Help making a SWMBO SOUR

[Pyg]

I am working on creating a sour for SWMBO. She does not like most beers, but likes sours. Her description of what she likes is "sour, tart & fruity".
I am trying make a simple beer where the fruit and sourness are more forward than any malt.
I know she really liked a trinity 7 day sour and the first grain bill was taken from a "golden ale sour"

I am toying with a grain bill of
6# 2 row
4# wheat (maybe 2# of flaked wheat & 2# of white)
1# of corn or oats

Otherwise-
4# 2 row
3# red wheat
.5# acid malt
(I used this grain bill for my first sour, which turned out to be a dumper, but it was due to no fault of the grain. used too many hops and never soured)

I a going to sour for a week with OYL 605 (LACTOBACILLUS BLEND)
return to kettle and boil after achieving sourness

then ferment with WLP 051 (California ale yeast)
Once that is done I will age for 6 months with OYL 218 (all the bretts, or one of the OYL 200's brett mixes, maybe OYL 211 "bit of Funk)
Finally going to add a few #'s of raspberry puree for fruitiness


any critique or advise on grain bill?

 

[coypoo]

If you're going for a golden sour, both SourBeerBlog and The Rare Barrel have their recipes available and are good starting points. In your first one I'd def favor oats over corn.

If I were you I think a kettle sour then primary with a fruity brett strain/blend (TYP Amalgamation for example), and then package or secondary with fruit would be the way to go. Easy to sour, "quicker" turnaround than a traditional mixed fermentation sour, and will provide the sour fruitiness you want from the brett +/- fruit. You can kettle sour in 2-3 days (sometimes more like 24 hours depending on your lacto strain and pitch rate) primary for 3-6 weeks and be ready to go.

 

[Calaeb]

Im not huge on making sours, but from what I understand using the 605 you can reach a solid level of sour in just 24 hrs. I intended to use it once but stupidly put it in the freezer and ruined the pouch.

 

[shetc]

I've been married 30 years, I know plenty of ways.

 

[NickersonC]

So as a few above have stated the OYL 605 reaches 'sourness' in as little as 24-48 hrs, but I've gone 3 or even 4 days to push it a bit. A week seems like a stretch. If you've never made a kettle sour before, its a little tough to judge purely off taste alone out of the kettle to see if its sour enough, since you'll be inevitably drinking it colder, carbonated, and ~40 gravity points lower, depending on OG.

I'd go 2, 3 days tops with the lacto. Most quick-sour-sorta-berliner-fruity style beers I've seen/had have had good results with approx 50/50 or 40/60 wheat to pilsner grain bills. I'm sure using 2 row instead of pilsner wouldn't be the end of the world if that's what you have, just not much experience with it.

I love red wheat in my limited experience with it, and I think it'd be a really good combo with the raspberries. Your second grain bill, with about 75% efficiency, would get you around a 4%ish abv beer. Not sure what you're going for, but that is pretty true to 'berliner' style abv-wise. Feel free to adjust if you want her going to sleep earlier.

I've never used acid malt with the 605. I personally toss in a pound of flaked oats or something to give it some backbone. Furthermore, no real need for hops. I've added them in the 'pasteurization-boil' and in the dry hop, but I don't see there being a need in the beer you're mentioning.

 

[redllama]

The brewery I used to work at we did 50/50 pils/white wheat with OYL 605. Let it go for 20 hours or so and then boiled and pitched US-05. IIRC we used .5oz/5 gallon of hallertau at 15 mins and it gave a nice tangerine tart flavor