OP
OP
m00ps
Well-Known Member
So....apart from the side stuff with the brewery (theyve been dragging their feet due to some managerial changes on the restaurant side of things and Im ready to move on to other things with other breweries), I think my idea to try and speed up sour character development worked. Note that NONE of this is exbeeriment level due to the total lack of a control and differing recipes.
So I brewed 2 sours with my sour blend, one piggybacked off the other sort of. I made a ~1.2L starter, let it go for 2 weeks. Tasted the starter wort, and it was nice and sour by then. I pitched about 2/3 of it (not decanted) into my first saison that had been going for a bit over a week. Then I just built the starter back up, and a few weeks later did the same thing with my second one. Here's the quick details:
#1 - brewed 7/1/15, soured 7/12/15, bottled 10/29/15
WY3711 & WLP566, decent amount of rye, some sugar
#2 - brewed 8/11/15, soured 8/20/15, bottled 11/9/15
WLP585, YB Wallonian Farmhouse, ~45% flaked wheat/oats, some sugar
Last night I had SWMBO try both sours side by side with me (shes more of a sour fan than me). #1 had a very nice rounded sourness. Like what youd buy off the shelf from JP, Crooked Stave, Prairie, etc. SWMBO liked the smell of that one more. But surprisingly, despite being younger, #2 was actually much more sour. Like mouthpuckering, coats your tongue and seems to seep into your lower jaw. I've only had a couple beers this sour before. SWMBO seemed to think this one had more complexity too, but Im thinking it might just be how long that amount of sourness lingers on your palate
anyway, my unscientific ignorant conclusion is that maybe the long starter helped #2 work faster. By the time I pitched it, it was 5-6 weeks old (although half was replaced with new wort). Now, if you include the long starter in the timeframe, its a bit less time saving, but it at least doesnt tie a fermentor up for as long. I dunno *shrug*
I did the same with the sours I recently bottled. I'll look at my notes to see how long those sour starters sat before pitching
So I brewed 2 sours with my sour blend, one piggybacked off the other sort of. I made a ~1.2L starter, let it go for 2 weeks. Tasted the starter wort, and it was nice and sour by then. I pitched about 2/3 of it (not decanted) into my first saison that had been going for a bit over a week. Then I just built the starter back up, and a few weeks later did the same thing with my second one. Here's the quick details:
#1 - brewed 7/1/15, soured 7/12/15, bottled 10/29/15
WY3711 & WLP566, decent amount of rye, some sugar
#2 - brewed 8/11/15, soured 8/20/15, bottled 11/9/15
WLP585, YB Wallonian Farmhouse, ~45% flaked wheat/oats, some sugar
Last night I had SWMBO try both sours side by side with me (shes more of a sour fan than me). #1 had a very nice rounded sourness. Like what youd buy off the shelf from JP, Crooked Stave, Prairie, etc. SWMBO liked the smell of that one more. But surprisingly, despite being younger, #2 was actually much more sour. Like mouthpuckering, coats your tongue and seems to seep into your lower jaw. I've only had a couple beers this sour before. SWMBO seemed to think this one had more complexity too, but Im thinking it might just be how long that amount of sourness lingers on your palate
anyway, my unscientific ignorant conclusion is that maybe the long starter helped #2 work faster. By the time I pitched it, it was 5-6 weeks old (although half was replaced with new wort). Now, if you include the long starter in the timeframe, its a bit less time saving, but it at least doesnt tie a fermentor up for as long. I dunno *shrug*
I did the same with the sours I recently bottled. I'll look at my notes to see how long those sour starters sat before pitching
