Wort never boiled; can it be soured?

[KingEd10]

Here's my issue: tried to brew my sweet stout last night but due to cold, rainy New England weather, I could only get my wort up to 186 F. I let it go for over an hour to try and boil but no dice. At that point I took it off the burner and chilled it in hopes of brewing this AM but not gonna be able to boil today due to work and kids.

Brass tacks: wondering if in an attempt to save it, I could sour it and with what?

Thanks for the help

 

[estricklin]

I've never heard of anyone trying to make beer from unboiled wort, you'll just have to give it a try I guess.

 

[wilserbrewer]

You can start a lacto souring infection by adding fresh grain to your wort and keeping it warm around 120 degrees, say 1/2 pound whole base grain added to your wort, you will need to then boil it to stop the infection at your desired point of sourness. I believe a Berliner Weiss beer can be done this way???

 

[Max_Chavez]

If it were me, I think I'd go ahead and pitch my planned yeast, as usual. You may not have had the greatest hop extraction and the most substantial other concern I see would be dms, but I don't imagine your stout would have much pilsener malt. (You could also sour, but then you're getting into heating it back up and holding at 100-110) Just my 2 cents.

 

[Bobcatbrewing42]

KingEd10. That sounds weird! You might need a higher BTU burner. I brew outside all winter and get a boil easily with my 60,000 BTU cooker and a keggle. I brew at 7000 feet altitude so my boil temp tops out at 200 degrees and the recipes are fine, so your 186F may work but I think that part of the effect of boiling is the churning from the rolling boil.

 

[sweetcell]

Brass tacks: wondering if in an attempt to save it, I could sour it and with what?

sure, you can sour it. anything can be soured. will it be good? who knows! i've had mixed results brett'ing or souring dark worts. on the other hand, there are sour beers such as tart of darkness so it certainly can be done. my concern would be that you intended this beer to be a stout so it probably has a lot of roast and astringent flavors. depending how you sour, the bugs could attenuate a lot and strip the beer of residual sugars, leaving little to counter the strong roast flavors. i'd love to pick the brains of the brewers at The Bruery about how they make ToD.

with what? get a bug mix like WY Roeselare, WL Lambic Blend, YeastBay Melange, etc. and pitch that. add dregs from sour beers for variety. leave along for a year or longer. or do quick souring (mash souring, kettle souring, etc.)

the most substantial other concern I see would be dms, but I don't imagine your stout would have much pilsener malt.

you can get DMS from any base malt. you get more from pilsner, hence the need to boil 90 minutes. other malts can be made DMS-safe in 60 minutes... but without that 60 min boil you'll likely get DMS with standard 2-row.

however there are some holes my in understanding of DMS. a 15-minute boil berliner wiesse should have a ton of DMS - but doesn't. in general sour beers don't have DMS problems. i wonder if it's because of the low pH, or if the bugs break it down, or the sourness masks that off-flavor...

(You could also sour, but then you're getting into heating it back up and holding at 100-110)

you can sour at normal fermentation temps too - just takes a lot longer. you raise to 100-120 if you're doing fast lacto souring.

 

[KingEd10]

Wow, thanks for all the input! Planning on (1) upgrading my burner to a KAB6 to increase my BTU so this (hopefully) doesn't happen again and (2) experiment with this batch and sour it up. I'll go with the lacto seeding idea.

As an aside, I was listening to the Beersmith podcast with the author of American Sour Beers and he said you can basically sour a beer by adding a bottle of your favorite sour beer to your wort. Curious since I am a total souring novice...

 

[youreanimpulse]

As long as your favorite sour beer is not pasteurized. Many Belgians are. Also New Belgium.

 

[KingEd10]

Thanks

 

[joshrosborne]

I brewed a no-boil, no-sparge Berliner that I used lacto and Wyeast 3711 on last month. It's in a keg now and is delicious, so yes you can sour a beer without boiling it.

 

[sweetcell]

I brewed a no-boil, no-sparge Berliner that I used lacto and Wyeast 3711 on last month. It's in a keg now and is delicious, so yes you can sour a beer without boiling it.

your berliner was brewed with no-boil and souring in mind from the outset, and you got a delicious result.

a *potential* concern with the OP is that his recipe was for a roasty sweet stout. no-boil and souring were after-thoughts. might work, might not... only one way to find out: report back in a year

 

[duboman]

I brew my Gose this way. You can sour the wort with lacto. Keep it around 90oF for a week and it will drop to a pH of about 4, nice light tart. Then boil it to halt the lacto and raise to your expected OG and whatever hop additions you planned, basically proceed as normal from the boil forward, then ferment as normal with whatever yeast you planned on and package when it's ready.