would affect the next beers made even given the boil.

How have the beers you guys have made directly after the Kentucky Common turned out?

krugulitis said:

The sour flavor is already imparted by the time you boil the wort, that is why a sour mash works in regards to souring. Boiling does not remove the sour flavor, even if it does kill off living organisms - or else sour mash would not work. Thus, any souring agents created by doing the sour mash that are left behind in the mash tun would affect the next beers made even given the boil.

How have the beers you guys have made directly after the Kentucky Common turned out?

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Ah, I see what you are saying. So I think the souring takes a while. Leaving future mashes in your tun for the duration of mashing + sparging (so on the order of a few hours) shouldn't sour your mash. You would need to leave your mash in your tun for a long time to sour it (hence the 24 hour mash time on the kentucky common). If you soak your tun in sanitizer after mashing, you should kill off nearly all the existing bacteria, and the little that remains won't have time to sour your next brew before you've removed it from the tun. Anyway, your next brew will have all the same souring bacteria riding in on the grain anyway, you just don't leave it in the tun long enough to sour.

As long as you are cleaning your tun after using it, I don't see how enough of the souring bacteria could survive in the tun to affect your next brew, but maybe someone who has done this can chime in.

ok that makes sense. i'm feeling a little better about this now. but, i still wouldn't mind hearing from someone about how their next beer after this beer turned outl

I have run out of time on brew days and dumped my grains the next day. Man they stink. But then you wash the tun and it's fine for the next brew. No worries man.

FSR402 said:

I have run out of time on brew days and dumped my grains the next day. Man they stink. But then you wash the tun and it's fine for the next brew. No worries man.

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Me too! I haven't brewed since my Common attempt, but I've left grains in the mash tun many times!

Bsquared said:

+1 on not being too concerned about doing a sour mash in your mash tun. Grain is loaded with Bacteria and wild yeast, so every time you mash you are starting with a level of contamination.

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Exactly.

I brew Kentucky Commons quite often, as well as other beers, which all turn out great. Hell sometimes I don't even sanitize the mash tun after, I just rinse with water. With other beers, nothing bad is going to happen in that hour mash, and you are going to boil right after the mash and sparging. How could anything get infected?

Good luck with the brews.

So I recently got the idea (of course when it's freezing balls out now) to capture some wild yeast in Louisville (my hometown), where this beer originated, and use that in it. Should be interesting. Sucks I have to wait until spring/summer to try it.

So I ended up brewing this over the weekend. I did not get the crazy efficiency everyone has spoken of - got 80% though (probably because my mash tun didn't maintain temp as long as I thought it would - when I opened it, the temp reading was 70 degrees). I added a bit of brown sugar, so that brought it up to my desired original gravity. I ended up letting it sit for longer than anticipated - 45 hours. I really like the level of sourness it produced, the taste is definitely there, but it isn't puckering or overpowering. Used a 1.5 liter WLP060 starter and it kicked off pretty quickly. Fermenting at a pretty low temp initially, but I will bump it up over time. Still planning to secondary half of this with bourbon soaked oak chips. Excited to see how it turns out.

Sucks you didn't get the efficiency, but everything else sounds good. Someone else got really low efficiency recently. Not sure why me and Ben get such good efficiency with these beers. My last batch I did end up getting 92%, and not 98%. I used my Barley Crusher for the first time with it. Like I said, Ben got 94%. Not sure what would cause the low or high efficiencies.

I think I ended up about 85% on mine - about 10% higher than my last AG but I anticipated that because this was only my 3rd AG. I am using pre-crushed grain from the LHBS also which may account for my efficiency to some degree but the crush looked pretty decent. It's 10 days old now and I'm itching to get it carbing in the keg but don't have one free yet...

85% isn't bad. I would wait a little longer. It's still good early, but it's better with more time. Unless I need to rush it, I do 3 weeks primary, and 2 kegged. However, I have done 11 days grains to glass and it was still good. It wasn't bad in any way, but could have benefited from more time.

Well, I don't have much choice until I kick another keg anyway... I only own 2 kegs right now.

My Kentucky Common attempt has been fermenting for a week now. I just took a sample to do a hydrometer reading (1.09, .03 lower than expected) and was struck by the smell. It had a definite sulfur character to it, and was even worse when I put my nose in the glass holding the sample to further inspect (the beer tasted fine though). I used WLP060 which has some lager yeast strains in it, so I am thinking this may be the culprit. I don't know how long this normally lasts, or how to get rid of it. What do you all think - is this just the yeast throwing off sulfur smells, or do I have a more serious problem? Should I let it stay in primary for a while longer (I was going to give it a week longer), or should I get it off the yeast ASAP? Hopefully this doesn't ruin it.

It will be fine

WLP060 American Ale Yeast Blend
Our most popular yeast strain is WLP001, California Ale Yeast. This blend celebrates the strengths of California- clean, neutral fermentation, versatile usage, and adds two other strains that belong to the same 'clean/neutral' flavor category. The additional strains create complexity to the finished beer. This blend tastes more lager like than WLP001. Hop flavors and bitterness are accentuated, but not to the extreme of California. Slight sulfur will be produced during fermentation.

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I would definitely let it sit in the fermenter at least 2 weeks. I've been doing mine for 3 weeks if I can. This beer can be done very quickly if need be, but it benefits from more time, just like any other beer. Good luck!

So i brewed the beer. Very similar grain bill to ODaniel's 1908 grain bill. I ended up getting very low efficiency (preboil gravity was 1.032 for 27 quarts). I'm thinking it has something to do with a crappy crush thx to Northern Brewer (I had similar low efficiency with a belgian tripel). So to hit a more desirable gravity I added .5# brown sugar (as said that it is sometimes an ingredient in this beer) and .5# honey (i know this isn't in the ingredients used for this beer but I needed sugar and i had some left over). OG after boil ended up being 1.043 (right on target) for 5 gallons. I ended up fermenting with Nottingham dry yeast, I used 2 packets and fermented at about 66 degrees F. Took about a week to ferment out. FG is 1.005 - really a lot lower than i intended (i was looking for 1.010 at the least).

Smells good. It's nice and dark brown too. I just kegged it a few minutes ago - turns out after keg conditioning it I will have a 5% alcohol beer. I wonder how good it will taste with such a dry finish...

skibb said:

So i brewed the beer. Very similar grain bill to ODaniel's 1908 grain bill. I ended up getting very low efficiency (preboil gravity was 1.032 for 27 quarts). I'm thinking it has something to do with a crappy crush thx to Northern Brewer (I had similar low efficiency with a belgian tripel). So to hit a more desirable gravity I added .5# brown sugar (as said that it is sometimes an ingredient in this beer) and .5# honey (i know this isn't in the ingredients used for this beer but I needed sugar and i had some left over). OG after boil ended up being 1.043 (right on target) for 5 gallons. I ended up fermenting with Nottingham dry yeast, I used 2 packets and fermented at about 66 degrees F. Took about a week to ferment out. FG is 1.005 - really a lot lower than i intended (i was looking for 1.010 at the least).

Smells good. It's nice and dark brown too. I just kegged it a few minutes ago - turns out after keg conditioning it I will have a 5% alcohol beer. I wonder how good it will taste with such a dry finish...

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My 1908 finished at 1.007. It's noticeably lighter in body and flavor than the #1 recipe, for a number of reasons, but the flavor is still there. Everyone loves it, even people (including girls) that are very picky about beer. I would have let it sit in the fermenter a little longer, but it should still be fine. Post up how it turns out. Hope it's good!

well it was in primary for 2 weeks. EDIT: actually bout a week and a half. I'm thinking once its carbed i will taste it and possible cold condition it for another month or so

After you taste it then you can taste mine since you aren't far. I'm kegging mine tomorrow.

Alright, so this is definitely on the brew schedule sometime in the next month or two... Thanks to ODaniel and others for doing the research and sharing the results.

I was also thinking about utilizing the 24hr sour mash technique on a dry stout to get "the tang" into it. ODaniel and others have described the sour flavor produced by this technique to be subtle, but still noticeable, so this seems like it would be a good fit for a dry stout.
*EDIT* Just noticed someone else talking about doing this to a stout in the other Kentucky Common thread... https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/kentucky-common-sourness-126826/#post1719537

Well, just tapped mine and I gotta say it's interesting. I'll need a few more to decide if it will go into my rotation. It is fairly sour - I did the 36 hour mash with the lid on the whole time and no innoculation.

craigd said:

Well, just tapped mine and I gotta say it's interesting. I'll need a few more to decide if it will go into my rotation. It is fairly sour - I did the 36 hour mash with the lid on the whole time and no innoculation.

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Yea my latest batch is a little more sour than I planned. The sourness is definitely noticeable. I like it best when it is just a slight hint of sourness.

I'm finally getting around to my mini-mash brew of this. Decided to do 6 1/2 lbs of grain, which is about what I can comfortably mash in my 3.75 g. pot.

I mashed
0.25 lb. choc. malt
0.25 lb. crystal 120
2 lb. flaked corn
4 lb. pale 6-row

in 2 1/4 g. of water. I didn't bother to figure out the diastatic power of 4 lbs. of 6-row vs. the 2 lbs. of flaked corn, but I'm hoping it all converts nicely. Whatever gravity is missing after the sparge, I'm planning to make up with LME.

The initial mash temp. was 155 on the dot, but given the stainless steel mash tun, and the fact that my house is 68 degrees, I'd say it cooled to <100 in a few hours even with a towel wrapped around it. I'm hoping the lower temperature doesn't retard the grown of lacto too much. I couldn't help myself, so I took a peek at it today (22 hours later), nothing growing on top, and the smell was basically just "wet grains". Nothing offensive to the nose, though I didn't taste it. I've got some aluminum foil pushed down on to the grains to block oxygen a little bit. Here's a pic of the mash.



Is there a smell I'm supposed to be able to detect when the mash is souring? Some people have said that the sour mash is supposed to smell pretty bad... I'm wondering if it's just not souring right now...

taste it (you will know for sure that way)

Just did. Well if it's souring, it's very subtle. Pretty much just tastes like grain tea. I wonder if putting it in the oven set to 100 or so might help things.

I brewed Odianiel's Kentucky Common recipe the other day (the #1 recipe, not the 1908). I grabbed "American Pale Malt" instead of 6-row by mistake, so I only got OG 1.040-1.045 or so. Oh well.

After a 24 hour mash, it definitely had something growing at the edges of the mash tun and some funk to the taste/smell, but not enough to be unplesant. It's been fermenting like nuts, I can't wait to taste it.

u had **** growing... after 24 hours?

Yeah, check it out:

ewwww, never seen that in any of my sour mashes... well, good thing your gonna boil it! I would think its time to bleach that mashtun too. but i guess im just paranoid.

I ended up putting it in the oven for a bit... warmed it up just a tad. I don't know if it's the heat, or if it's my introducing something through messing with it by taking the cover off several times and tasting with a non-sanitized spoon (double dipping non the less), getting my germs on it, or whatever. A little bit of sourness is showing through, and I've got some funky stringy stuff growing along the edges, looks exactly like Babachewy's photo.

Haha sounds like it's going well for you all now. Mine usually smells pretty bad. Doesn't always look bad on top. I think it looks worse if my mash tun is dirty when I mash in.

The very first time I brewed this I mashed for an hour and then flipped the lid upside down and sat it on top to let it vent. Here is what I came to the next day:



Turned out great though! I just scraped it off and then sparged. All my other brews I just leave the top on, and they are never nearly as bad as that.

Bacteria grows best around 110 I believe.

Finished brewing it this morning. Wow the mash smelled raunchy. Like nasty grain vomit cheese. The whole house smells like it right now.

I mashed out at 170F (just heated the mash up on the stove since I was mashing in a SS pot) and poured it all through a course colander into my brew pot (6 gallon). Next time I'm going to line the thing with a grain bag since quite a bit of crud got through the colander into the pot. I got somewhere between 95 and 100% efficiency on the mash!!

Then I poured about a gallon and a half of 170F water through the colander rinsing the grains. I might have over-sparged a bit actually since the sample I pulled out of the fermenter is really bitter (possibly tannins?).

Did an hour full boil with 1oz. of cluster (7.5%), chilled, and pitched a packet of Nottingham. It's definitely sour. Not overly sour, but it's not exactly subtle... I'm really excited since I love sour beers.

If this works out it's going to be a wonderful mini-mash recipe. I can easily mash 6 lbs. of grain in my smaller pot and I only had to add about 1 lb. 6 oz of LME to make up the gravity difference. Makes for a cheap mini-mash recipe.

The biggest problem I ran into with mine on the "drinkability" factor was acidity. It gives me acid reflux if I drink more than 2 without food in between to buffer it. The sour flavor I like but I really would like to cut that acidity some if I do it again. I suppose a shorter mash would help a lot but I would hate to lose much of the sour. I wonder if just doing some water mods would help balance the acid without detracting from the flavor too much?

just kegged/tasted mine... tasted like a normal brown ale

The Kentucky Commons looks like an interesting beer, I'm going to have to try this out.

I've seen a couple of questions in this thread about the high expected attenuation from the 24 hour mash. My own experience from trying 8 hour mashes was that I got higher than usual efficiency, as well as higher attenuation.
Kaiser has some great information & experimental data on various mash parameters, in particular, he shows the increasing brewhouse efficiency here - http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/inde...nd_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing#Time

craigd said:

The biggest problem I ran into with mine on the "drinkability" factor was acidity. It gives me acid reflux if I drink more than 2 without food in between to buffer it. The sour flavor I like but I really would like to cut that acidity some if I do it again. I suppose a shorter mash would help a lot but I would hate to lose much of the sour. I wonder if just doing some water mods would help balance the acid without detracting from the flavor too much?

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Isn't the acid what makes it sour? Someone else may be able to help you better.

claphamsa said:

just kegged/tasted mine... tasted like a normal brown ale

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That sucks. What recipe did you do and is yours sour at all?

well its not sour now.... maybe carbing and cooling will bring a nip through! certainly smelled sour out of the tun and on the boil....

I just tasted mine. It's 4 days into fermentation and the gravities dropped to 1.010, krausen dropped as well. Still cloudy from all the suspended yeast.

It tastes exactly like the house smelled when I was brewing, which is to say pretty awful. I'm hoping that it improves with time, but right now I'm not getting any sourness whatsoever, and a lot of cheesy aromas with a hint of nauseating vomity funk. yikes.

Hah, gross. Hopefully it turns out well. Give it a couple weeks. I just brewed another today. I only gave it a 17hr mash because my last turned out to be more sour than I planned. I think that was due to my house being so damn cold, about 50. I guess it got down to souring temps faster. We'll see how this one is. I used 5.5lbs 6row and 2.5lbs maize this time. .25lb C120 and Choc malt. Hope it turns out well, since it's for a super bowl party for this guy that loved my last batch (before the more sour one). His girl even loved it and he said she is reeeal picky about her beer, and is typically a bud light drinker.

Mine turned out fantastic! The sour in mine is just barely perceptable. I'll cut the special roast down a little next time, but I like the extra complexity. Thanks again O'Daniel.