First sour, Wanting sour saison advice.

[LoMich]

Hey gang! So I want to try my hand at making a nice sour and funky saison. Thinking a grain bill like this:

5.5# Belgain pils
2# rye
.25# honey
2 oz chocolate malt (for a little color)

1 oz citra at 10 mins
About 20 IBU's

1.045 O.G

So I'm thinking about using the whitelabs 670 farmhouse blend, but I also want to add some sour factor.

My plan was to do a separate sour mash with belgain pils and blend to taste. My questions are : Will this work?
Is there a better/best time to blend?
I was thinking about adding some mangos to secondary, any thoughts on this?

Sorry for prob some dumb questions, I've been reading any articles I can find and have ordered some books. So just looking to get some opinions.

Thanks guys!

 

[Thorpe429]

If you don't already have the chocolate malt handy, I would use one of the Carafa variants instead.

For souring, I think the best way is to add a little lacto at the beginning of fermentation, which is easy enough to do just adding some uncrossed pilsner malt in a muslin bag for the first day. If you want it a little more sour, you could give it a day or two head start if you have a way to keep oxygen out while it's working. This is similar to what a lot of people do for Berliners.


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[Thorpe429]

As for the mangos, those could work, though I'm not sure how well they would play with the funk from WLP670. Might want to do a split batch and only add those to a portion.


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[LoMich]

Hmm interesting! That sounds like a good idea and a lot easier. I was concerned about the IBU's and the lacto. Should it still work around 20 IBU's? Also how long should I plan on this bad boy sitting?

 

[Thorpe429]

Hmm interesting! That sounds like a good idea and a lot easier. I was concerned about the IBU's and the lacto. Should it still work around 20 IBU's? Also how long should I plan on this bad boy sitting?

In my experience, I've had good results with things up to 30 IBUs, though a will give a caveat with that, which is that I'm generally also using a lot of commercial dregs I've grown up from places like Crooked Stave and Hill Farmstead as the primary fermentation blends, and I have no idea how much of the acidity is coming from whatever is in there. Sorry if that's not too helpful.

If you're worried about it and have access, Jolly Pumpkin dregs right at the beginning could be a good idea, as those seem to tear through anything pretty quickly.

If you're planning on bottling, I would give it a month in primary and then see where the gravity is. You should be getting pretty close to 1.000. Once you're satisfied that it's not going any lower (or much lower, if it's around 1.002 or so), you can go ahead and bottle and then let it develop further under bottle conditioning. This is what I generally try to do as it clears out a fermenter, and both Chad Yakobson (Crooked Stave) and Gabe Fletcher (Anchorage) have both indicated in past interviews that they believe Brett really hits its stride when it is put under a bit of pressure.

 

[Coff]

+1 on the Carafa if you just want to darken it up a bit. But if you age this beer on Mangos I doubt the 2 ounces of dark malt will matter much. I did a Saison with ECY03 and aged it on Mangos and it is fantastic, I don't see any reason why WLP670 would not work with Mangos.

However, this is your first funky beer, it seems to me youre trying a bunch of different methods all wrapped up into one beer and you won't really know what worked and what didnt. Why not just build a regular Saison recipe and use 670 and see what you get, then next batch you can add the Lacto and Mangos. Just my 2 cents, but I always err on the side of starting simple then expanding from there.

 

[LoMich]

Thanks guy I appreciate it. I'll switch it up to the carafa. And the reason for using the 670 and lacto is because I like more sour beers, I love jolly pumpkin and I know they use lacto. I've watched some interviews and podcasts about souring and from what I gather the brett won't really get me the sourness I'm looking for.

As far as the mangos, I'll prob only let half the batch age on them to compare. I normally keg, But I was thinking about bottling this batch up to let it age for a bit and not use up the keg space.

Anyways, I really appreciate the help. I'm excited to get this bad boy brewed!

 

[Thorpe429]

Thanks guy I appreciate it. I'll switch it up to the carafa. And the reason for using the 670 and lacto is because I like more sour beers, I love jolly pumpkin and I know they use lacto. I've watched some interviews and podcasts about souring and from what I gather the brett won't really get me the sourness I'm looking for.

As far as the mangos, I'll prob only let half the batch age on them to compare. I normally keg, But I was thinking about bottling this batch up to let it age for a bit and not use up the keg space.

Anyways, I really appreciate the help. I'm excited to get this bad boy brewed!

That's correct that Brett won't give anything other than a light tartness under normal circumstances.

Otherwise, let us know how it goes!

 

[LoMich]

So I put some pils malt in a muslin and let it sit at about 110ish for about 48 hours. I put some plastic wrap over the top of the wort to keep the oxygen out. After the first 24 hours I had some airlock activity, the smells were like cabbage or brussel sprouts. Kind of sulfuric but not really that strong or unpleasant, which from what I have been reading is a good sign?

So this morning my wort was down to 70. F on the dot so I pitched the 670. So I guess now it's just the waiting game, pretty excited though! Hoping it doesn't turn out tasting like vomit!

 

[Thorpe429]

Cabbage and Brussels sprouts smells are okay so long as it doesn't smell like rotting garbage! Best of luck.


Blog: spontaneousfunk.blogspot.com

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[LoMich]

Ok so hear I am about a month later, it's down to 1.000. I gotta say the sample was fantastic, exatly what I was going for. Good Belgian flavor, a little funk and a beautiful lightly sour finish. I really appreciate all the advice in here! Turned out exactly how I wanted so far.

I think I'm going to split the batch and do half with mangos and half without. Bottle it up and let it sit about another month or so, so far so good though!