My First "Sour": Gose

[troglodytes]

So I'm finally throwing my hat in the ring and brewing a Gose as my first Sour. I want to keep my carboy clean, so I'm going to be mash souring in my mash tun (cooler), and I just want to check my process one last time before I go for it.

I will be making a lacto starter a couple days in advance. This will be a 2L 1.035 DME starter with a couple handfuls of acidulated malt thrown in and carbed water to purge O2.

I will be making a full mash (4# 2-row, 6#wheat malt) @ 148F for 60 min. Then I will pitch my lacto starter and about 9 to 10 ml of 88% lactic acid and keeping that bad boy covered and warm in my fermentation chamber for 2-3 days (hopefully at about 100F, lets see what it can do with a reptile heater).

I will then sparge and boil 15 minutes with hops (5 IBUs), salt, and coriander to kill the bugs and then ferment with WY3711 to dry that beast out.

Please confirm that this is generally the right way of going about things. Obviously there are no promises it will be amazing, especially when I'm going in with no special equipment. I can't purge anything with CO2. I cant measure pH, I can't do a lot of things. But I'd like to experiment and I'm hoping I can make a decent first attempt without getting a pH meter. I just want to be sure I'm going about this the right way.

Thanks in advance

 

[burninator]

I think you're definitely on the right track. I will say that, especially since you're pitching lactobacillus, you'd probably be better off sparging into your kettle, heating the wort to at least pasteurization temp, chilling, and souring in the kettle, instead of the mash tun. That way you know what bugs are doing your souring, and you don't have to worry about an overly sticky mash. Sour mashing can work great, but there's an increased likelihood of unwanted yeast and bacteria contributing off flavors.

 

[timdillon36]

I agree with what has been stated and would suggest collecting the wort before souring.
It's up to you if you want to then heat the wort to kill anything that's in it or not, you are using wild bugs to make your starter. Also you can use plain 2 row for your starter and put the acid malt in your mash to lower the pH. The main reason to make a starter here is to 'test' what bugs you are using. If it smells and tastes ok I would use it but if not you might have to get your lacto frome somewhere else or try again.

I would also make a starter for your yeast. The low ph can be hard on the yeast so lots of yeast can help.

Also take gravity readings along the way. I'm guessing that is one tool you have.

And I almost forgot, don't forget the rice hulls in the mash.

 

[troglodytes]

Thanks for the advise. I'm well stocked on everything for standard all grain brewing (the last thing I have to purchase is a pH meter, and get an official water report). Specifically I have a lot of yeast ranching equipment, so I'm constantly harvesting from interesting commercial bottles, making starts,etc. So I planned on make a large starter for the sacch when it gets pitched.

As this will be my first attempt at the style, would it behoove me to make a starter from the dregs of Mainer Weisse (or similar type commercial brew) which is confirmed to have bugs and I would then know exactly what I was souring with?

I also like the idea of drawing off the wort and souring in the kettle. My original thought with souring in the mash tun (a cooler) is that it would hold the higher temp in my ferm chamber easier than a kettle, but thinking about it, I guess is shouldn't make a difference. I think I will go that route for easier lautering and no extra variables in the equation. If I do kettle sour, is there any special procedures I need to do to not cross contaminate future batches (i.e. disassemble sight glass, ball valve, etc for serious cleaning)?

Thanks so much for the advise, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on harvesting commercial lacto vs a "wild" starter.

 

[evchenko]

I was reading about Gose recipes yesterday on BYO, it seems the slight sour note is a combination of wheat and acidulated malt, along with the salt...at least according to their recipe anyway.

http://byo.com/hops/item/2349-gose

 

[troglodytes]

I considered going the "cheater" route, and lowering the pH through acidulated malt or lactic acid, but since this is my first trial with wild fermentation, I really wanted to do it correctly (this is a point that can be argued in either direction, I understand) to start getting a good idea of what its like to work with bugs. Especially since my plan is to move toward more traditional sour beers and souring methods in the near future.

 

[TAK]

Thanks for the advise. I'm well stocked on everything for standard all grain brewing (the last thing I have to purchase is a pH meter, and get an official water report). Specifically I have a lot of yeast ranching equipment, so I'm constantly harvesting from interesting commercial bottles, making starts,etc. So I planned on make a large starter for the sacch when it gets pitched.

As this will be my first attempt at the style, would it behoove me to make a starter from the dregs of Mainer Weisse (or similar type commercial brew) which is confirmed to have bugs and I would then know exactly what I was souring with?

I also like the idea of drawing off the wort and souring in the kettle. My original thought with souring in the mash tun (a cooler) is that it would hold the higher temp in my ferm chamber easier than a kettle, but thinking about it, I guess is shouldn't make a difference. I think I will go that route for easier lautering and no extra variables in the equation. If I do kettle sour, is there any special procedures I need to do to not cross contaminate future batches (i.e. disassemble sight glass, ball valve, etc for serious cleaning)?

Thanks so much for the advise, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on harvesting commercial lacto vs a "wild" starter.

"Kettle" souring doesn't necessarily need to be done in your kettle. When I've kettle soured, I lauter, boil, then transfer to a keg for "kettle" souring. If you feel you can keep your temp in your mash tun cooler, no reason you can't clean it after your mash, while your wort is in your kettle, then transfer back into the cooler for souring. It'd probably behoove you to sanitize it.

On commercial vs wild, by commercial I gather you mean from a commercial bottle, for my money, I've had excellent experience with Omega Yeast's lacto blend. It's really designed for kettle souring and has worked great for me.

Whatever you choose to do, good luck!

 

[troglodytes]

"Kettle" souring doesn't necessarily need to be done in your kettle. When I've kettle soured, I lauter, boil, then transfer to a keg for "kettle" souring. If you feel you can keep your temp in your mash tun cooler, no reason you can't clean it after your mash, while your wort is in your kettle, then transfer back into the cooler for souring. It'd probably behoove you to sanitize it.

On commercial vs wild, by commercial I gather you mean from a commercial bottle, for my money, I've had excellent experience with Omega Yeast's lacto blend. It's really designed for kettle souring and has worked great for me.

Whatever you choose to do, good luck!

Good idea. I'm not sure what originally made me not want to go the kettle sour route, but doing a complete mash, lauter, sparge and pitching the lacto without the grains does sound like it would alleviate one more facet that could turn into an issue and make for a much easier mash process overall. I'm going to take this advise and kettle sour in my mashtun then boil. When kettle souring the full volume, is 2-3 days a reasonable expectations for serious tart but not full sour?

By commercial I meant commercially available beer. I love having a diverse yeast bank, but am on a budget, so if I can combine purchasing a beer I love to drink as well as being able to use it to build up a starter, then I feel its a win-win. And if those dregs end up having more character (which I've heard they often do) then win-win-win. However, after speaking with a brewer at one of my local breweries, I realized that whatever I harvest is going to have sacch in it as well which means a good deal of fermentation's going to happen prior to boil, which I didn't think about.

 

[TAK]

When kettle souring the full volume, is 2-3 days a reasonable expectations for serious tart but not full sour?

...

I realized that whatever I harvest is going to have sacch in it as well which means a good deal of fermentation's going to happen prior to boil, which I didn't think about.

With the Omega lacto blend, 2-3 days, really even 1-2 days, has been all it takes for me. I think if it's a healthy lacto culture and a proper pitch, souring will complete in 24-72 hrs.

Your second point is a good one, a really good one. For kettle souring, you really need a pure pitch of lacto. With Sacc in there, you'll get ethanol fermentation, which you really don't want to happen until lacto has had it's chance at the sugars.

 

[troglodytes]

Ok, last question. I know the correct answer is that I won't know unless I get a pH meter, but I've done the math and it just doesn't makes sense for me to spend on one with the amount I currently brew. So I'm going in blind to water with the exception that I know my water is not hard, but favors ambers,brown ales ales over light colored beers.

For sours, I've read that flavor ions are less important then in other styles, and the pH matters most. I've also read with berliners, at least, that a mash pH of 4.9 is actually preferred to maintain head retention due to what lacto does to proteins (can someone confirm this is actually true). In my situation going in blind, would you:

a) Start with tap water (plus campden for chlorine), and add lactic acid to hit pH based on Bru'n water starting from an mid SRM water profile.

b) Start with RO (and know whats in my water) add 1g/gal calcium chloride and use Bru'n water to hit my pH levels.

Thanks!

 

[Agate]

I would mash at 5.3-5.4 using Bru'n water to estimate how much lactic acid to use. I would also figure out how much it takes to drop it to about 4.5, and add the difference to your runnings. Drop it to 4.5 both to reduce proteolytic activity from the lacto, but also to inhibit any spoilage microbes that might get in there before the lacto gets going.

 

[troglodytes]

Is it true that there is a pH buffer that won't allow lacto to drop beyond a certain pH in a set amount of time. Therefore, if I accidentally miscalc and use too much lactic acid and drop the kettle pH to 4.3 instead of 4.5, the lacto will still take the wort down to roughly the same pH as it would have at 4.5 (around 3.5-3.4 I'm hoping)

Edit: Sorry I lied when I said my last post was my last question.

 

[Agate]

You'll be fine... I believe you'd have to get it to something like 3.8 before you start messing up the growth of lacto. Keep in mind that pH is logarithmic, so it takes more lactic acid to go from 4.5 to 4.3 versus 4.7 to 4.5. So the margin of error gets bigger and bigger the lower it goes.

 

[troglodytes]

My date keeps getting pushed out for brewing this due to my inability to be around to on the schedule desired for kettle souring, between Memorial Day trips and upcoming business. However, I could crank this out if it would be ok make my lacto starter on Fri afternoon and pitch on Tues. It would be in my temp controlled ferm chamber at 95 to 100, would that be way too long for a lacto starter and stress it out? Should I do it leave at the house temp of 70-73 instead if I'm leaving it 4 to 5 days?

 

[Agate]

Are you using the omega lacto? Just leave it at room temp in your starter, it'll be fine there.

 

[troglodytes]

No growing a culture from unmilled grains so I'm inoculating at a much lower rate, but I fear that at 95F for that long the pH will drop too low, is this a worry, or does it require more than 4 days to drop the pH to dangerous levels for the microflora?

 

[Agate]

The lacto in there should be ok, 4 days wont kill it. I would keep the temperature up to keep everything else from growing, as you'll likely have some wild yeast and enteric bacteria, just to name a couple. The higher temperature and low pH should inhibit them, though.

 

[troglodytes]

So the good news is that the starter is really clean. The bad news is that I'm not sure whether I have a good culture of lacto. For my grains I had ordered an uncrushed pound of acid malt which someone had recommended using in a sour mash a while back and used that to inoculate instead of 2 row, rye, or something else.

Like I said the starter is clean tart and perfectly clear (like I could read something through my flask clear) , but the tartness (which is far from sour) could easily be from the 6 oz of uncrushed acid malt in my starter.

Do I assume I definitely cultured something over the course of 3 days at 110F? Or did I create a fake sour with just a crap load of acid malt?

Edit: After rousing the flask, it appears there is a layer of dusty particles floating above the grain, so it looks like I have something useful.

 

[troglodytes]

Man, I thought the mashing process was going to be the easy part of this brew, but now I've got something else to worry about.

I mashed last night and got horrible efficiency. Something tells me the wheat was not crushed nearly enough from the LHBS. I ended up at about 66% conversion efficiency so I'm going into the kettle souring with a lower gravity beer then intend. This is not a big deal, but I also found out my cooler is just barely too large to fit into my ferm chamber. I'm a dunce for not measuring first, but the good thing is that it is a cooler so it maintains heat, so I'm lucky there.

I found out last night that my cooler loses about 5 degrees every 8 hours. So I'm adding boiling water to bring it back to the 95-100F range, but by the time its been souring for 2 days that will be close to 1.5 additional gallons of water added which would bring my gravity way down and my volume way higher than I can fit into my carboy.

Can I boil a Gose for close to a hour to bring the volume and gravity back down to where I need it?? I know most methods use either no boil or 15 minute boil.

Instead should I let the cooler sit and drop in temp on day 2 to avoid extra water additions. It'll go from 100F to about 90F tonight, and then will be down to about 80F by the 48 hour mark with no further water additions.

 

[mitchard]

Boiling for longer should be fine. You'll just have to estimate and add the hops/coriander when you think you are about to hit the 15 min left mark.

 

[troglodytes]

Thanks everyone for all of the help on my first attempt. Its out of my hands right now with the yeast pitched and going strong. Look forwar to the results, but you eased my mind along the way. Cheers.