Sour Mash or Sour Wort?

[Groo]

I'm brewing a Berliner Weiss and was planning on conducting a sour mash with a handful of base grains but I was thinking that with my equipment it would be much easier to just run off the mash and sour the wort with the extra grain.

Does souring the mash produce a different flavor than souring the wort? Is there any reason I should do one over the other?

I plan on boiling for 15 minutes after getting the sour that I like. I want to compare this version to my Berliner that has taken about 6 months to get slightly sour.

 

[ChadChaney]

In my limited BW experience, sour mash and sour wort did produce different sour levels and flavors. The sour mash a slightly off aroma, sour was mild, nice wheat and/or grain character while the sour mash was way more sour and not noticeable contributions from the malt. Held both at the same temp for the same time, everything was as close to the same as possible. Quick turnaround though either way. Make sure you pitch a healthy amount of active yeast due to the Ph.

 

[Groo]

Thanks for the insight. It sounds like the sourness from the sour wort was better but the graininess from the sour mash was better. I ended up going with a sour wort since it was easier.

I'm sort of doing it sous vide style where my wort is in a big food safe plastic bag with the oxygen purged out. This bag is in a cooler with 110 degree water that I replenish straight from my electric water heater. After 30 hours it's slightly sour but no off flavors at all.

I'm going to try the straight up sour mash next time to compare my results like you're able to do.

 

[psnydez86]

I've yet to do either but sounds like sour wort will be the way I go. The main things are keeping the wort at 110-120f and keep all o2 out.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/11/sour-experiment-1-two-week-sour.html?m=1

There's some good info on Mike's blog (above lonk) and you should download the brewing networks Sunday session with chad yakobson from Crooked Stave. He gives a bunch of tips on how to avoid the vomit/poop off flavors of butyric acid that can happen in sour mash/wort attempts.

 

[Brewing_on_the_Internet]

I'm sort of doing it sous vide style where my wort is in a big food safe plastic bag with the oxygen purged out. This bag is in a cooler with 110 degree water that I replenish straight from my electric water heater. After 30 hours it's slightly sour but no off flavors at all.

I'm going to try the straight up sour mash next time to compare my results like you're able to do.

I did mine the same way in a sous vide. I soured the whole wort at 116f for 5 days to reach the tartness I wanted. The second time I was for 6 days before it reached the level of tart I wanted.
No foul odors at all. It smelled more like sourdough with some yogurt.

 

[Groo]

I did mine the same way in a sous vide. I soured the whole wort at 116f for 5 days to reach the tartness I wanted. The second time I was for 6 days before it reached the level of tart I wanted.
No foul odors at all. It smelled more like sourdough with some yogurt.

You nailed the aroma I got, sourdough and yogurt. Super clean aroma. I took mine out after about 3.5 days and it was fairly tart. I was getting gun shy and and couldn't let it go any longer. I'm going to keg a carb a 2 liter of it this week so I'll know how it taste.

The fermentation was active with Safale 05. Good size krausen that lasted a couple of days.