I want to try brewing a sour...

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fink100

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I like the taste of sour beer, so my wife and I would like to try to brew one. We read up in the Papazian about it, and he mentioned a process where you put malt extract and malted barley in a bucket at 130 degrees, put a sheet of tinfoil on the surface of the liquid, and let it sit for 15-24 hours before going on to the main boil. This will supposedly sour the wort without racking for a year. I was wondering if anyone had ever tried this method, and if so, if anyone had a good partial mash recipe to use with this process. Also if anyone has any advice, tips, tricks, etc, it would be greatly appreciated. I guess i just am too impatient to let my beer sit for a year, so I would rather take a short cut if possible.

Primary: Raspberry Honey Wit
Secondary: Irish Red Ale
Bottled: Pale Ale, Belgian Strong Ale, Wit
 
I thought about doing this but decided in the long run it's just as good, and a lot easier, to add lactic acid. I think the bacterial ferment adds a lot more than simply sourness.
 
The method you are referring to is sour mashing. That is one way, but 1 - 130 is way too hot for lactobacillus (the bacteria responsible for souring) and 2 - 20 minutes is way too short for a sour mash.

I've never tried it, but I know there is a Basic Brewing episode on sour mashing. Another alternative is to save 2 gallons of wort and toss in a pound of crushed 2 row. Malt is teeming with lactobacillus. Let that sit for a day or two and a portion of your mash will be soured. Beware, it will smell like vomit. You will want to boil the soured wort to kill off any lacto.

In terms of sour/wild beers, this method is kind of "cheating", depending on what type of sour beer you are intending to brew. A sour mash is perfectly acceptalble in a Guiness clone, or even a Berlinerweiss. If you wanted to reproduce a lambic or Flanders Red, you would have to pitch a cocktail of "bugs". These mixtures contain lactobacillus, pediococcus, regular sacchromyces, brettanomyces (a wild yeast). In a sour mash, the only thing working is lactobacillus. Therefore, you won't get the correct flavor profile with a sour mash only.. Homebrewers normally start fermenting with a regular ale yeast, then add in the sour blend at the end of fermentation. This helps speed up the process to somewere around 8 months to a year instead of 1-2 years.
 
I'm not too familiar with any recipes for sour mashes, and even less so because we do partial mash, not all grain. I really like New Belgium's La Folie, but I know that is cask conditioned. Do brew stores have all these bacteria and yeast strains to add to the wort? If anyone has a good partial mash recipe that would be great.
 
Just a couple things I noticed that arent exactly true.....

In a sour mash, the only thing working is lactobacillus. Therefore, you won't get the correct flavor profile with a sour mash only...

There are tons of other things on grain as well, so when you sour mash your getting a lot of other bugs than lacto, thats why things can smell soooo bad

sour mashing can create some serious off flavors, going this route you really are venturing into the unknown, also the boil in every sour mash Ive done has basically smelled lot hot rotting garbage

Homebrewers normally start fermenting with a regular ale yeast, then add in the sour blend at the end of fermentation. This helps speed up the process to somewere around 8 months to a year instead of 1-2 years.

Actually if you want a really sour lambic/flanders/etc you should START with a sour blend, if you dont the beer just wont get as sour/funky as commercial examples because there just wont be enough for the bugs to eat, lots of people quote Jamil on this, but this is an area where I would have to completely disagree with him

Also Im not sure what you mean by it cutting time off the brewing process, adding the sour culture doesnt really cut off any time from the brewing process it still takes just as long for the bugs to work



To the OP:

If you want something quick lactic acid really is the easiest way, but if you want to do a sour beer with bugs, you really cant rush things, if you want to turn out a really good beer it takes time,

La Folie is a Flanders Red and Wyeast offers a flander red blend, typically ever year in the spring vss, called Roeselare, that blend can turn out a decent Red, but adding the dregs of commercial Flanders Reds and using a 2nd or 3rd generation of roeselare can make a great beer
 
Actually if you want a really sour lambic/flanders/etc you should START with a sour blend, if you dont the beer just wont get as sour/funky as commercial examples because there just wont be enough for the bugs to eat, lots of people quote Jamil on this, but this is an area where I would have to completely disagree with him

I got that from Wild Brews. I was kind of generalizing since the OP was asking about quicker ways to make sour beer. I didn't go into any specifics about grist compositon etc. Starting with another culture has a good deal to do with it, but you also want a grist composition that will support brettanomyces over the long term. Thats why a lot of lambics contain a lot of unmalted wheat to contribute longer dextrins yeast can't get to, but the other bugs can.
 
I see what your you getting at, but I dont want the OP to get confused that method still wont produce the beer faster

it really does help to give the brett/pedio/lacto access to the maltose and nutrients in the wort at the same time as the sacch, as it will allow them to grow much more quickly and produce more of an impact on the beer, beers produced by Cantillon, Rodenbach etc arent fermented with a clean ale yeast first, they all get the full range of bugs from the start

At any rate, if the OP really is interested in sour brewing Id suggest multiple batches because the best sours Ive brewed or tasted have always been blended, and nearly anything you could buy commercially will have blended as well, with sour beers you can split wort and pitch the same bugs and get very very different beers,

if the OP just wants something for SWMBO to enjoy fairly quickly, a simple low IBU beer with some lactic acid and fruit can be made just as fast as any normal ale and can be pretty tasty although a bit clean for a funk lover like me :fro:
 
Ok, I see where you are going. I was typing quickly and didn't really get my point across.

I agree with the lactic acid/fruit for a quick girlie sour in the vein of most of the Lindeman's thats available here.
 
Berliner Weisse

-Use enough wheat extract to get an OG of 1.030.
-Use some German hops to get about 4 IBUs from a boil time of 15 minutes.
-Only boil for 15 minutes.
-Cool and pitch a tube of white labs or wyeast lactobacillus delbrueckii.
-Let the bacteria go for 12-24 hours (depending on the temp; maybe others can give you advise here).
-After the bugs get a head start, pitch some neutral ale yeast (wlp001, wyeast 1056, us-05).
-Let this ferment out, it will probably continue to get sour as it ages.

This is about as simple a sour you can do.

EDIT: And once you get this started, find a recipe for a flanders red and you should be drinking it this time next year (maybe).
 
Berliner Weisse

-Use enough wheat extract to get an OG of 1.030.
-Use some German hops to get about 4 IBUs from a boil time of 15 minutes.
-Only boil for 15 minutes.
-Cool and pitch a tube of white labs or wyeast lactobacillus delbrueckii.
-Let the bacteria go for 12-24 hours (depending on the temp; maybe others can give you advise here).
-After the bugs get a head start, pitch some neutral ale yeast (wlp001, wyeast 1056, us-05).
-Let this ferment out, it will probably continue to get sour as it ages.

This is about as simple a sour you can do.

EDIT: And once you get this started, find a recipe for a flanders red and you should be drinking it this time next year (maybe).

I did this exactly. To the "T." My beer is now 93 days old according to my notes. I don't know if lacto produces CO2, but the beer is still off-gassing. I have it in an extra corny keg at room temp, and I have to pull the pressure release valve every day or so, and I'm still getting a "pffft" three months out. I'm hoping this might be done by X-mas, but I bet it will go into the new year before I'm ready to start drinking it...
 
Here's what I would do if you want a sour similar to La Folie without waiting.

Brew up a malty/low hopped red, pick about any flanders red recipe. Ferment the beer with a clean ale yeast. Once fermentation is complete add about an ounce of oak chips to the secondary for a week. Buy some lactic acid and vinegar. Pull off some of the beer and start experimenting with doses of lactic acid and vinegar (it shouldn't take much), the lactic acid will mimic the byproducts of the lacto and pedio, and the vinegar should give it some acetobacter notes. I'm not really sure of how to mimic any brett character, but this should get you in the ballpark. Once you find a blend that you enjoy scale that up for the full 5 gallons (or whatever volume you brewed), then bottle away.

You won't get the same results you would get with the real bug blends, but even with the real bugs there is no guarantee.

I've sour mashed before and never cared for the results.

Another option is just adding a lactobacillus culture to the beer after primary is complete. You might get some good sourness after 6 months or so.
 
Thanks for all the feedback, though I will admit this new area of brewing is a bit over my head. I think I will start with the simplest (cheating perhaps) method, and work forward from there. I guess that would be the lactic acid that was referred to earlier in the post. One thing I was slightly worried about is reading about how using the same equipment for sour beer on a non-sour will make it unintentionally sour. That is including stuff down to the grain paddle etc. Anyone ever had this happen?
By the way... I think La Folie is fermented in used sherry casks, but I'm not sure so don't hold me to that.
 
If you are impeccable with your cleaning and sanitation (you are aren't you?:D), there should be no problems with contaminating other batches. Always CLEAN, then SANITIZE. Its a two step process. Use oxyclean or PBW to clean, and Starsan or Iodophor to sanitize. I think replacing a mash paddle is way too crazy. You don't even introduce the "unwanted bugs" until its in the fermenter. If you are really worried, dedicate a bucket, racking cane and keg to sour beers.

IMO (and this is really just conjecture), the whole "separate sour and regular brewing" idea stems from commercial brewing and wine making. A brett infection in a commercial brewery or winery can be bad. You only stand the chance of ruining 5 gallons. They have hundreds of gallons and a lot of money tied up in each batch. They also use transfer systems that are harder to clean than a plastic racking cane and a glass carboy. I've even heard stories that wine makers in Belgium won't step foot in Lambic breweries in fear brett and other bugs might get on their clothes and transfer to their winery.

:off:

If I had the time and access to material, I think it would be fun to do a book on myths in the homebrewing world perpeduated by commercial practices. Stuff like this that, if you put 2 and 2 together, you can see that its not that big of a deal on a small batch, quick turnover level of brewing. Of course it would have a better title! ;).
 
La Folie isn't barrel aged, it is aged in huge oak foeders, like this.

2348266259_b4bb345238_o.jpg


So no prior liquor contact, supposedly less oxygen transfer than a barrel. Similar, but different.
 
from wild brews lactobabillus produces lactic acid and carbon dioxide

Depends on the strain of lactobacillus. The WY and WL strains of Delbrueckii are supposedly homofermentive, so like you said, produce only lactic acid and CO2. The ideal temps change too. For the commercial strain of lacto, 98F is about as hot as you want to go with it. Some yogurt strains like 120F+, some strains are thermophilic and can survive 170F.
 

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