Philly Sour in Mead, Cyser, Cider.

[DaveDiamond]

Who's used Philly Sour in Mead, Cyser or Cider, and what were the results?
Too late for me if it's a bad idea, the decision was made and I used Philly Sour, mostly because I've already ordered more and I only have one pack each of everything else right now.
I'll reply to this thread and let you know how it went when I drink it, but I'm interested to see what I might expect.
Cheers!

 

[Snuffy]

If you use it to brew something you plan to back sweeten, I imagine it could be pretty good. I brewed an attempt at a Flanders Red with it in combination with a Belgian yeast and it was less than amazing. The sour is very bitter acidic and reminds me of the pith of a grapefruit. Drinkable, but not the sour I was going for.

 

[DaveDiamond]

If you use it to brew something you plan to back sweeten, I imagine it could be pretty good. I brewed an attempt at a Flanders Red with it in combination with a Belgian yeast and it was less than amazing. The sour is very bitter acidic and reminds me of the pith of a grapefruit. Drinkable, but not the sour I was going for.

Flanders Red's an IPA?
I'm definitely not looking for bitter grapefruit flavours! I bought it because of it's higher temp tolerance and the description describing fruit notes, and I thought the lactic acid might mellow out a young cider. Plus, I know I'll have two more packs of it by Friday (hopefully!). In the order that just arrived I mostly have one pack of each of the Safcider range to test out, so I wanted to save them for straight cider so I can know which I prefer. I plan on backsweetening anyway if it's dry, so maybe it'll work nicely. Only one way to find out!

 

[Snuffy]

Paired with fruit or something sweet I think it would be good. It would be that twang at the end. I was going for something similar to a red Belgian sour beer. It's more of a vinegary sour. Philly is not that kind of sour. More citric and jaw tightening.

 

[DaveDiamond]

Paired with fruit or something sweet I think it would be good. It would be that twang at the end. I was going for something similar to a red Belgian sour beer. It's more of a vinegary sour. Philly is not that kind of sour. More citric and jaw tightening.

Well I'll see I guess. My thinking was that if Malic Acid being turned into Lactic Acid is what mellows a Cider out, then having a yeast that produces Lactic Acid might be a good thing. That was the reasoning behind buying it, but then I made Mead and Cyser.

 

[Maylar]

It's an ale yeast. 9% alc tolerance would be ok for cider, but not for a typical mead or cyser.

 

[Snuffy]

It's an ale yeast. 9% alc tolerance would be ok for cider, but not for a typical mead or cyser.

You can definitely start with it and then add another yeast after 3 or 4 days. That gives it enough time to create acid and then the traditional yeast will supposedly over power it for alcohol production.

 

[DaveDiamond]

It's an ale yeast. 9% alc tolerance would be ok for cider, but not for a typical mead or cyser.

You can definitely start with it and then add another yeast after 3 or 4 days. That gives it enough time to create acid and then the traditional yeast will supposedly over power it for alcohol production.

Thanks guys. 9% would be alright though. A bit high for a Cider, about right for the Cyser I imagine, and slightly low for the Mead I imagine, but a good middle ground.

 

[DaveDiamond]

You can definitely start with it and then add another yeast after 3 or 4 days. That gives it enough time to create acid and then the traditional yeast will supposedly over power it for alcohol production.

I do have 118 here, so I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

 

[hungupdown]

You can definitely start with it and then add another yeast after 3 or 4 days. That gives it enough time to create acid and then the traditional yeast will supposedly over power it for alcohol production.

Agree.
I made a blackcurrant sour last year, which was way too acid, even after large lactose addition to balance it. And I only like very dry ciders.
It's mellowed well, after 9 months. Nice for hot days, but it's still my only beer, that I couldn't manage a second pint!

From (my poor) memory. Philly Sour creates mostly acid, for the first 2 - 3 days. So if co-pitching, I'd use something robust (like Nottingham), and add it at 48- 60 hours.

 

[DaveDiamond]

It's the 8th Day and there's still significant action in the "JOAM" style jar (10 litres), raisons cruising up and down in the Mead. The Lemon Cyser (5 litre jar) is a bit slower today, the cling wrap "balloon" has deflated a bit overnight, but bubbles are still rising and the floating lemon zest is still moving around (I swirl daily to keep it wet). So overnight one has slowed, one has increased it's activity. We've had some pretty cold nights, but the 15 litre fermenter above them still shows 20/22.
So I don't think I'll disturb them for a reading just yet. I have no lids for these, so sanitised cling wrap and hair ties it was.

 

[DaveDiamond]

So after nothing happening in the Cyser yesterday, and having opened a bottle of Apple juice, I did mess with the Cyser. I took the teabag out, put half a cup of strong tea in, a few grams of Wine Nutrient, and topped up with Apple Juice because I had planned to and left more headroom than I needed. Still no action. As you can see, the mead is pumping out CO2 but the Cyser hasn't generated any at all 24 hours later. I had assumed that adding more sugar and nutrients would get a reaction.

 

[jdubdvdt]

I have used Philly Sour in a cider. It chewed through the sugar and the resultant product was so sour we joked that it was an enamel remover.
I was cutting it 50/50 with a regular cider to get something a little easier to consume.

Fermented at 75F ambient temp.

 

[DaveDiamond]

I have used Philly Sour in a cider. It chewed through the sugar and the resultant product was so sour we joked that it was an enamel remover.
I was cutting it 50/50 with a regular cider to get something a little easier to consume.

Fermented at 75F ambient temp.

Not quite what I was going for! The honey alone cost $39, this might be an expensive lesson!

 

[Kickass]

Don’t discount back sweetening. You can stabilize and back sweeten to soften the tartness, if that’s needed.

 

[DaveDiamond]

So it's the third Tuesday, and after being static for the last week, today the 10l "JOAM" suddenly burst back into life and is producing gasses at a much higher rate. The 5l Cyser has been slowly building up too in the last few days. Temps have been very steady so I can't count that as a factor.

 

[AzOr]

Not Philly Sour but I have made a lot of batches w funky yeasts.

My go to was Imperial’s Sour Batch Kidz.

I’d ferment a gallon of aj and let it age for as long as possible, usually 9-12 mos. After that, I’d pasteurize it in a pot, let it cool then store in my kegerator.

From there I’d add it to other batches of “clean” cider and keg.

I added around 20% funky cider.

 

[DaveDiamond]

Not Philly Sour but I have made a lot of batches w funky yeasts.

My go to was Imperial’s Sour Batch Kidz.

I’d ferment a gallon of aj and let it age for as long as possible, usually 9-12 mos. After that, I’d pasteurize it in a pot, let it cool then store in my kegerator.

From there I’d add it to other batches of “clean” cider and keg.

I added around 20% funky cider.

Yeah, I'll have to see how it goes. It's a "Lemondrop Cyser" recipe, so it's meant to be sour but backsweetened. I'm thinking it should be like a lemon honey tea you have when you're sick, sweet, but sour enough to give you a light sweat! If it's too sour in the wrong way perhaps it will be used to give future ciders a bit of zing. The JOAM I don't know about, but that too could be diluted. Philly Sour was in the "high temperature" yeast section, and it will get very hot here soon, so testing it as an option is not a waste no matter what the outcome. Cheers for the feedback!

 

[DaveDiamond]

So I racked the Lemon Cyser today, 4 days from being a full month. It's gone from 1.100 to 1.010, so Edit- 11.8%. Now I'm not sure what to do!
I tasted it, it tastes a lot like straight lemon juice, no honey or apple coming through at all. It's not bad, the sourness is what I was looking for, but I was hoping the honey would come through, I think adding honey and perhaps diluting it with some apple juice and it would be pretty good, but it's not strong enough in alcohol to drink still imo, and adding honey would make bottle carbing a bit risky without having a bottle with a gauge so I know when to pasteurise (coming soon). So I've just topped it up with apple juice to reduce the headspace and put an airlock on for now and I'll see if it keeps going. If not, perhaps I'll pitch 118 or something. 5% is okay if carbonated though (Edit it's 11.8%), but I don't want to go too far under that, which would be the case of I add more honey and juice to make it more palatable. Pretty happy with it so far really, there's none of the 'young alcohol' smell and taste I'm getting in my cider and 'hard OJ' (which is great apart from that btw).
Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

 

[Maylar]

It's gone from 1.100 to 1.010, so 5.25%.

Umm... that's about 11.8%.

 

[DaveDiamond]

Umm... that's about 11.8%.

Yep, guess who didn't press the Update button on the calculator! Thanks for catching that!
Well that's a different story, the yeast probably hit their limit then and it's done. I'm assuming there'll be no action resulting from the little bit of added apple juice, but I'm done for the day now so I'll leave it and add honey tomorrow. That leaves me another 5 litre to ferment something else in! Used some more of the opened pack of Philly in some Hard Seltzer/Lemonade tonight. I added 250ml of long life Lemon Juice to 6 litres of sugar water with DAP and Wine Nutrient added, so I'll see how that goes. A much cheaper experiment than buying honey! It came to 1.045. I added the amount of sugar to the water that should have brought it to 1.035 for 4.59%, I didn't expect a cup of juice in 6 litres to raise it by that much, but 5.91% will be okay. I swapped from Cooper's Sparkling Ale at 5.8% to Pale Ale at 4.5% years ago because I like to drink for long periods at a time and 5.8% was catching up on me after a few hours, so I'm trying to keep under 5% for stuff I want to drink 10 or 12 of but just plain juice usually comes out higher than that anyway!