Joie de Vivre - Soured Saison with Plums and Peaches

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Homebrewtastic

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2009
Messages
1,042
Reaction score
30
Location
San Antonio
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
WLP530 - Abbey Ale
Yeast Starter
Yeast Cake
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
Wyeast 3711 - French Saison
Batch Size (Gallons)
7.5
Original Gravity
1.057
Final Gravity
1.005
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
9.7
Color
11
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
72 to start
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
Increase fermentation by 3 degrees each day for 7 days
Additional Fermentation
2 weeks at 75
Tasting Notes
Smells like lactic vomit at first then eventually downgrades to smelling like feet.
9lbs. Belgian Pils
2 lbs. Vienna Malt
1 lb. Torrified Wheat
8oz. C-40L

2 oz. Willamette 5.5%AA - 45min.

6.8 lbs. Homemade Peach Puree
5 lbs. Underipe Plums

Sour - 1 lb. belgian pils 1 lb. Light LME.

Make sour the day before brew day. Take the the LME and heat it up in 2 quarts of water to 130 degrees. Place it in a plastic bucket and add the 1lb. of pils. Try to keep the liquid as warm as possible (but no hotter than 130) for 24 hours. I just put it outside in the sun with a lid on it, as during the summer it's 110 degrees in central Texas, but a heating blanket would work too.

After 24 hours it should smell like Satan's Anus.

Mash the rest of the grain bill with the soured mixture at 152 for 90 minutes in 4.25 gallons of water.
Mash out at 168 by adding 2 quarts of 175 degree water. Then batch sparge with 4.5 gallons of water.
This may seem like high mashing temps for a saison, but the fermentability of the fruits that are added thins out the body enough to make it just right.

You should collect around 8 gallons of water. I only do a 45 minute boil, that takes it down to about 7 gallons. Expect to collect around 6.75 gallons of wort after trub.

Have the peach puree mostly frozen and add to the boil at flameout. This helps to cool the beer more rapidly.

Pitched onto the cake (otherwise just make a 1.5L starter) and start fermentation at 72 degrees. Increase temperature by 3 degrees a day for 7 days (I know 93 is high but you get some great yeasty funk). At this point primary should be pretty much done. Secondary in carboy and add the plums. Ferment for 2 weeks at about 75.

I decided to cut up the plums into relatively small pieces so they would fit into the carboy opening. I also froze them for a few days before adding to the beer as it helps reduce the risk of infection.

Aging this beer really helps. After the first 3 weeks in the bottle it smelled like vomit. After 3 months it only smelled like feet. The fruit notes start to come out more over time. I took it to a wedding and it was a huge hit. I have a few bottles left I plan to age for another 6 months

It tastes incredible. It's tart, dry and fruity. Definitely one of my favorite homebrews, and definitely my favorite recipe of my own.

Crappy Phone Pic
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So I'm bummed that no one has posted in here, but for any lurkers I just opened my last bottle. It really aged beautifully. The lactic smell really mellowed and the nose is full of fruit. The acidic sourness really makes the fruit come out. The body is light but there's a certain silky mouthfeel to it. Plus there's some spice. These both come from the two different yeast strains I used. I plan to brew this again soon so I can enter it in competition.
 
I have been looking for a Lambic/Sour ale to try. This one looks good i think i will give it a try next month. I will fill you in, thanks for info.
 
I've done four extract batches only, but I'm slowly getting obsessed with the thought of doing a sour. I like your recipe, and will have to brew something like this soon! And it looks delicious!
 
satans anus is such a good description. Why did you decide to use under-ripe plums?
 
I used the under riped plums for tartness.

The original version of this is an un-soured peach saison. I used a combination of overly ripe and under riped peaches. I added the under riped peaches to the beer in secondary, and they added some nice tartness. So I opted for the same idea in this one.
 
Excellent recipe. What would be the difference between making a sour mash or using brett+pedio WLP655?

Never made a sour before but am throwing one together this weekend... want to do it right.
 
You can totally do it with the bugs. I just don't have a ton of experience with them, and wanted to have as much control over the souring as possible. You will however get a better general flavor profile with something like pedio or roeselare blend.
 
Excellent recipe. What would be the difference between making a sour mash or using brett+pedio WLP655?

Never made a sour before but am throwing one together this weekend... want to do it right.

Making a sour mash = Straight Lacto, and it is essentially soured upon bottling (though you might want to give it a little age to mellow.) Brett+Pedio+Lacto pure cultures = A MUCH longer secondary, usually a year or more. They do, however, add a tangible complexity that sour mashes can't even touch.

Bottom line, if you want to be drinking in a few months go sour mash (or pure lacto culture.) If you have the time, go pure lambic culture. It's gonna be damn fine no matter what you do.
 
So you used the WLP530 initially, then pitched the 3711 at secondary? Also, does it matter if the grains are crushed or whole in the sour mash? I may brew this one soon, thanks.
 
I had a cake of the 530 from a batch of Belgian IPA. I really like the phenolics that kicks off so I decided to use that for the saison, however it doesn't leave the right mouthfeel so I pitched a pack of the 3711 at the same time.

However I didn't use the full cake, only pulled about a cup. It was also really healthy at the time of pitching as it was pulled just after high krausen on the IPA. So make it with at least a 1L starter, then pitch the pack of 3711 strait out.
 
Also the grains were crushed. You could make the sour with out the grains being crushed however I went back and threw the whole sour into the mash. So if they weren't crushed then you couldn't convert and extract the sugar from them.

Keep in mind when making the sour to keep it pretty damn warm, otherwise it will take a lot of time to sour. As cool as it is outside I'd suggest just wrapping it in a heating blanket.
 
This sounds delicious.

It is. I was bummed that I didn't make a larger batch or keep more for myself. There are three bottles still left in existence, but my buddy (for whom I made this batch) has them. Hopefully next time we get together we can open one. It's been aging for well over 6 months now (might even be 8, I'd have to check my notes) and I bet it's killer.
 
This sounds awesome, been looking for ways to funk up a Saison. I'm preparing a 10 gallon batch of Saison, and was going to split it. Ferment both with 3711, and then funk up one of the 5 gallon batches.

Does mashing the sour mix, not kill the Lacto? Preventing any further souring, or is that the point?

has anyone else brewed this? Would love to hear more thoughts.
 
Mashing the sour mix does indeed kill the lacto. And that is the point. While you may not get the exact same level of complexity as you would just adding lacto right into it, it is a much more easily controlled process.
 
Im really getting into sours...this seems like a good one to get my feet wet! I think ill do a 10 gallon batch with the other 5 gallons mixed in with roeselare blend... Let you know in couple years how it turns out. Haha
 
That's kind of the nice thing about a sour mash. While it's not as complex as pitching bugs, it's ready really quickly.
 
looking at throwing some saison brewed a few weeks ago onto an old plum cake we have leftover from a batch of some dry plum wine made a while back. not really sure what will happen, especially since the plums were originally used in a wine. any thoughts?
 
Going to revive this thread. I brewed this up on the weekend. Going to pick up some plums tommorow and prep them. For some reason I ordered safbrew abbaye yeast instead of a saison strain so we will see how it turns out. My first time making a sour mash and not so sure it worked. Had it at around 120f in a heated cooler for 20 hours or so and it had noticable bubbles rising from the bottom when I took it out. My concern is that it didnt taste sour to me more bitter/astringent. Anybody else familiar with this souring technique? Im not sure if the purpose of this sour mash is to adjust the main mash ph or if it is supposed to sour the beer? From what I have been reading it seems like you need a much larger sour mash to have a noticable "sour" effect in the final product.
 
I've done several kettle sours. pedio and lactos can't survive in temps higher than 120f. Does best between 100f-115f you might of had the temp to high. I use a p.h meter so I can better keep track of p.h. readings. Normally goes from 6.0 p.h to 3.4 p.h in about 18hrs to 24hrs in my case. You will get a noticeable tartness. Pedio however takes a lot longer to get a noticeable tartness. Sometimes weeks.
 
Thanks for reply. I think your right about the temperature was too high... I sampled when I racked it over to the plums the other day and it wasnt sour at all. I got my hands on a pure brett culture and another brett/mixed culture from a fellow homebrewer yesterday and im thinking about throwing one of them in the mix possibly.
 
What strains of brettanomcyes did you get? Have you ever heard of omega lacto blend? I've never used but hear it works great in room temps. I'd try that next time. Just add the starter to the carboy. Make sure you fill up carboy 100% with wort to try and make sure their is no oxygen otherwise might get off flavors.
 
I did use crushed grains actually should I have used whole? Not sure what types of brett they are but one was harvested from a 100% brett cider and the other from a blondish wild ale.
 
That's your problem right there. You needed to use whole grains for your lacto not crushed. You are trying to get it from the skin on the grains. That's why you don't crush them. You can use any grains they all have latco in them. I recommend acidulated malt however. Works great and fast.
 
Happy to help. For the starter best way I've done for lacto starter is make starter like normal add whole grains to wort seal it like normal and put 8it in a pot with water in it to better help with controlling temp.
 
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