Kentucky Common Recipe and Instructions?

I'm interested in brewing a kentucky common, and i've been unable to find a good extract recipe in the forums. This will be my 2nd brew...

From what I understand, I need to sour the mash, but I'm not sure how this works with an extract recipe... I found an all-grain but I'm not sure what to do to convert it. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/kentucky-common-sourness-126826/

So my questions:
(1) Anyone know of an extract recipe, or is there a good way to convert the all-grain to mini-mash extract?

(2) What is the procedure for souring the mash... I assume I need to dissolve some of the extract into the "mash" before I sprinkle grains and leave it... otherwise I've got no sugar because the mini-mash grains won't have enzymes to convert themselves right?

Also, I've come up with a procedure of sorts, but I want to pass it by you guys since I have no idea what I'm doing. Here's my take on it:

1. find recipe

2. do 60 minute mini-mash of specialty grains (choc. malt, crystal malt, and flaked corn). Should I even mash with the corn?

3. add some amount of extract to give the lacto something to eat

4. cool mash, sprinkle some grains, cover with foil

5. leave for 2 days to sour

6. bring mash to boil, add rest of extract and 60 min hops

7. cool, pitch yeast, etc. etc.

I also wonder how much water I should use for the mini-mash... I read somewhere that souring half the wort is a good plan so I take it I should "mash" with 3-4 gallons (assuming some loss with removing wet grains)?

Sorry to inundate you guys with 50 questions in one post.

Hey. I've never done a partial mash version, I don't know if anyone has, but I'll try to help. First, I changed that recipe a little, mainly the hops. Here it is with comments and a picture:

http://www.surrealstudio.net/ODanielsBlog/?p=59

You will definitely need to do a partial mash. What are you going to mash in? Make sure it's insulted fairly well. I would just mash all the grains for 24s hrs. That's how I sour mine. Mash in, and let sit for 24 hours. It sours on it's own. I have no idea on water for the mini mash. Hopefully someone else can help you there because I'm not familiar with partial mash brewing. I started out doing all grain.

I wonder, since it's a small grain bill (the past 2 I have scaled down due to crazy high efficiency and trying to get it completely to style, which is under 1.050 OG) if you could just mash all the grains however you would do your partial mash. My second recipe I just dropped the base malt to 5lb, so theres a total of 7.5lbs of grains. I don't know, I'm tired, been working all day.

So, basically, that is how I would sour it. I can't really help you with the partial mash techniques. Hopefully someone else can chime in. If you end up doing this, please let me know exactly what you did and how it turned out. If it turns out good, I'll put it on my website, credit to you. I'd also like to exchange bottles so we can both compare. That is if you think it turned out good. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

I would try this route brewing with extract -

WLP677 Lactobacillus Bacteria
This lactic acid bacteria produces moderate levels of acidity and sour flavors found in lambics, Berliner Weiss, sour brown ale and gueze.

ODaniel said:

You will definitely need to do a partial mash. What are you going to mash in? Make sure it's insulted fairly well. I would just mash all the grains for 24s hrs.

Click to expand...

Your website had the best info on kentucky sour that I could find. Thanks for helping me out with your recipe! I'd be mashing in my 6g. pot, it's not insulated but I was thinking about putting it in the oven and setting that to 100F for the duration of the mash.

ODaniel said:

I wonder, since it's a small grain bill (the past 2 I have scaled down due to crazy high efficiency and trying to get it completely to style, which is under 1.050 OG) if you could just mash all the grains however you would do your partial mash.

Click to expand...

I could. If I use the standard 1.25 q/lb then I'd be mashing with 2.5 gallons, which would easily fit. I'm now thinking that maybe this is the best. I can bring the volume of the mash to 5 gallons after removing the grains and measure the SG. Then if I'm low, I can add pale malt extract to make it up. I'll have to watch for boilovers really carefully, but this should also mean that don't have to mess with your hops schedule. I'll need to add water post boil to make up for boil-off.

Sparging will be a problem. I can't think of a good way to filter the mash without a proper MLT. I can get the grains out with a colander wrapped in a grain bag, but my beer will stay cloudy. I'm thinking I can even do a single batch sparge. Maybe something like this:

- After 24 hours, pour mash through giant colander/grain bag combo into primary fermenter (temporary holding tank)
- Bring 3 g. of water to 182 in my 6g pot
- Put grains in pot, leave 10 min. filter again into primary fermenter
- Clean out 6g pot, transfer wort, begin boil

this is pretty much a variation on DeathBrewers kitchen all-grain methodology. Perhaps I won't even have to add much LME to hit the OG.

ODaniel said:

If it turns out good, I'll put it on my website, credit to you. I'd also like to exchange bottles so we can both compare. That is if you think it turned out good. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

Click to expand...

Sounds fantastic. I'll keep this thread updated with how things go. I probably won't get around to brewing this for another week or two.

killian said:

I would try this route brewing with extract -

WLP677 Lactobacillus Bacteria
This lactic acid bacteria produces moderate levels of acidity and sour flavors found in lambics, Berliner Weiss, sour brown ale and gueze.

Click to expand...

I assume you mean combining a soured starter and a regular starter into the wort like some Berliner Weiss recipes? I was thinking about that. My concern would be having both the lacto and regular yeast active in the fermenter at the same time. From what I've read, this method requires longer aging since the sour balance takes a while, plus I'd be a little concerned about bottling since the lacto could potentially cause bombs if I don't let it ferment out completely.

I'm trying to stay true to the original style of the kentucky common. It was served very shortly after fermentation/carbonation was done, so I suspect that the lacto strains were killed off before carbonation, OR that they were in the barrels and no one cared because the beer was gone before I could go bad. I don't know if I can get away with that since my bottles will be sitting around for a while. Or, if it's really good, maybe not such a long time... Thanks for the suggestion!

I wouldn't do the oven. I would wrap the pot in something, even a bunch of towels if nothing else. After you bring the water to temp of course. It's not necessary to keep the mash temp for 24hrs. Hopefully it stays above 100F, but if not it should still sour fine. I don't know if you have a lid or not, but it should be covered. I don't think sparging will be that big of a deal for this since the 24hr mash should extract most everything (I think). Of course you will still need to add more water anyway, so do how you want. What you said sounds good to me. Good luck!

scone, did you ever brew this extract recipe? if so, how did it come out, and what procedure did you end up using?

jangelj said:

scone, did you ever brew this extract recipe? if so, how did it come out, and what procedure did you end up using?

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I did, but I ended up dumping it after 4 or 5 weeks of fermentation because a very strong "vomit" smell that was present after the mash (which is pretty common from what I've read) didn't subside at all during fermentation. I could even taste it a bit in the beer. I think some nasty bugs grew during the sour mash and created enough bad flavors to ruin the beer. During the mash, I had trouble keeping it around 100 degrees, and it spent the majority of it's mash time below 100, which is not ideal in terms of encouraging lacto growth, and retarding the growth of other bugs. I have a feeling this is what ruined it.

I think next time I might experiment with boiling a small portion of wort, inoculating it with "pure" lacto, and then adding that back in to the main boil a few days later. I think using the bugs already present in the grains is riskier since you don't really know what you are going to get.

thanks for the update.