Kettle Sour/Sour Mash - How Much Uncrushed Grain?

[Bonsee]

Hello All,

I am curious how much uncrushed malt you are adding per 5gallons to achieve either a sour mash, or kettle sour?

I recently only added 1# of uncrushed 2-row to a 10g sour mash, and was not happy with the results.

Thanks!

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

I think it has a lot more to do with the propagating conditions than the initial pitch. I use a big handful of malt in my 5g mashes and get awesome results. My process is to mash in a keg, cool to 120º, pitch in a handful of grain, purge with CO2 to remove as much O2 as is realistic, then set in my fermenting fridge at 120º until my desired sourness is achieved. For my Berlinner and Gose that is about 4 days. After that, just dump it out into a lauter tun, sparge, boil to sanitize with whatever hope schedule you are using, cool and ferment.

I think reducing the oxygen and maintaining the temps above normal yeast activation temps makes a huge difference. I get very clean sourness using hte above technique, and reproducible results.

 

[ArcLight]

Hello All,

I am curious how much uncrushed malt you are adding per 5gallons to achieve either a sour mash, or kettle sour?

I recently only added 1# of uncrushed 2-row to a 10g sour mash, and was not happy with the results.

Thanks!

There are some good threads on sour mashing here on HBT.
Here are some:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=527591

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=434202


When I have questions I first use the search box and amazed at what good knowledge is contained in HBT. An expert may have answered the same question 3 years ago, and won't necessarily be around to answer it today.

 

[masonsjax]

I typically do a full volume sour mash (no sparge) for a 5 gal batch. I mash as usual then top up the cooler with 100F water. I stir until it's down to about 125F, throw in a small handful of pilsner or US 2-row, cover the surface with cling wrap, cover the cooler with blankets and let it sit. I sample from the valve until I get the sourness I'm looking for, usually 24 hours is perfect.

 

[beerkench]

Why were you not happy?

 

[Bonsee]

There wasn't that puckering tartness I was looking for. My guess, I under-pitched the amount of uncrushed grains to propogate enough lacto bacteria to get to that level.

 

[masonsjax]

It really doesn't take much IME, a small handful in 5 gallons. You certainly don't need more than a pound for 10 gallons. If it's not sour enough, just give it more time and/or raise the temp a bit. Remember also that sourness will seem to increase once you ferment out the remaining sugars.

 

[ArcaneXor]

Many brewers have moved on from sour mashing to kettle souring/sour worting with isolated cultures instead of grain because of more predicable results. A kettle sour with Omega Lactobacillus Blend or White Labs Lactobacillus brevis should, after making an appropriate starter and keeping it at an appropriate temperature, end up with a pH in the low 3s given appropriate water, with a much lower chance of off-flavors compared to a sour mash.

See http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Sour_Worting and http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Lactobacillus for details.

 

[beerkench]

There wasn't that puckering tartness I was looking for. My guess, I under-pitched the amount of uncrushed grains to propogate enough lacto bacteria to get to that level.

For how long did you leave it?
I tried my first sour wort recently using grain innoculation also.
I chucked a handful of grain into a hopsock and left it in the wort for half an hour. It then took 4 days at 50c (122f) to get down to a pH of 3.5. Next time I'm gonna leave the grain in the wort.

 

[azazel1024]

I haven't done a full kettle souring yet. I had misread advice and did a sour starter, 2L. The starter was great, but dilluted in to a 5.5 gallon batch of BW...it had only a trace of sour, so I had to use 88% lactic acid to up the tart. Tastes great and a little more complexity than when I've used straight lactic to make a BW before (the one time). The half that I aged on peaches for a few weeks is amazing.

Next time I'll sour the whole thing. That said...since I want to reduce the chance of screwing it up, I plan to do a sour starter and if that sours cleanly, I'll pitch that in to the kettle to innoculate. Hopeing to maybe have the time to make an Oud Bruin later this summer for some fall and winter drinking.

The most important thing is the temperature. That and fermenting out. If you use a low attenuating strain of yeast, you'll have a lot more residual sweetness, which is going to "war" with the sour/tartness of the lactic acid. So it'll taste a LOT less sour. IMHO, unless you are using pedio, lacto along with Bret to ferment out almost all of the sugars, beers heavier than about 1.050-1.060 just have too much sweetness to taste really sour (unless you dose with extra lactic on top of whatever lactobacillus will produce sour kettling/mashing). They might have a bit of lingering tart, but you won't get a really sour beer.

Temp is so important on this. Lactobacillus activity is (at a guess) doubled at 120F compared to 100F and roughly doubled again over 80F. So if you can't hold the temp around 120F, it is going to take a LONG time to sour (plus the odds increase of getting unwanted bacterial activity). Other thing to remember is to try to get the PH down near 4 to start with, otherwise the lactobacillus produce enzyemes that destroy head retention/protiens. So you'll want to pre-add either acidulated malt, lactic acid or phosphoric acid to the mash/wort before you pitch the grain. This also helps the production of unwanted bacteria as the low PH is hostile to many of the unwanted strains.