Acid Percentages in Sour Beer

[w.jacob.ward]

My wife who loves sour beer is recently pregnant. I would like to try to recreate the flavor profile of sour beers without the alcohol. I understand there are sour alcohol reduced products, but as an avid DIY cook/molecular gastronomist, I am interested in the prospect of creating a drink that has a similar acid profile to sour beers from scratch. I have a modest collection of organic acids (lactic, malic, tanic, acetic, citric) and am looking for an analysis of the acid concentration profiles of the "average" sour beer. Does anyone have any studies or resources that could help me out? Am I totally off base and not going to get anything remotely palatable without fermentation? Thanks in advance!

 

[VikeMan]

The kind of acid you'd want to experiment with would depend on what kind of sour beer you're tring to emulate. Different bugs make different acids, or different combinations of them, depending on conditions.

What sour beer styles does she like?

 

[w.jacob.ward]

That's a great point, different beers will have different acid concentrations. Her favorite styles are kriek and gose. This endeavor was prompted by her tasting a "cherry sour ale" and remaking how much she missed that flavor.

But I should say that any info related to this would be appreciated, regardless of the specific type of fermentation. I'm really looking for a starting point to limit the scope of an initial experiment.

 

[VikeMan]

For the Gose, try Lactic Acid, because they are typically soured with Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus also makes some Acetic acid, but not very much, and it would (should) be below the taste threshold in a well made Gose.

Kriek is a Lambic, which is traditionally soured with wild bacteria, principally Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. Pediococcus is also a Lactic Acid producer.

So for your wife's quasi-beers, I'd say play with Lactic Acid. For concentrations, I'd suggest experimenting drop by drop in small samples of whatever you're creating, finding the sweet spot, and scaling up.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Your primary driver will be lactic acid, with acetic playing a minor role, if at all. Don't know other acid concentrations but if/when present they're below threshold (though likely still matter even if they can't be picked out as such).

https://beerandbrewing.com/understa...e-acidity-in-sour-beer-tools-for-brewers-and/
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Titratable_Acidity
(Note that the MTF wiki seems to be down at this moment but probably back up later).