Achieving tart beer

[aeviaanah]

Looking for some tips on achieving tart flavors in beer. Think NB snapshot, Ive heard of using acidulated malt or lactic acid. Not wanting to sour the beer by means of souring with fungus, wild yeast or bacteria.

Anyone have experience with this sort of thing?

 

[stz]

Beer soured 'artificially' by adding lactic acid is generally regarded as horrible. I've never used acid malt for anything other than pH correction so I can't really say what flavour it could have in quantities large enough to add flavour. Fruit? Kettle souring is generally considered a good first step into producing sours and is likely going to be my next experiment, that or inoculating unboiled wort and blending it with a regular beer.

 

[ba-brewer]

There some yeasts that are known to have a slight tartness, S-04 is one and I think there are a couple more british yeasts and some belgian yeasts too. I entered a wheat beer fermented with S-04 into a contest and a judge commented about how tart it was, but i did not notice it.

 

[aeviaanah]

Kettle souring sounds perfect. I shy'd away from bacteria in my OP but pre boil sounds great. I'll do my researxh

 

[Newsman]

Kettle souring sounds perfect. I shy'd away from bacteria in my OP but pre boil sounds great. I'll do my researxh

I had a delicious Berlinerweisse in Atlanta a couple years ago. The brewer was kind enough to share his recipe. That included allowing wild yeast/bacteria to infect a small bit of malt, and then, in turn, infecting the rest of the wort before boiling. It was delicious, tart, but great flavor.

 

[redllama]

My recipe for a basic kettle sour berlinner which I developed for a brewery

50% Pils
50% White Wheat

1oz Hallertau @ 15 min

OYL 605 Lacto Blend
US-05

Mash and sparge as usual, chill to around 100* cover and attempt to keep above 90* for roughly 18 hours or until desired pH is reached. I generally look for about 3.6-3.8. Once pH is achieved bring to a boil. I generally boil for 45 mins which some deem as overkill but I want to ensure no contamination. Add hops with 15 mins to go with whatever boil time you desire. Chill, add US-05 and ferment for 1-2 weeks. Beer will be tart and slightly citrusy

 

[aeviaanah]

I'm wanting to brew a tart pale or wheat. I'm interested in making a portion of the batch on the side a few days in advance in which I'll sour. I've heard you could measure pH while blending to hit your desired acidity, in my case I want to know the tart is there but not strip the enamel off your teeth.

Has anyone had experience with this method? Can you recommend a pH?

 

[redllama]

My method listed above is probably simpler than trying to blend to get your desired acidity. IIRC I usually try to hit a pH of 3.68 pre fermentation kettle sour and it gives a tartness that is super drinkable. Best part is that with OYL 605 you can achieve this in 18-24 hours depending on your temperature.

 

[Morrey]

The use of OYL-605 has been mentioned and I have had 100% success with this lacto for kettle souring. Kettle can be held at room temp and sour nicely.

Snapshot was mentioned and I'd guess this beer may be around that 3.6 (mildly sour) level being discussed. I bring mine down to 3.2 for a Gose but that is pretty sour for many folks.

Start your 605 two days ahead in a 1L flask but not on a stir plate....use an airlock on the flask to seal out O2. Pitch entire starter into 80-90F wort and if keep at moderate 80F while kettle souring you'll likely hit your ph goal within 24 hours. If you are inclined to start making sours regularly, I'd strongly suggest investing in a decent ph meter so you'll know where your sour level is to replicate results. Tasting will fool you since unfermented sugars trick your sour perception. In the attached pic, note the live culture layers and how they form. You'll see no airlock activity which can be questioned by many on their first starter.

 

[aeviaanah]

Still gathering information. Ill check back with a plan once developed. Thanks for the help.

 

[noiz2]

Well as someone who has done this I can give you some first hand experience.

I made a sour beer using a blend of acids that was based off a bunch of research as to proportions etc in a "good" sour beer. First off I went way too sour, so if you want to play with this you should probably have a decent Ph meeter to guide you. But second was that it was really flat and un interesting "one dimensional".

Then just a short time ago I wanted to do a tart beer ALA Aunt Sally. I was going to kettle sour but ran int a time bind so I took a chance on just adding acids and it came out great.

A few things that helped I think is that I wasn't going very sour (ph 3.8), so sour was a small component of the flavor. Also this was a hoppy beer with a lot of citrusy hops and I used an acid blend based on that instead of trying to match some sour beer analysis.

The mix was 50g of acid blend (the three acid mix) into 500 ml of water and 11.5g of lactic acid. It was liquid but I was doing it all by weight. All of that into my pre boil wort brought the ph down to 3.8.

Boiling with the acid I think also helped blend everything, the first time I added acid after the beer was finished.

I'm doing another batch that is slightly tarter and we will see how that works, but at 3.8 it was quite nice and the acid blend really brought out a grapefruit component in the hops.

I'm doubtful that this would work well in a beer that was all about the sour, but for a hoppy beer with a bit of tart it worked really well.