FotHB III: Coatee-cha tu yub nub!

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fourfarthing said:
Alright. Everything else is a new batch of beers you have had before.
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Yeah but I want to try them again, not that you were not my first choice.;) To be honest I am not much of a fan of anything in pshankstar's offer except the coffee stout, it has nothing to do with anything other than what I would rather drink.
 
This looked like a ton of fun. Glad I was sitting on the sidelines for this one, but definitely going to get in on the next one.
 
Looks like my first sour will be ready for the next FotHB. Tasting it now :)


I am calling it a Dirty Blonde Sour. It's very approachable, from a souring standpoint, but it still has enough mmmmmmpucker for sour fans.

00100dPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20180221120833564_COVER.jpg
 
Scturo said:
What was your primary, secondary, and souring times for it?
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I went the slow route, and brewed a regular ole Blonde Ale (some modifications). Post fermentation I added a sour blend and just let it run its course. I added the sour blend back in June or July of last year...have to check the notes to confirm.

For probably the first 2-3 months the carboy was kept at about seventy degrees, and then I let it drop down to my regular garage temps (likely low 50s-60s during the day and presumably colder at night.

Very much hands off.

If I have time this weekend I'll pull off a few gallons and add some experimental flavors to see how I can elevate it.


NOTE: The Blonde was made with Pilsen light LME, Golden light DME, 75% pale malt, 25% honey malt, Willamette hops with some roasted barley, and WLP002 English Ale yeast.
 
TwistedGray said:
I went the slow route, and brewed a regular ole Blonde Ale (some modifications). Post fermentation I added a sour blend and just let it run its course. I added the sour blend back in June or July of last year...have to check the notes to confirm.

For probably the first 2-3 months the carboy was kept at about seventy degrees, and then I let it drop down to my regular garage temps (likely low 50s-60s during the day and presumably colder at night.

Very much hands off.

If I have time this weekend I'll pull off a few gallons and add some experimental flavors to see how I can elevate it.


NOTE: The Blonde was made with Pilsen light LME, Golden light DME, 75% pale malt, 25% honey malt, Willamette hops with some roasted barley, and WLP002 English Ale yeast.
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Man, that sounds easy. I was trying a Friek with WL644 Brett-Trios but no where near what I wanted. Did you keep the sour seperated from your other fermenting beers or containers?
 
PianoMan said:
Man, that sounds easy. I was trying a Friek with WL644 Brett-Trios but no where near what I wanted. Did you keep the sour seperated from your other fermenting beers or containers?
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This is the first sour I've ever done, and because the sour agents only got added post fermentation that one carboy is the only contaminant I have to worry about. That's going to be sour dedicated for sure. I have 3-4-5 other 5 gallon carboys I can play around with, so it's not a big deal.

The process was fool proof, but the time allocation is the drawback. I am patient enough to wait, but waiting months and months and months to find out if something is palpable is a pretty painful process.. Fortunately it worked out in the end, and during the waiting game I kept tossing in the dregs from every other brew, lol. I guess it worked.

I need to take a gravity reading to figure out where I ended, but I know it's going to be a very light sour (my goal).

I also need to rack it off on to a few smaller vessels to add some flavoring. I am hoping that a few days in my 1 gallon carboys don't render those ones unusable for other brews. That is my main concern; I don't want to lose access to my 1 gallon carboys nor do I want to dedicate those to sours.
 
That's right up my alley, light sour. I wonder, for a Friek, if you add the fruit with the sour agent or wait tell the end, rack then add fruit. What do you think?
 
PianoMan said:
That's right up my alley, light sour. I wonder, for a Friek, if you add the fruit with the sour agent or wait tell the end, rack then add fruit. What do you think?
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Yeah, I am not too sure about leaving fruit sitting in the beer for that long. That would make me a little apprehensive, and I think it would be a waste other than to impart some coloring. I am pretty confident you will lose a significant amount of the fruit aromatics and flavor if left for that long; although, to be fair I am speculating a bit here.

My plan all along was to finish on fruit, herbs, or whatever post souring because I KNOW I'll be able to carry that fruit with the beer for at least a few months. I've tested that on other beers but not sours, but I am pretty confident it'll hold up. I was/am not confident it would've held up during the souring process. Even if it did, I still think you'd lose that over time, and for the sake of freshness I didn't want to waste the fruit.

I am hoping that I don't start fermentation again once I add fruit, but there is that risk as well. This is new to me, so I'll pull off a gallon first to see how it reacts and then go from there.
 
Thanks @TwistedGray, I’m making my first sour too. And it sounds like I’m following the same schedule you did. Hoping mine comes out as good. I’ll be checking progress in 3 months.
 
I added fruit with the souring yeast. Read later that I should’ve waited till the end of souring. I’ll see where the flavor is when I check it. If I don’t get any fruit flavor, I’ll just rack it onto another 6 lbs of blueberries. I got plenty.
 
@Scturo / @PianoMan

There are a few things I really don't know, so discussions are good.

Will fermentation will come back with sugary fruit addition? The fruit will naturally convert sugars to alcohol so I assume so, but I am shooting from the hip a bit here.

Can I use the same amount of sugar I normally use for carbing? I don't see why not, but then again I don't know.

How much fruit will I need to add to get the flavor pop I want? I am inclined to add significantly more than I otherwise would because I want to try to bring the UMPH in line with the sour rather than an overarching sourness. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

It's quite the learning curve, and I did take a few moments to write up the recipe. I'll pop it on here in the next day or two.

ALSO, courtesy of HBT I will be experimenting with a MUCH FASTER method. The new method is still pretty simple so that's nice. We'll see how it comes out...
 
Scturo said:
I added fruit with the souring yeast. Read later that I should’ve waited till the end of souring. I’ll see where the flavor is when I check it. If I don’t get any fruit flavor, I’ll just rack it onto another 6 lbs of blueberries. I got plenty.
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Well, that's certainly a tricky one because blueberry is usually quite timid. Hell, if nothing else you'll pull colors from the skin so it'll at least look pretty from the start...might turn out very dark in the end. Honestly, I didn't think mine would clear as much as it did. I was half expecting to see brown pond water, so I'm quite pleased with my experiment so far :)
 
I would keg myself to ellimate any fruit sugar issues, especially over carbing. That's why I started kegging in the first place. Couple of incidences will change a man's mind. Also, what's the faster method?
 
TwistedGray said:
Well, that's certainly a tricky one because blueberry is usually quite timid. Hell, if nothing else you'll pull colors from the skin so it'll at least look pretty from the start...might turn out very dark in the end. Honestly, I didn't think mine would clear as much as it did. I was half expecting to see brown pond water, so I'm quite pleased with my experiment so far :)
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Yeah, that’s what I’ve read about blueberries. But I did get 30lbs from work for free. So it won’t cost me anything. I can always cheat and add natural blueberry flavoring. We’ll see once I check on it.
 
Scturo said:
Yeah, that’s what I’ve read about blueberries. But I did get 30lbs from work for free. So it won’t cost me anything. I can always cheat and add natural blueberry flavoring. We’ll see once I check on it.
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With my Raspberry Hard Lemonade, I do both frozen and Brewers Best Extract. To be honest, the extract adds about 75% of the flavor. Fruit is mainly for color.


But been wanting to do a Jester King clone of their Aterial Rubicite (sp?). It's like drinking fresh raspberry juice. Their best beer inho. But it's $20/16oz bottle and you get to stand in line for 2hrs..yeah!
 
PianoMan said:
With my Raspberry Hard Lemonade, I do both frozen and Brewers Best Extract. To be honest, the extract adds about 75% of the flavor. Fruit is mainly for color.
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Hm, Maybe I’ll look for some blueberry extract.
 
PianoMan said:
I would keg myself to ellimate any fruit sugar issues, especially over carbing. That's why I started kegging in the first place. Couple of incidences will change a man's mind. Also, what's the faster method?
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Re: keg vs bottle
Yeah still haven't made the leap to kegging. Have plenty of bottles.

Re: faster method
Will share once I've first proven the directions...in my opinion they aren't crystal clear. I don't want to share something I can't comment on myself.
 
PianoMan said:
With my Raspberry Hard Lemonade, I do both frozen and Brewers Best Extract. To be honest, the extract adds about 75% of the flavor. Fruit is mainly for color.
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It may be the variety of berry or the timing of addition, too, because my raspberry additions come out color and flavorful. I use my homegrown berries.
 
By the way, anything that your sour touches for more than 24hrs will carry that sourness. I found out with a plastic bottle that I use as a tester with my soda stream.
 
PianoMan said:
Let me make my 1st sour, then we'll talk. [emoji6]
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Touche, we can battle sour vs sour. As much as I have read, I am still a bit nervous about bottle conditioning these sours.

I've racked off two gallons now: the left is raspberries and the right is pluots which are already a bit sour in flavor. I may do a single bottle of just regular ole' sour and see how long it takes to carb. I've read it can take ANOTHER few months in the bottle, ughhhhh.
IMG_20180222_114919.jpg
 
Left looks delicious! Right looks like brisket...delicious also! Yeah, researching bottle conditioning would be a must for me. I'd just buy a dedicated sour keg.
 
PianoMan said:
Left looks delicious! Right looks like brisket...delicious also! Yeah, researching bottle conditioning would be a must for me. I'd just buy a dedicated sour keg.
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Yeah, I've not made that leap yet (keg) so it would be a financial investment that I'm not ready to make yet. Also, you don't have to dedicate a keg, apparently ... at least what I read on the 'net last night.
 
TwistedGray said:
Yeah, I've not made that leap yet (keg) so it would be a financial investment that I'm not ready to make yet. Also, you don't have to dedicate a keg, apparently ... at least what I read on the 'net last night.
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Your stuff arrived in perfect shape. Is that retail also??

You'll be happy to know I create an Untapped tick for everyone's home brew! [emoji6]

Speaking of..what to flocc happened to @m00ps? His shiat was the bomb!!
 

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