Sourmash - forgot to hold back some grains

[jezter6]

So I mashed in for a "faux" Flanders last night and realized after I mashed in that I forgot to hold some of the grains back to put in later to promote some sour growth. I'm mashing from Wed 8pm till Saturday ~10am.

Should I just leave it, or should I run to the LHBS (doesn't open till 4pm) and grab a handful of acid malt and toss it in to try and get some culture into my mash and create that sour that I'm looking for?

 

[dwarven_stout]

You're fine. Lacto is viable up to 160 or so. I've done a couple of sour mashes, and I just mashed in, covered it with foil, and left the cooler to sit wrapped in a blanket. They soured just fine on their own.

Edit: 3 1/2 day sour mash! Let me know how that wort tastes... longest I've done was 2 1/2 days and that was pretty sour.

 

[jezter6]

2 1/2 days.

I wanted to do it earlier on Wednesday, but I forgot until the evening.

I'll just let it sit...I just got a little paranoid when I realized I screwed it up.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Oh.

I guess I'm just bad at adding.

 

[maskednegator]

I recently did a 3 day sour mash on the grist from an imperial stout. It's unfortunately got a lot more going on than just tartness. There's a noticeable vomity something extra on my palate.

 

[Ryan_PA]

Dude, your beer will be ruined!!! Just kidding, your fine. The lacto will surly be alive in there and producing some nice funk. If you want to get silly, you can hold off a gallon or two of the unboiled wort, and let it sit in gallon jugs for a few more days, then boil it for 15 min and reintroduce to the main batch. Mike T just did a nice write up on this process. It will help to promote more lactic acid growth in the smaller batch, but the boil will kill off any lingering bugs.

 

[Jaymo]

I recently did a 3 day sour mash on the grist from an imperial stout. It's unfortunately got a lot more going on than just tartness. There's a noticeable vomity something extra on my palate.

Give it time. A good brewing friend of mine did a no boil Berliner Weiss over the winter. (Late December I think?) Like you, he also added a handful of grain to help the souring process along. It had a definite vomit character that just starting fading over the last couple months. It is shaping up into a really good beer.

Interestingly enough, this yeast/bug slurry was saved and reused to ferment future batches. They haven't turned up the same vomit character as the original.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Interestingly enough, this yeast/bug slurry was saved and reused to ferment future batches. They haven't turned up the same vomit character as the original.

That's not too surprising. The vomit character is a byproduct of enteric bacteria (mostly butyric acid). Those bacteria can't live in a finished sour as the pH is too low, so it would make sense that subsequent batches wouldn't contain their byproducts.