Sour Mashing And BYO's Flying Fish – Farmhouse Summer Ale Clone

[ForRealBeer]

Gents (and ladies) -

I am starting to plan out an AG version of BYO's clone of Flying Fish Farmhouse Summer Ale, which uses a sour mash component in it.

Original recipe here (byo.com)

Flying Fish Summer Ale Clone

Sour Mash
3 oz. 2-row pale malt

Mash
8.7 lbs. (3.9 kg) of 2 row,
0.5 lbs. (0.2 kg) wheat malt and
3 oz. (85 g) of dextrin malt
Hops
1.0 AAU Styrian Golding hops - first wort addition
3.5 AAU Magnum - 60 min boil
2.1 AAU Styrian Golding hops - 30 min
1.4 AAU Styrian Golding hops - 2 min.

Yeast
White Labs WLP005 (British Ale) orWyeast 1098 (British Ale) yeast
Mash Schedule
Mash grains and sour mash at 152 ºF (67 ºC) for 60 mins.

Ferment
Cool the wort to 75 ºF (24 ºC), aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. Allow the beer to cool over the next few hours to 68 ºF (20 ºC) and hold at this temperature until the yeast has finished fermentation.

---

They say for the sour mash component to " start 2–3 days in advance. Steep 3 oz. (85 g) 2-row pale malt in a pint of 150 ºF (66 ºC) water, then cover and let sit for 2–3 days."

This doesn't really jibe with anything I have read here or elsewhere about creating a sour mash - some recommend plain live yogurt, other folks uncooked rice, etc. This seems to follow one link I read where the brewer was catching the local lactobaccillus (and whatever else) by exposing his mash to the air Senne Valley-style...but I doubt it would work well even here in NC in the wintertime, considering how cold it has been.

So, I was thinking of using another method for creating sour mash.

My idea was to get an old drink cooler and use the small amount of grains and water and maybe toss in a tad of yogurt. That would work fine, right?

Any suggestions either to the sour mash idea or to the recipe? I've never sour mashed before and figured it would be a fun experiment as I start getting my summer brews in the carboys for warm weather. This ice age is temporary, right?

 

[KYB]

The sour mash I use for my Kentucky Common is pretty simple. Just mash in, and instead of letting it sit for an hour, let it sit 18+ hours. 18 is barely perceptible, 24 tends to usually be noticeably sour, 36 will be pretty sour, and 48 should be quite sour. However, there is a number of variables in a full sour mash. Amount of bacteria on the grains, ambient temp, how long it take to drop to souring temps (around 120*F i believe), and the amount of grains. After I mash for 18-24 hours, as I like it to be barely noticeable in my KY Common, just sparge as normal. If it gets funky on top, scrape it off and continue as normal.

 

[jjbroken]

I am brewing an extract summer ale using the same BYO sour mash technique today. I steeped 3oz 2 row pale in 1 pint water at 150; put liquid and grains in bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let sit. Since my sour mash temp dropped and stayed at 60-65 degrees it took 3 days to smell and start to taste a little sour but still sweet, at 4 days almost all sweetness was gone and it had a slight "sour tang" and I'm brewing with it today after 5 days of souring. My recipe will be:

3 lbs wheat DME
3.3lbs pilsner LME
0.5lbs carapils
0.5lbs caravienne
0.5lbs carawheat
0.25lbs biscuit
3oz 2row pale sour mashed
Saaz (10-20IBU???)
Wyeast Kolsch (will "lager" at 40-45degrees in 2ndary after 1st ferm complete)

This is my first post here so...lemme know what you think?

 

[ForRealBeer]

jj - first of all, welcome the board. This is a great place and you will no doubt get lots of encouragement and good info from the guys here.

Secondly, I like your recipe. Only thing I can say about it is that you seem to be guessing a little bit on your hop schedule. Are you using something like Beertools to set up your recipe?

 

[Professor Frink]

I've done this recipe a couple times. What I would recommend:

- Make a larger sour mash than they recommend. I think they recommend 1 pint - I would do about a gallon or so. I found that 1 pint really didn't do much.

- I would add some plain (unflavored) yogurt to the sour mash. Make sure the yogurt has lactobacillus in it (different yogurts use different live active cultures).

- I would also add 1/2 - 1 lb. acidulated malt to your sour mash - there's some good lacto in there

- Styrian Goldings hops work great for this.

Here's my recipe:

Fermentables
Ingredient Amount % MCU When
US 2-Row Malt 6.00 lb 57.1 % 2.0 In Mash/Steeped
US Pilsen Malt 2.50 lb 23.8 % 0.5 In Mash/Steeped
German Sauer(Acid) Malt 1.00 lb 9.5 % 0.7 In Mash/Steeped
US White Wheat Malt 0.50 lb 4.8 % 0.2 In Mash/Steeped
US Carapils Malt 0.50 lb 4.8 % 0.1 In Mash/Steeped


Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
UK Golding 6.2 % 0.25 oz 6.0 Loose Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Warrior 17.5 % 0.15 oz 9.2 Loose Whole Hops 60 Min From End
UK Golding 6.2 % 0.25 oz 4.6 Loose Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
UK Golding 6.2 % 0.25 oz 2.2 Loose Pellet Hops 10 Min From End


Other Ingredients
Ingredient Amount When


Yeast
Wyeast 1007-German Ale

 

[jjbroken]

I ended up going with 1oz Saaz 3.9% @ 60 & 45min; I've been using "beer calculus" for my calculations, it gave me 18.2IBU for this recipe. Does this sound right? Or should I pay for better software??? I brewed on 2/26; racked 3/7, "lagered" 3/12 and am planning on bottling soon...will post results. Thanks for the input...

 

[JoMarky]

Professor Frink- Acidulated malt is sprayed with lactic acid, not that bacteria.

ForRealBeer- The reason BYO's recipe doesn't call for any extra steps for the sour mash is because all grain has some amount of lactic acid bacteria clinging to its husks. Mashing the grain is not high enough temperature to kill all of the bacteria, so after mashing when the temp is dropped, the bacteria start going to work on the converted sugars.

1 pint does seem like a small amount though, but I've never had the beer they are cloning so it may be all you need. You could always make several 1 pint sour mashes and blend them in one at a time until it tastes right to you.

 

[nbrew]

I've brewed this clone before except I used .5lb of Acid Malt instead of the sour mash. (Planning ahead for brew day doesn't always happen. )

This recipe makes a very pleasing beer as long as the Styrian Goldings are used. (I've also brewed it with fuggles... Not nearly as well balanced.)

Oh, and 18.3 IBUs sounds right on. If you're looking for other free options for calculators and such, TastyBrew has a few that have been helpful as well as the Power's Brewery Recipe Calculator which is an entirely in browser javascript-based calculator that you can save recipe strings for.

Nathan

 

[android]

ODaniel: does that funkify your mash tun or do you just clean the bejeezus out of it to get rid of the smell? i forgot to empty my mash tun once and it sat overnight, smelled pretty rank the next morning and it took a while for that smell to leave... there was no water in with the grain, i don't know if that would make a difference.

 

[android]

anyone have experience with how long it takes for the funkiness of sour mashing in your tun to go away??

 

[bovineblitz]

I've brewed this clone before except I used .5lb of Acid Malt instead of the sour mash. (Planning ahead for brew day doesn't always happen. )

This recipe makes a very pleasing beer as long as the Styrian Goldings are used. (I've also brewed it with fuggles... Not nearly as well balanced.)

Oh, and 18.3 IBUs sounds right on. If you're looking for other free options for calculators and such, TastyBrew has a few that have been helpful as well as the Power's Brewery Recipe Calculator which is an entirely in browser javascript-based calculator that you can save recipe strings for.

Nathan

How much sourness did you get?

I'd like to get a little sourness in a saison but I'm not too keen on infecting my equipment.