Seabuckthorn sour

[unclebrazzie]

Hi y'all!

I'll be getting my hands on a quantity of seabuckthorn sometime soon.
I plan to brew a sour wheat beer with it, à la so:

For a batch of 1050 beer:
50% pale malt
30% wheat malt
20% Munich malt

Mash on the warm side (69°C) so the bugs have something to chew once the Sacchs are worn out.
Boil for 70'
with 15 IBU at t-70
and 5IBU at t-15
I'm planning on using Saaz because that's what I have lying about the place, but I reckon something more floral wold work nicely too.

Pitch bug blend: Sacch, Brett, Lacto and Pedio. Something à la Roesselare Blend or Sour Melange.
Once krausen subsides, add seabuckthorn and cranberries, both frozen/bletted for easier access to the sugars.

The idea is to end up with a sour ale just shy of Lambic complexity, with seabuckthorn addind a touch of orangey-berry flavours, and the cranberry adding something cosmopolitan-without-actually-tasting-of-cosmopolitan .

The berries will also import tartness of their own.

Your thoughts very appreciated.

 

[m00ps]

id just pitch it all together at once. It should develop a bit quicker. Are you making a starter for the bug or pitching the tiny ass amount white labs gives you in their wild blends?

ive read from a number of experienced makers of sours (commercial and homebrewing) that the idea that leaving more unfermentables for the bugs doesnt really get you any more or less funk or sourness. Chad from crooked stave reccomends using a decent amount of flaked grains to help with the thin body that the high attenuation seems to impart. Id change all the wheat malt to flaked, my sour im making next weekend is around 30% flaked wheat/oats

 

[Calder]

Sours take a long time to develop. You might be better waiting 8 to 12 months before adding fruit.

Popular wisdom is that a lot of the Brett flavors are developed from converting the esters created by the sacc yeast, so a higher attenuating wort can give more depth of flavor.

Don't make a starter, it just increases the sacc population, speeding up the initial fermentation, and the alcohol slows up the rest of the process. The longer it takes for the sacc to get started, the quicker the sourness will develop.

 

[unclebrazzie]

Cheerz y'all.

I'm all for taking one's time when brewing sours. 8 to 12 months sounds fine. I'll store the seabuckthorn in the freezer in the meantime

Starch from grains instead of malt sounds like a good plan. Sub-ing wheat malt for flakes then.

Good point as to why the starch would be necessary. However, I recall Mike Tonsmeire claiming the starch really does serve as a food source for the Bretts once all the simple sugars are consumed.

 

[m00ps]

I think you could add the fruit much sooner. Ive managed to turn out sours that a very sour within 3-4 months. Ive jsut added dregs from my favorite wild beers into the fermentor and they always developed a great sour character very quickly. Not sure exactly how or why, but its worked 3 times so far

This newest one im working on I made a starter from the dregs which I will be pitching after 2 weeks of fermentation from the sacch strain. Im hoping this will get it to develop even faster. The starter I made went for 10days and had already developed what id call a brett-like sour/tart taste. Like not full-on sour but defineitely getting there