Sour Mash

[Owly055]

I haven't been able to get to the LHBS lately....... about 100 miles from home, so I decided to make a sour mash using what I have on hand. I'm using 2 row, wheat, and rye. The mash was made up yesterday using BIAB, and allowed to cool over night. This AM I tossed a cup of 2 row into the wort, and spread saran wrap over it to seal out the air. Target OG was 1.062...... As I haven't diluted to the amount of wort I designed for yet, I don't know where I actually hit.

I'm tentatively shooting at 15.5 IBUs (approx), using Mosaic hops. (.25 oz 20 min, .25 oz dry hop) This wort will probably sour for about 3 days, and I'm not sure how much IBU I really should have. Any experienced thoughts on that? Sour and bitter don't necessarily work well together.

I obviously have several days to make a decision. I have the following hops on hand:
Mosaic, calypso, magnum, motueka, simco, cascade, and Nelson Sauvin. I chose the mosaic mainly because I have half a package.......... I'd rather use that than open something. I also have an open package of Nelson, and of Magnum.

The fun of brewing as far as I'm concerned is to make something tasty and interesting from what I have on hand. I now have a BC Barley Crusher (a great mill..... extremely well thought out and well made), and am getting my two row for $30 for a 50 pound bag, so I can keep my costs down. The ingredients I keep on hand in fair quantity are CR60 and CaraPils. *For the summer, I will probably lay in some adjunct grains.... corn, wheat, and rice in various forms.

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

My sour mash has been bubbling away for 48 hours now at temps varying from the 60's to the high 80's I just tested the wort a few minutes ago, and it has a clean mildly lacto sourness developing as it should. It's still a long way from what I want, and I'm expecting another 48 hours will be required to achieve anything like the sourness I want.

Cascade is the current tentative choice for hops.... for 2.5 gallons, a quarter ounce for 30 minutes, another quarter at 5 minutes, and perhaps dry hop.... IBU comes out about 13. I'd love to have a counterflow chiller, hopback, and pump..........but I don't yet.


Any suggestions on hops and suitable IBUs appreciated....

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

Oops....... I should have jacked up the gravity in my recipe. 3 days of souring resulted in a drop of .020 in my OG from what the projected OG should have been.

I did my boil this AM, and now have it chilled and in the fermenter and yeast pitched. I decided to go with the Mosaic hops as per my original plan. I had a half an ounce in an open package (zip lock back in the freezer). Put the whole half ounce in at 10 minutes from the end of the boil (2.5 gallons). I added honey ( approx 1/2 C) during the boil to bring the gravity back up to what I had planned. I also added about half a teaspoon of salt to "tame" the sourness. I should end up around 5% ABV. 16.5 IBU SRM 4.3

It's early to draw conclusions, but this I suspect is going to be quite sour. Presently it's just mildly tangy with a yoghurty tang....... a really nice flavor.......but obviously quite sweet at this point. Clearly I need to shoot 20 points above the target OG, though I suspect from the taste of the wort that the honey will compliment the flavor. The small amount of salt "rounded" the flavor........ perhaps a mistake, but at the time, it seemed to be the thing to do.

H.W.

 

[Schemy]

What yeast are you going to ferment this with?

 

[Owly055]

I'd love to have some -04 or 1338, but I pitched the top crop from my last brew which was a copitch of USA-05 (75%) and Lallemand 71B-1122. The combination attenuates about the same as -05 alone, but the 71B provides some interesting flavors. I've top cropped and reused this combo on 4 brews now and am happy with it. Next time, I'll get some really low attenuating yeast for some residual sweetness.

As usual, I used what I had on hand. The only other options I had on hand were a few fresh packets of -05, and lallemand Belle Saison.

H.W.

 

[timos]

Hows the fermentation going?

 

[Owly055]

Hows the fermentation going?

This long ago stopped fermentation, and I have the combined batch in a 5 gallon brew bucket aging a bit. I'm shortly going to bottle some. With my limited supply of bottles (I use EZ caps ONLY), it's difficult to find capacity for it. Time seems to be mellowing it.

H.W.

 

[timos]

Ahh , my mistake , I was thinking that "aging" was still a part of fermentation, although not too much going on in the way of yeast fermenting things i guess.

Anyways, Im curious to see how much sourness you get in the final product.

 

[Owly055]

Ahh , my mistake , I was thinking that "aging" was still a part of fermentation, although not too much going on in the way of yeast fermenting things i guess.

Anyways, Im curious to see how much sourness you get in the final product.

I've got my bottle supply filled mostly at the moment. I use ONLY flip top EZ Cap bottles, so I'm a bit slow to buy more. I have 3 other brews in the works at the moment, one in cold crash, one in secondary, and two in primary, so I'm going to have to bottle the sour a bit at a time as the opportunity arises. I just pulled a gallon off to cold crash and bottle. I should have it bottled in about 3 days, and ready to try in 10 days. Added into the mix is the fact that I've made a personal decision to cut back on my alcohol consumption significantly. Down to a max of one beer a day..... or less. Thus my brewing is greatly reduced from a 2.5 gallon batch each week to a 2.5 gallon batch every two weeks. The whole program is changing.

H.W.