Help with sour raspberry stout!

[CaseyJones32]

Hello everyone!

So i brewed a stout that didn't turn out quite right, and I am thinking this is a perfect opportunity to get in to sour beers!

Here's the story:
I just moved in to a new town house and attempted to brew a stout on our glass top electric stove. It was a NB oatmeal stout kit, and I added 1lb of chocolate malt and 1lb of crystal 120 to it to make it a little higher in ABV.
The problem came with the mash. It was extremely difficult to keep a consistent temperature, as my stove would fluctuate up and down wildly. Needless to say I was unable to extract most of the sugars from the grains. My target OG was about 1.065, and actual was 1.042.

I went ahead and fermented it like planned with White Labs California Ale yeast. I let it ferment out completely, bottled 2 and tried them 1 and 2 weeks later respectively.

Unfortunately i was very unsatisfied with the result, it was a good start, but definitely needed something more.

Now I am planning on using Wyeast Roselare and adding raspberries to the rest of the 5 gallons to create a (hopefully) good tasting sour raspberry stout for my first sour ever!

A few questions:

1. How does this sound? Anyone done something similar? Either on purpose, or to salvage a brew like I am planning?
2. Should I put the current brew in to secondary, add raspberries and pitch the Roselare yeast? Or is there a better method?
3. How much raspberries should I use per gallon?
4. Fresh or Frozen?

Thank you everybody in advance! I am extremely excited to start this process! I love sour beers and have wanted to do this for way too long, and I'm stoked its finally happening.

 

[Calder]

I assume this is an extract batch. Adding a lb of Choc and a lb of Crystal to an extract batch will not increase abv. It will just add more of the grain flavor and increase the FG making the beer sweet.

My normal advice is; if you start with a bad beer, you will most likely end up with a bad tasting Sour, and it is going to take you a year to find out.

 

[feinbera]

Doing this right now, with about a gallon of 2013-14's left-over holiday ale. This beer wasn't bad per se, in terms of off flavors or anything, but the spices were underwhelming fresh and continued to fade from there, leaving me with a sweet, bland beer. Unfortunately, I can't tell you how it came out – I just pitched some built-up dregs from Russian River, the Bruery, and Cascade a couple weeks ago, so I'm months away from being able to taste the thing.

Now, I think Calder is partially right, in that an actively bad beer, with notable off flavors, will probably make a bad sour – aside from a handful of exceptions (e.g., diacetyl), Brett can't magically make off flavors disappear. But if the beer's only problem is that it's boring, and you can do without your carboy for nine to twelve months, I'd say, go ahead, sour that bad boy!

 

[CaseyJones32]

I assume this is an extract batch. Adding a lb of Choc and a lb of Crystal to an extract batch will not increase abv. It will just add more of the grain flavor and increase the FG making the beer sweet.

My normal advice is; if you start with a bad beer, you will most likely end up with a bad tasting Sour, and it is going to take you a year to find out.

It was actually a partial mash, I only used extract for the base malts, i believe i described in my first post the problems i had with not hitting my mash temperatures very well.

Also it Isn't a bad beer at all, I actually quite liked where the flavor directions were heading, I just wanted more of those flavors.

 

[CaseyJones32]

Doing this right now, with about a gallon of 2013-14's left-over holiday ale. This beer wasn't bad per se, in terms of off flavors or anything, but the spices were underwhelming fresh and continued to fade from there, leaving me with a sweet, bland beer. Unfortunately, I can't tell you how it came out – I just pitched some built-up dregs from Russian River, the Bruery, and Cascade a couple weeks ago, so I'm months away from being able to taste the thing.

Now, I think Calder is partially right, in that an actively bad beer, with notable off flavors, will probably make a bad sour – aside from a handful of exceptions (e.g., diacetyl), Brett can't magically make off flavors disappear. But if the beer's only problem is that it's boring, and you can do without your carboy for nine to twelve months, I'd say, go ahead, sour that bad boy!

This is very similar to my situation, and I feel the same way towards wanting to sour it. My beer was completely drinkable with no off flavors to speak of, just a little bland. So I sucked up the cost of some more fermenting and racking equipment, and Im jumping in to the sour way of life!:fro:


I am hoping to do this tonight, and I would still love some advice or suggestions!

 

[Calder]

Now I am planning on using Wyeast Roselare and adding raspberries to the rest of the 5 gallons to create a (hopefully) good tasting sour raspberry stout for my first sour ever!

A few questions:

1. How does this sound? Anyone done something similar? Either on purpose, or to salvage a brew like I am planning?
2. Should I put the current brew in to secondary, add raspberries and pitch the Roselare yeast? Or is there a better method?
3. How much raspberries should I use per gallon?
4. Fresh or Frozen?

Thank you everybody in advance! I am extremely excited to start this process! I love sour beers and have wanted to do this for way too long, and I'm stoked its finally happening.

I'd rack, but try and get some of the settled yeast over to secondary. You want to leave the trub behind. Pitch the Roselare stick on an airlock and leave in the corner for at least 8 months, maybe longer. Then add the raspberries and leave for a few more months. If you add the raspberries now, the sacc will devour the sugars.

I use a couple of lbs of raspberries per gallon. I use fresh, but freeze them to break down the cell walls.

 

[sweetcell]

if you can spare the carboy and space, then go for it.

the potential for problems that i see is that the recipe isn't one that was meant to be soured. dark malts, like your pound of chocolate (on top of whatever other dark grains or extract was in the kit) taste great against some residual sweetness. stouts like your original recipe are intended to have an above-average FG. brett and bugs will ensure that you have a below-average FG - making the contributions of the dark roasty grains really stand out (too much).

if you look at recipes for sour stouts, they use less dark malt than an equivalent clean stout, and that dark malt more often than not is dehusked (de-bittered) Carafa Special. in other words, the beer was meant to be a sour stout from the outset - not a clean stout that didn't turn out and brett/bugs being an afterthought.

a few years back i threw brett into second runnings from an imperial stout. Gravity was low so i added DME (further diluting the dark grain's contributions). i aged it for 8 months then bottled. it took over a year before the beer was drinkable - way too acrid and bitter, like burnt coffee. eventually turned into something quite decent after 1.5 years in the bottle. your experience might be different though!

 

[robotinc]

I've had great luck making sours from small beers made from the second runnings from a normal beer. As clean beers they are mild and uninteresting, but as sours they work great.

The first was a sour pale made from a quads grain bed(color came from dark sugars so the mash was quite pale). I pitched roselare, and later added frozen blueberries.

The second is a dark sour from a bourbon barrel stout. I was aiming for bourbon county, so there was more chocolate malt than roads barley. Primary was with roselare, then I added dregs from an assortment of beers (anchorage, cascade, bruery) along with 3# frozen raspberries. Last time I tried it, it was great other than some diacetyl from the pedo I'm waiting for the Brett to clean up.

I agree with the other posters that if your beer tastes off (with the exception of diacetyl), it may not improve by making it sour. However if it's just boring, and you have the space I say go for it!

I suggest adding some food for the bugs a couple of months in (maltodextrin or fruit), and/or bottle dregs from sours you like, as the first pass on commercial cultures is kinda tame. Giving it stronger cultures (those that made it into a bottle) or a second pass at fermenting (more food) will give you a better result.

Good luck!