i want to make a sour ipa

[kevinlassen]

so im not a big fan of sour, however, my wife and friends are

i want to make a sour-ish ipa

any tips?

 

[BrewerBrad82]

Since lactobacilus is very sensitive to isomerized alpha acids (as low as 5 IBU), you will not be able to brew a traditionally soured beer. I would go with the kettle souring method. Create your wort with no hops, boil it for a few min for sanitation, and then chill to about 75 - 90F. Once chilled, introduce a culture of pure lactobacillus and tightly seal the kettle and allow to sit for 1-3 days. During this time, the lactobacillus will rapidly sour the wort. Once soured, bring back to a boil to kill the lacto and then add your hops as you normally would over the length of your boil. Ferment as usual.

 

[kevinlassen]

what about adding salt to the boil? i read that was a common thing in some recipes

 

[plazola86]

I plan on making one soon myself not so much an IPA but a hoppy sour. I say not an IPA since I don't plan on using much bittering hops if at all. I don't think bitter and sour would mix and the bitterness would take away from the sour. I plan to just dry hop to get the hoppy aroma and flavor at the end. As far as grain bill I've heard any basic recipe works well. How are you planning on souring?

 

[bleme]

I have a friend who does his mash, adds Lactobacillus and keeps it 90F for a couple of days until the pH is down to 3.2, then boils and goes on with a normal brew day.

 

[kevinlassen]

I plan on making one soon myself not so much an IPA but a hoppy sour. I say not an IPA since I don't plan on using much bittering hops if at all. I don't think bitter and sour would mix and the bitterness would take away from the sour. I plan to just dry hop to get the hoppy aroma and flavor at the end. As far as grain bill I've heard any basic recipe works well. How are you planning on souring?

i was thinking of adding salt to the end of the boil.. does this sound like it would work.. i seen it in a few online recipes

 

[BrewerBrad82]

what about adding salt to the boil? i read that was a common thing in some recipes

Table salt, or calcium salts like gypsum or calcium chloride?

 

[BeerAddikt]

I would also add that you will want to use a yeast strain that can tolerate the low PH of the wort. US-05 is a pretty popular choice as it will still ferment out most of the sugars at a sub 4 PH.

 

[bleme]

i was thinking of adding salt to the end of the boil.. does this sound like it would work.. i seen it in a few online recipes

Salt will make it salty, but not sour.

 

[Weezy]

Lactic acid tartness tends to multiply with hop bitterness. If you want a bitter IPA style, maybe the kettle sour, as was mentioned. If you like modest bitter late hop fruit IPAs, just skipping boil hops and adding a bunch of dry hops and relying on a mixed primary fermentation with sacc, Lacto and fruity Brett, can be very nice.

Do you keg? You could also try blending two beers. Make a kettle sour of just pale malt and no hops, and brew a separate IPA as normal. Add the sour base beer, little by little, to the IPA to taste. You could even have a mixing taste test party if you can keg them both separately.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Brett IPA with kettle soured wort or without. Your call.

 

[kh54s10]

I see this is in the beginners forum. This seems like an advanced beer. Are you really ready for this? Any plastic equipment used in a sour, afaik, should no longer be used for ordinary brews, only more sours. It could get costly.

 

[BeerAddikt]

I see this is in the beginners forum. This seems like an advanced beer. Are you really ready for this? Any plastic equipment used in a sour, afaik, should no longer be used for ordinary brews, only more sours. It could get costly.

If you kettle sour, the only thing that comes into contact with the "infected" wort is your kettle/lid.

After you reach your desired sour level (which usually takes days) you resume the boil and add hops as normal, which essentially sterilizes your kettle so you don't have to worry about contamination.

 

[kh54s10]

If you kettle sour, the only thing that comes into contact with the "infected" wort is your kettle/lid.

After you reach your desired sour level (which usually takes days) you resume the boil and add hops as normal, which essentially sterilizes your kettle so you don't have to worry about contamination.

It could be done but there is still bottling. Siphon, tubing, bucket? Or kegging. Anything plastic use in the transfers will be soured.

 

[TallDan]

It could be done but there is still bottling. Siphon, tubing, bucket? Or kegging. Anything plastic use in the transfers will be soured.

Huh? Remember when it was boiled and that killed off the lacto? Sour wort doesn't infect anything, souring microbes do.

Zombie lacto?

 

[kh54s10]

Huh? Remember when it was boiled and that killed off the lacto? Sour wort doesn't infect anything, souring microbes do.

Zombie lacto?

Oops didn't think about that....

 

[rawlus]

what about adding salt to the boil? i read that was a common thing in some recipes

Salt is added to the Gose style which is popular now, but probably not appropriate for an IPA.

 

[TallDan]

Oops didn't think about that....

But this makes me think of a few names for the OP's beer:

Zombie Bugs
Lactating Zombie
Reincarnation IPGose
You might not want to drink that, it's got dead bugs in it

 

[microbusbrewery]

Since lactobacilus is very sensitive to isomerized alpha acids (as low as 5 IBU), you will not be able to brew a traditionally soured beer. I would go with the kettle souring method. Create your wort with no hops, boil it for a few min for sanitation, and then chill to about 75 - 90F. Once chilled, introduce a culture of pure lactobacillus and tightly seal the kettle and allow to sit for 1-3 days. During this time, the lactobacillus will rapidly sour the wort. Once soured, bring back to a boil to kill the lacto and then add your hops as you normally would over the length of your boil. Ferment as usual.

+1 what BrewerBrad said. I'll add, lactobacillus is also very sensitive to the hop oils. My understanding is the oils coat the bacteria which interferes with their ability to metabolize sugars. So even if you keep IBUs low, late additions will inhibit the bacteria's souring abilities...so do what BrewerBrad said and sour before boiling and before adding any hops.

Regarding salt, if you're talking about adding brewing salts to mimic certain famous brewing water profiles, that's one thing. But adding table salt is not appropriate for an IPA.

GoodBelly probiotic SuperShots are good sources for souring bacteria. They come in four packs for around $7 and each shot purportedly contains 50 billion cells, so quite a bit cheaper and quite a bit higher cell counts than typical lacto cultures at the LHBS. One thing to keep in mind, L. planetarium 299V, the strain in GoodBelly, is capable of both homo and hetero fermentation. Homo essentially results in production of lactic acid while hetero results in production of lactic acid, ethanol, and in some cases acetic acid. You want a homofermentative fermentation and you can encourage this by limiting oxygen exposure (force an anaerobic fermentation). If you have a CO2 bottle, purge it with some CO2 before sealing it up.

If you're looking for a recipe suggestion, here's one I got from Jason Yester at Trinity Brewing. This recipe is for their Super Juice Solution which is very similar to Red Swingline, one of the first and more famous sour IPAs.

5# 12oz Weyermann Pilsner Malt
1# 8.6oz Best Malz Chit Malt
12.3oz Weyermann Vienna Malt
12.3oz Weyermann Acidulated Malt
5.3oz Crisp C77
6oz Rice Hulls
Lactobacillus culture
WLP650 Brettanomyces Bruxellensis
14g Summit (60 min)
5.6g Corriander (15 min)
131g Amarillo (10 min)
120g Amarillo (Dry hop @3 months)
20g Willamette (Dry hop @3 months)
10g EK Goldings (Dry hop @3 months)

Mash at 145.4 for 35 minutes. Collect 6.75 gallons and boil for 5 minutes or heat to 170F for 10 minutes. Chill to 114F and pitch lactobacillus. If possible, hold at 114F for 23 hours (pH should be down near 3.2) then boil. Most lacto strains will sour at room temp but it takes longer...probably 3-4 days to reach their lowest possible pH. 90 minute boil.

 

[kevinlassen]

Thank you everyone for the info and opinions.

Upon further review, I will not be making a sour.

I'm very comfortable with brewing beer but I'm not comfortable with what all has to go into make the sour.. high temp ferment.. souring bacteria.. not being able to use my plastic again etc.

I will look into a gose because that looks to be easier.

Not to mention that im not a fan of sour/gose/tart beer I'm not going to invest all the time into something that I will probably not have more than 2 beers from a 5 gallon keg.

But, never say never. I will remember this thread and share it my brewbrother and he will probably make one for himself.

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

If anyone has a good gose recipe that can be shared I'll gladly take a look.

Thanks again
-Kevin

 

[hellesyeah]

I love Gose beers, make them often, and in my opinion hops and lacto sour does not play well together. Some Gose brewers omit hops totally while others keep IBU low such as around 8.

BUT, here is an experiment to prevent a large scale failure regarding taste profiles. Take a bottle or pint of your favorite IPA and add 3mL of liquid lactic acid to the IPA. This will quickly let you know how your proposed beer will end up tasting....or at least somewhat close.

If you kettle sour a wort, lacto can be used to drop the ph. Then during the boil the lacto has done its thing, is killed off and you can add hops to your hearts content. BUT...will it taste good? Try this test and see if you and SWMBO like.

 

[hellesyeah]

Thank you everyone for the info and opinions.

Upon further review, I will not be making a sour.

I'm very comfortable with brewing beer but I'm not comfortable with what all has to go into make the sour.. high temp ferment.. souring bacteria.. not being able to use my plastic again etc.

I will look into a gose because that looks to be easier.

Not to mention that im not a fan of sour/gose/tart beer I'm not going to invest all the time into something that I will probably not have more than 2 beers from a 5 gallon keg.

But, never say never. I will remember this thread and share it my brewbrother and he will probably make one for himself.

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

If anyone has a good gose recipe that can be shared I'll gladly take a look.

Thanks again
-Kevin

Kevin, kettle souring a Gose is not as intimidating as it sounds. Use US-05 and the ferment temp is 67F. Omega Labs has a lacto OYL-605 that sours the wort at room temps, so the process is very easy.

There is a HBT member on here call sign "Morrey". He has an active thread going on now about margarita gose and I tried it. This beer is worth a look. :rockin:

 

[kevinlassen]

I threw together a grain bill yesterday at www.jaysbrewing.com (cheap plug for jill and tom)

3 pounds acid malt
3 pounds 2-row
2 pounds white wheat

1oz lemon drop hop .5@60 min/.5@ flame out

then saf-05

gonna brew it today after breakfast.. ill update with OG when im done.. should be around 1040

 

[kevinlassen]

My og was 1040 and i changed the hop schedule to .25oz at 60/.75oz at 15 with .30 oz of toasted, cracked coriander and .75oz sea salt, whirlfloc tab, yeast nutrient