RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Hey guys, planning my first true-to-style AG Berliner with no boil.
Process:
Water profile: balanced pale
Grist is a mix of wheat malt, pilsener, and maris otter. Target OG 1.032.
Plan to mash fairly low and use a decoction to mash out at 168F.
Cool, transfer to fermenter, pre-acidify, & pitch L. plantarum from a buffered starter.
No aeration at any point. I'm even thinking about pre-boiling the water to remove oxygen.
My unique plan for adding IBU is once the wort is sour (~3.3 pH), I'll pull a very small portion of the wort, like 600mL, and boil 15 minutes with hops -- enough to add about 4 IBU to the whole batch. Cooling and returning it to the fermenter will probably stop the souring process without actually killing the bacteria.
I'll then cool the entire batch to ale temp. Still undecided about yeast... either WY2565 Kölsch, WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch, or US-05. Vitality starter for liquid yeast or rehydrated dry yeast.
No Brett for this one. No fining agents either.
Bottling with maybe 2.9 vol.
Considerations:
The idea for using MO came from Matt's Sour Beer Blog. Still on the fence.
I'm hoping this no-boil process will both preserve a nice doughy malt character as well as avoid DMS from pils malt... All while still allowing for some bitterness.
Any bacterial character should also be maintained, which may or may not be a good thing. I like the yogurt and/or cereal (THP) flavor I sometimes detect in my own sour brews or commercial sours.
Open to ideas for the best bacteria or yeast options, maybe a more hop-tolerant Lacto.
Any thoughts?
Hope this inspires someone. Cheers.
Process:
Water profile: balanced pale
Grist is a mix of wheat malt, pilsener, and maris otter. Target OG 1.032.
Plan to mash fairly low and use a decoction to mash out at 168F.
Cool, transfer to fermenter, pre-acidify, & pitch L. plantarum from a buffered starter.
No aeration at any point. I'm even thinking about pre-boiling the water to remove oxygen.
My unique plan for adding IBU is once the wort is sour (~3.3 pH), I'll pull a very small portion of the wort, like 600mL, and boil 15 minutes with hops -- enough to add about 4 IBU to the whole batch. Cooling and returning it to the fermenter will probably stop the souring process without actually killing the bacteria.
I'll then cool the entire batch to ale temp. Still undecided about yeast... either WY2565 Kölsch, WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch, or US-05. Vitality starter for liquid yeast or rehydrated dry yeast.
No Brett for this one. No fining agents either.
Bottling with maybe 2.9 vol.
Considerations:
The idea for using MO came from Matt's Sour Beer Blog. Still on the fence.
I'm hoping this no-boil process will both preserve a nice doughy malt character as well as avoid DMS from pils malt... All while still allowing for some bitterness.
Any bacterial character should also be maintained, which may or may not be a good thing. I like the yogurt and/or cereal (THP) flavor I sometimes detect in my own sour brews or commercial sours.
Open to ideas for the best bacteria or yeast options, maybe a more hop-tolerant Lacto.
Any thoughts?
Hope this inspires someone. Cheers.