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bovineblitz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2010
Messages
2,411
Reaction score
145
Location
Binghamton, NY
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
T-58 or clean ale yeast
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.048
Final Gravity
1.012
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
6.9
Color
3.7
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
21
Tasting Notes
Slightly tart, salt is just noticeable, touch of oranginess - very refreshing
VseJM8a.jpg


This has become a summer staple of mine. It's a quick little gose whose tartness is derived from acid malt. As I've found gose to only require a light bit of simple tartness, I don't see a need for the more complex flavors you get from using lactobacillus. The acid malt is added after 45 minutes of mashing so as not to interfere too much with mash pH. It's perfect for a hot summer day, you might find yourself reaching for one of these instead of a water!

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.048 SG
Estimated Color: 3.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 6.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.5 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

5 lbs - White Wheat Malt (2.0 SRM) - 48.8 %
3 lbs - Pilsner Malt (Ger) (2.0 SRM) - 29.3 %
2 lbs 4.0 oz - Acid Malt (add after 45min of mashing) - 22.0 %
0.17 oz Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min - 6.9 IBUs (could easily sub this, I went with Sorachi for the little bit of lemon and pepper but it likely doesn't contribute much)
0.60 oz - Coriander Seed, coarsely crushed (Boil 5 mins)
1.00 oz - Sea Salt or Kosher Salt (Boil 5 min)
DCL/Fermentis #T-58

Mash at 152*F

At bottling, add additional salt or lactic acid for tartness, to taste. Your water may be different from mine so it's hard to say what makes it just right. Let your palate decide.

Carbonate a bit high, 3.0 volumes of CO2 turns out nicely.
 
Awesome, glad it's doing well right now. I typically wind up adding some lactic acid to mine at bottling too. I'm excited to see how it turns out once it's primed and ready!
 
Question for you guys that have done this brew before. I tried to make it today following the same recipe.

I mashed the Wheat and Pils for 45 min at 152 and then the last 15 added the acid malt to the mash. Sparged and then boiled for 60 min and put in the additions.

Came out super starchy and not sour whatsoever. I tested the pH before the boil and seemed to be right around 5.0 which i know is not a good sign for the tartness I was looking for.

Tasted it before putting in fermentor and no tartness at all and super cloudy and starchy.

What am I doing wrong here? Is there something in the process I am missing? I actually came home and put 1/2lb of acid malt in 152 water for 15 min and it came out sour. What gives?

Thanks!

Jon
 
smonice,
to be honest i mashed the acid malt for 30 min. so my total mash time was 75 minutes. mine was also very cloudy/starchy and didn't taste heavily soured. after fermentation was complete it was still a little cloudy but the sour/tartness was very pronounced, but the salt seemed a little strong so i added a little lactic acid to balance it. I'm not sure why you got no souring at all. the only thing i can think of is.. how low did your mash temp drop when you added the acid malt. i added a quart of boiling water to bring my temp back up to 152.
hope this helps
 
First Taste!! very good a little salty but not bad. i'm gonna brew another batch this weekend and cut the salt in half. then add what is needed at bottling. As it is right now it really comes very close to westbrooks gose. :D

SanctGose.jpg
 
Wow you used the label! That's awesome :)

Looks great. It's definitely a trial and error process to nail down the salt levels.

smonice, it's possible that your water buffers the acid better than mine or coyote's. You may need more acid if you have quite a bit of bicarbonate in your water. You could dilute with distilled/spring water, I'd prefer that over adding a ton of lactic acid as it can impart a slightly buttery taste if you use too much of it. If it's starchy, maybe letting the mash run longer will help, though 15min has worked fine for me.
 
Thanks. I actually bottled few nights ago and it was slightly tart so I was happy. Didn't get the salt much so we will see after it carbs. I'll report back with results in a little over a week. Thanks for the help.
 
I did a witbier with a similar grain bill. And experiment for me, since I had never tried that style, and never used acid malt. I also threw in some lime in the secondary for just a bit of citrusy brightness. I kegged it up when it was ready, and definately enjoy it on a hot day.

Partial Mash

3 lbs Pale Malt (2 row). 60 min. 28.6%
4 lbs White Wheat. 60 min. 38.1%
1.5 lbs Acid Malt. 20 min. 14.3%
2 lbs wheat dme. 60 min. 19%

1oz Saaz @ 60 min
1oz Saaz @ 15 min

Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier

Mash 60 min @ 154F
Sparge @ 165

Primary 28 days
No secondary

Nice tart and light beer here.




Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
After a short time in the bottle, the salt has mellowed a lot. very good!
Brewed a 10 gallon batch yesterday, cut the salt a little. well worth having on hand.

thanks for this excellent recipe bovineblitz.
 
How well would the salt and acid flavors of this beer hold up to a bigger hop bill? I'm thinking something in the 30-40 IBU range.
 
Brewing this up right now. Doing a 90 minute boil because I collected 6.5 gallons of wort. Didn't measure the pre-boil gravity. Had a stuck sparge. Hopefully that won't effect it too much. Upped the acid malt to 2.5 lbs. love that tartness it brings. It's a cheaters way to a sour beer. Lol.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
Stuck sparge and all, I hit my numbers perfect. Pitched the T-58, we shall see how it goes in the next day or so


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
How long is it taking y'all to see the sourness?
I bottled a test batch two weeks ago, and while I know it's young, I couldn't resist the urge to try one a few days ago.
Granted, it wasn't this recipe, but the beer is bland. No sour notes and no detectable salt.
I'm glad I made a test run because, well...it's not great right now.
 
my sourness and salt presence is very noticeable at bottling / kegging. the saltiness seems to get a little more intense after about 2 weeks in a bottle, while the keg remains the same.
 
What temp are you fermenting this at? T-58 is a Belgian strain, so are you going on the cool side to keep the phenolics out?



Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
So i brewed a similar grain bill to this on sunday the 13th. I missed the mash temp severely mashing in at 165!!! I know, step up my game. Any way, pre boil OG was 1.038, post boil was 1.050. I used WL 500 trappist. fermented at 73 degree. I took a reading today and its 1.030. Taste is pretty amazing, light sour and a hint of salt that is just right. So my question is this:

Should i let it ride another week to see if the gravity drops, or should i pitch another yeast strain? Or are there too many unfermentable sugars in there because of the high mash temp? do those unfermentable sugars screw up the reading?

HELP.
 
Can anyone give me a conversion for doing this with all DME and steeping with other grains? I take it I would boil the Acid Malt for 60 minutes w/ everything else?


VseJM8a.jpg


This has become a summer staple of mine. It's a quick little gose whose tartness is derived from acid malt. As I've found gose to only require a light bit of simple tartness, I don't see a need for the more complex flavors you get from using lactobacillus. The acid malt is added after 45 minutes of mashing so as not to interfere too much with mash pH. It's perfect for a hot summer day, you might find yourself reaching for one of these instead of a water!

Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.048 SG
Estimated Color: 3.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 6.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.5 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

5 lbs - White Wheat Malt (2.0 SRM) - 48.8 %
3 lbs - Pilsner Malt (Ger) (2.0 SRM) - 29.3 %
2 lbs 4.0 oz - Acid Malt (add after 45min of mashing) - 22.0 %
0.17 oz Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min - 6.9 IBUs (could easily sub this, I went with Sorachi for the little bit of lemon and pepper but it likely doesn't contribute much)
0.60 oz - Coriander Seed, coarsely crushed (Boil 5 mins)
1.00 oz - Sea Salt or Kosher Salt (Boil 5 min)
DCL/Fermentis #T-58

Mash at 152*F

At bottling, add additional salt or lactic acid for tartness, to taste. Your water may be different from mine so it's hard to say what makes it just right. Let your palate decide.

Carbonate a bit high, 3.0 volumes of CO2 turns out nicely.
 
Can anyone give me a conversion for doing this with all DME and steeping with other grains? I take it I would boil the Acid Malt for 60 minutes w/ everything else?

DME is calculated at 60% of grains(LME at 80%).

That being said you would need....
3# Wheat DME
1.8# Pilsen DME(just round it up to 2#. It won't hurt anything and will make things easier on you by not having to measure out a specific amount.)

For the acid malt, just steep them at 152* for 45 min or so, mix in your DME and begin the boil.
 
DME is calculated at 60% of grains(LME at 80%).

That being said you would need....
3# Wheat DME
1.8# Pilsen DME(just round it up to 2#. It won't hurt anything and will make things easier on you by not having to measure out a specific amount.)

For the acid malt, just steep them at 152* for 45 min or so, mix in your DME and begin the boil.

Could just skip the acid malt steeping and use lactic acid for all of the tartness. I'm not sure how much to add, but you could just add it all to taste at bottling.
 
I will be brewing up a batch this weekend. Makes sense to add the acid malt after 45 minutes into the mash but do you mash longer to ensure adequate conversion time for the acid malt? Maybe a 75 or 90 minute mash?
 
I will be brewing up a batch this weekend. Makes sense to add the acid malt after 45 minutes into the mash but do you mash longer to ensure adequate conversion time for the acid malt? Maybe a 75 or 90 minute mash?

That's a good question, I typically do add 10-15 minutes just to be safe.
 
Have had this in the keg for about a week now. Brewed as per recipe, except I pitched WLP001 since I had slurry on hand. Clean, refreshing beer. Tartness from acidulated malt is very subtle. I think I'd prefer a little more tart myself but came out great. Very refreshing! I may add a touch of lactic acid, but I'm concerned it will be difficult to nail. Next time I would up the acid malt a bit for me, tartness level somewhere between this and Westbrook would be perfect
 
I think he's referencing that it's just the acid malt and no lacto souring
 
I think he's referencing that it's just the acid malt and no lacto souring

You are correct Sorry not trying to start a fight or anything. Just wanted to make sure people who try this as their first gose understand that this isn't a 100% true to a gose. The lactobacillus, peddiocucus, coriander sea salt and typically 70% pilsener 30% wheat malt and usually 2%-4% alcohol content. Over a 100 years ago we didn't have a good way to cool down wort. We would coolship it. That's where the lacto or pedio got introduced into the beer. It thrives best at 87f to 120f. And if you really wan to get 100% accurate Back in the day they didn't add sea salt either. The salt came naturally from the water source :)
 
You are correct Sorry not trying to start a fight or anything. Just wanted to make sure people who try this as their first gose understand that this isn't a 100% true to a gose. The lactobacillus, peddiocucus, coriander sea salt and typically 70% pilsener 30% wheat malt and usually 2%-4% alcohol content. Over a 100 years ago we didn't have a good way to cool down wort. We would coolship it. That's where the lacto or pedio got introduced into the beer. It thrives best at 87f to 120f. And if you really wan to get 100% accurate Back in the day they didn't add sea salt either. The salt came naturally from the water source :)

Okay... most of us don't have salty water sources. That's like saying people with soft water can't make IPAs with 'burton water' because they have to add various salts.

This recipe is described as a quick gose that doesn't use lacto. The outcome of this beer is true to a gose, which is what matters. Nowadays we have people using ale strains for lagers that are done in 2 weeks, and they're clearly lagers, would you say that they're not 'real' lagers? Competitions certainly can't tell the difference.

You could sour mash/kettle this recipe but it's hard to make it only mildly tart that way. You could pitch lacto in secondary, that'd work okay but it'd take a lot longer and oftentimes lacto doesn't do anything. Or, go with what you're saying about the history of gose 100+ years ago and spontaneously ferment it like a lambic, which nobody does for a gose and would probably not create a beer resembling the light, spritzy, mildy tart, mildly salty refreshing beers out of Germany once you're done fermenting it for 8-20 months.

Not sure what your goal is here. This is a quick, easily reproducible gose, not a history lesson.
 
Right their the fact that you say it does not have lacto or pedio in it. That is a main stable in a gose. I was stating the fact about the water and salt because of the show me an actual 100 year old gose that isn't tart i was saying if you want to get 100% actuate they didnt use sea salt either to an 100 year old recipe. Their is a difference between tart and sour. I'm sorry you can say this is a gose but it is not. It's a tart pilsener/wheat beer. Maybe before putting recipes up you should do research and make sure what you are calling a beer is actually the correct beer.
 
Hi guys.

I hope to learn from all of you, so could you summarize your main points,
and work to find the essential truth we all can grow from?

If the Rx isn't traditional, so be it.
Admit it and lets judge the result on taste, not historical precedence.

But I think it is important to know about differences.

I would like to know more about the difference between "Tart" and "Sour"... From usage, it would seem that tart simply means a low level of sourness.
Isn't it just a difference of degree?
Sort of like white - grey - black?
If there is a definitive objective description of the difference...
that would be good to know!


Anyway,
I think it would be helpful if you (or someone) could sum up the main points, points of conention, whatever and perhaps send each other some samples to get your point across.

That would be fun, no?.

Sorry for butting in, but this is unpleasent!

It seems to me that the only important things here are :
1. How to make good beer,
2. Accurate understanding of both modern & historical methods and
3. Friendly comradery.
 
Hi guys.

I hope to learn from all of you, so could you summarize your main points,
and work to find the essential truth we all can grow from?

If the Rx isn't traditional, so be it.
Admit it and lets judge the result on taste, not historical precedence.

But I think it is important to know about differences.

I would like to know more about the difference between "Tart" and "Sour"... From usage, it would seem that tart simply means a low level of sourness.
Isn't it just a difference of degree?
Sort of like white - grey - black?
If there is a definitive objective description of the difference...
that would be good to know!


Anyway,
I think it would be helpful if you (or someone) could sum up the main points, points of conention, whatever and perhaps send each other some samples to get your point across.

That would be fun, no?.

Sorry for butting in, but this is unpleasent!

It seems to me that the only important things here are :
1. How to make good beer,
2. Accurate understanding of both modern & historical methods and
3. Friendly comradery.

Hey, thanks for butting in, this is a good idea.

- My understanding is that a gose 100+ years ago was designed to fit a salty water profile and was likely at least partially spontaneously fermented and probably contained both lactobacillus and pediococcus, similar to a lambic, and hops were probably used mainly to maintain proper bacteria:yeast activity. It was sour by nature, and undoubtedly darker than it is now and probably a little smoky due to how malting worked. Those recipes seem to have all but disappeared, and more modern versions coming out of Germany using pilsner malt almost died out too. They were/are quite clean with a moderate amount of lactic sourness. The flavor profile is lightly sour, lightly salty, light and spritzy.

Homebrewers re-popularized the style in the past 10 years or so. There's 3 ways that people have been souring gose:
- Traditional - Lactobacillus in primary, sometimes for ~24h before the primary yeast is pitched to give it a head start
- Mash - Sour mash/kettle, with either lacto from grains or from a lab/yogurt/probiotic
- Acid - Adding lactic acid directly via acid malt and/or 88% lactic acid

All three of the methods work just fine.

- Primary is probably the optimal way, but you run the risk of the lactobacillus not souring your beer at all and it can take a while, and also if you don't pre-sour your wort with a bit of acid then it will eat head-forming proteins. This is presumably how they're made in Germany, with a yeast/bacteria blend that's reused from batch to batch.

- Sour mash/kettle for 2-5 days works well, but the risks there are that you grow bugs that you don't want, the flavor profile may not be as clean particularly if you let oxygen in during the souring, it's hard to get the exact right amount of acidity you want, and your yeast has to contest with high acidity which can be stressful - the benefit is that it's fast and less of a time commitment. Most American breweries are doing this (not all though).

- Adding acid is the fastest, simplest way. Its benefit is that you have total control over the amount of acidity because you can add more at bottling, this allows you to adjust to water with any buffering capacity. It's the fastest and there's no bacteria introduced so if you're scared of infecting your equipment it's appealing. The drawback is that the acid profile will probably be a bit less complex and using far too much lactic acid can lend a bit of a buttery character (which is why I suggest using acid malt too if you know you need to add a ton of acidity). Another risk appears to be that someone will come into your recipe thread flailing about like happened here.

------------------------------

- The recipe posted here is a quick, easy gose designed after what you can find in Germany. Mildly tart, pretty light on the salt - but it's super easy to add more acid and salt at bottling/in the keg if you want to. It's extremely reproducible and very easy to make. I personally don't see much of a benefit to using actual lacto particularly in this style, I've tried all 3 and really like the consistency with this method and don't miss any of the other characteristics. I don't want to have to make two batches and blend to get the proper result for a simple 5 gallon summer sipper, and this recipe comes out great. I sour mash all my berliner weisses because I'm shooting for the "florida weisse" style a la Cigar City, and I get a very consistent result. I use all three methods for different beers, and I think they're all great.

- A lot of people have been sour mashing and just letting the pH drop until it slows down, typically 3.3-3.5 pH, which I consider too sour for a gose. Most of what I've seen coming out of American breweries are like this. It's debatable how sour they're 'supposed' to be, but my recipe is modeled after the handful of German examples I've had which are supposed to be the beers that define the style. This debate has come up multiple times recently in various places, and I think it's because of the "Americanizing" of the style making people think that a gose is supposed to be really sour and really salty. I think that those versions taste great as well, but that's not what this recipe is going for.

- I have no idea what he's talking about with this 'tart vs sour' thing, pretty much everyone views them as a continuum of the same thing when it comes to beer. This whole thread happened to hit right after a tough football game on a Sunday so I was probably a bit more on edge than I would have liked when I responded, but IMO it still doesn't excuse the whirling dervish, fragmented, non-conversational, broken-logic aggressive approach to offering criticism that this guy came in here with.

In summary - there's many ways to skin a cat, and the OUTCOME is what matters. I imagine that people have come across this thread and decided to sour mash, that's great just go make some gose.
 
sour is the strong acidy lasting taste, such as when you lick a lemon (which is bitter as well). Some people would say that lemon is tart but if an orange is tart, how can a lemon be tart? When milk goes bad, it's sour not tart the sourness comes from the lactobacillus in the milk.

Tart is not as strong, not as lasting and is usually mixed with sweet witch is the opposite of what you want in a sour. That's why tart is often used in describing cakes and sweets such as lemon pie: the citric flavor is no longer sour but tart. A Granny Smith apple is tart and so is a grapefruit. This is why I'm stating this isn't a gose. Not because of 100% history not correct. Couldn't care if it was but guess I didn't get that point made well enough well. with that being said.

A gose is normally 60% pilsener 30% wheat and normally 10% acid malts for tartness another reason for adding acid malts is to try and lower the p.h below 5 to better help with head retention. Or the lactobacillus will break down the enzymes in head retention a lot faster.

If you use lacto you can make a starter 2 to 3 days ahead. I recommend OYL-605 Omega yeast blend has lacto brevis witch works better at room temperature so you won't need to worry about how to keep it above 100f to better let lacto grow. If you make a start you can brew your beer cool it down to 90f fill carboy as much as possible to better not allowed oxygen in or purge with co2. After 24 hrs the p.h should be at 3.4 ish after that pitch your yeast and wait and after a month you have a very tasty tart/sour beer.

If you don't make a lacto starter and added into secondary it will take 3 to 6 months to get sour.

For people who don't use lactobacillus will end up with a tart beer people who do use lactobacillus will get a sour tart beer and get two 100% different tasting beer. I tried making that point several times.

I'm happy to help in anyways possible. I have more than 6 and for 4 years brewing non traditional beers.

P.s gose didn't almost die out. It was mainly brewed in a small area in Germany and not produced anywhere else in the world. Gose wasnt even affected by Reinhitsgebot at all they had special permission because the salt came naturally from their water source. It was just not known to the scale it is now same with Berliner weisse.
 
Your descriptions of tart and sour don't really make sense, you're just saying that tart is less sour with a separate, unrelated sweet component being present. The only distinction I've ever seen is that tart may be more of a 'fruity' sourness, like citrus or apples, whereas sour is a more general term and encompasses tart. The terms are not mutually exclusive.

I don't agree with your distinction that certain methods lead to tartness vs sourness (using your definitions that I also don't agree with). You could just add more acid and boom, sour. If anything, there's some small character difference between the methods due to bacteria being not present/present for differing amounts of time, but lactic acid is lactic acid no matter how it comes about.

Furthermore, you didn't really describe it in this thread, you just repeated that there's a difference and made a vague reference without any link and said 'go find it'. Feels like "it's not my job to educate you", which isn't a good color on anyone. We agree on a lot of the same things when it comes down to it, but your conversational style was extremely adversarial and it's almost like you were purposely not connecting dots, describing your perspective, or backing up what you said just to be inflammatory.
 
Experts do dissagree.
It happens all the time.
There are NUANCES that mean the world to some and are of no concern to others.

I have heard that there is a differtence between chemically dosed lactic acid sourness and that produced using tradional German methods...
perhaps this difference is the truth we are dancing around, I don't know,

Ordinary language really dosen't prepare a person to describe flavor nuances in my opinion.

I can see something in a distinction between tart and sour, but really I think wish there was a more scientific way to specify what is meant.

Anyway, I look forward to making some of my own.

Thank you both for pointing out what to pay attention to.
 
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