Brew_G
Well-Known Member
After brewing for nearly two years, and having been given my first-ever aged sour (Duchesse) as part of a Father's Day gift this year, I finally decided to jump into the world of sour beer brewing. In late August, I went ahead and brewed five gallons of a slightly modified and bigger (1.069) version of my brown ale and pitched one packet of Roeselare (no sacch) into my bucket primary. Being that it's nearly two months into primary (with a slight pellicle and sour-ish nose), I'm starting to think about secondary and have the following aging items in mind:
1) Use a 6-gallon PET carboy for secondary
2) Add 1 lb of rehydrated dried sour cherries (washed to removed as much sunflower oil as possible)
3) Add 1/2 port-soaked medium toast American oak spiral
4) Let age for an undetermined amount of time, but assuming 10-18 months depending on taste
5) When ready, add champagne yeast and bottle
So my big questions concern the aging on cherries and oak. As mentioned, I'll wash the cherries to remove as much oil as I can, then rehydrate them. I'll boil the oak spiral to prep it, then soak that in port. The reason for just 1/2 spiral is that I don't want too muck oakiness - rather I want just a hint. I'm open to being persuaded to add the whole spiral, though. The issue is the length for which to age the beer on the cherries and oak
Should I:
- Add both when racking to secondary and let them age until ready to bottle?
- Add both when racking to secondary, but remove the oak spiral at some point? If so, how do I remove the spiral?
- Rack to secondary, then add one or both of the cherries and oak at some point later/re-rack over oak and cherries in tertiary? (this seems the least desirable solution)
I fell really, really hard for sours from the very first sip, and have been slowly increasing my own stash of them for a few months, so I'm incredibly excited about brewing them. I've increased the amount of gear I've got in order to accommodate brewing sours, and have plans to brew an aged sour every 3-4 months in order to keep a pipeline going. It's hard work sitting for so long on my first one, but hopefully once the pipeline gets going, it'll be a hell of a lot easier to be patient for the next one!
1) Use a 6-gallon PET carboy for secondary
2) Add 1 lb of rehydrated dried sour cherries (washed to removed as much sunflower oil as possible)
3) Add 1/2 port-soaked medium toast American oak spiral
4) Let age for an undetermined amount of time, but assuming 10-18 months depending on taste
5) When ready, add champagne yeast and bottle
So my big questions concern the aging on cherries and oak. As mentioned, I'll wash the cherries to remove as much oil as I can, then rehydrate them. I'll boil the oak spiral to prep it, then soak that in port. The reason for just 1/2 spiral is that I don't want too muck oakiness - rather I want just a hint. I'm open to being persuaded to add the whole spiral, though. The issue is the length for which to age the beer on the cherries and oak
Should I:
- Add both when racking to secondary and let them age until ready to bottle?
- Add both when racking to secondary, but remove the oak spiral at some point? If so, how do I remove the spiral?
- Rack to secondary, then add one or both of the cherries and oak at some point later/re-rack over oak and cherries in tertiary? (this seems the least desirable solution)
I fell really, really hard for sours from the very first sip, and have been slowly increasing my own stash of them for a few months, so I'm incredibly excited about brewing them. I've increased the amount of gear I've got in order to accommodate brewing sours, and have plans to brew an aged sour every 3-4 months in order to keep a pipeline going. It's hard work sitting for so long on my first one, but hopefully once the pipeline gets going, it'll be a hell of a lot easier to be patient for the next one!