Hello All!
This past weekend I did my kettle first sour (well technically a second but fermentation never took off and forgot about the 2gal batch in my garage over the summer - oops!). It is supposed to be a tart cherry sour. Picked up a couple bottles of the RW Knudson's tart cherry concentrate (puree has been hard to come by).
Near but not quite a 50/50 of Wheat and 2-row. BIAB on my stove with an og of about 1.068 - 1.070 with six gallons of wort and six capsules of Swansons L. Plantarum @ 90*-92*F, dropping it to 89* around noon on Saturday. Dropped to 88*F in the evening just because the kettle kept losing too much heat from the wrap and didn't want the wrap to run continuously overnight. Pre-acidified to about 4.4. Dropped to 3.1-3.2 (kept getting varying numbers between that range) overnight. Boiled with 1/4oz Saaz for about 15 minutes. Parallel to pre-souring, I did about a 3.5l starter of 1007 going (used Mr. Malty and chose the Hybrid option knowing more yeast was needed with the acidity). I did not step the starter up (I should have, I know but frankly, wasn't willing to risk waiting days before I could finish this brew, especially after seeing the ph go so low within 18 hours) and just did the full 3.5l at once. Oxygenated with an entire canister of 02 from HD (I do this with all my beers), chilled, decanted, and ended up pitching about .5l-.8l of it at about 56*-57*F. This was about ~noonish on Sunday. Temps stayed in the high 50's, hitting 60.x a few times.
By Monday morning, there was activity. By Monday night, a nice but small Krausen. As of last night, I noticed activity slowing down considerably, but the Krausen not dropping. Since I wasn't going to use my only Tilt hydro for a sour to see if fermentation is stabilized/close enough to being on the tail end (will eventually buy a second to dedicate to sours), I took a hydrometer sample and was kind of glad I did. So my og as stated above was 1.068-1.070 due to a defect and not focusing properly enough (that I think i caused) on the refractometer scale so instead of pinpointing at that point, I am left with the three point range and I go with the conservative option. So my hydrometer sample, after degassing, was at about 1.019-1.020. I was really surprised to essentially see it that low within 55ish hours after pitching. That is about 69% attenuation going off the og of 1.068. I went ahead and poured (as gently as I could but did make a couple splashing mistakes) the cherry concentrate into the fermenter and within 30 minutes I saw bubble activity rapidly increase again. Bumped the temp up to 60 and will continue the slow climb to the mid 60's or so to finish fermentation/clean-up.
So...uh, is this a normal rate for the yeast or was my starter/02 process just more adequate to facilitate this acceleration? Even in a sour? Was it maybe an over pitch? Mr. malty called for something like 355 billion cells if irc. I have had other beers take twice as long to get to that point (with similar starters/02 processes) with 05/1056 take an entire week just to get close to that point. The hydro sample was pretty darn good. Deliciously tart. Had some of the concentrate left over in the jar and mixed it with the hydro sample just to get a feel of what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised and hopeful! I am thinking of harvesting this yeast for some further sour cherry batches as I really enjoy this yeast thus far!
This past weekend I did my kettle first sour (well technically a second but fermentation never took off and forgot about the 2gal batch in my garage over the summer - oops!). It is supposed to be a tart cherry sour. Picked up a couple bottles of the RW Knudson's tart cherry concentrate (puree has been hard to come by).
Near but not quite a 50/50 of Wheat and 2-row. BIAB on my stove with an og of about 1.068 - 1.070 with six gallons of wort and six capsules of Swansons L. Plantarum @ 90*-92*F, dropping it to 89* around noon on Saturday. Dropped to 88*F in the evening just because the kettle kept losing too much heat from the wrap and didn't want the wrap to run continuously overnight. Pre-acidified to about 4.4. Dropped to 3.1-3.2 (kept getting varying numbers between that range) overnight. Boiled with 1/4oz Saaz for about 15 minutes. Parallel to pre-souring, I did about a 3.5l starter of 1007 going (used Mr. Malty and chose the Hybrid option knowing more yeast was needed with the acidity). I did not step the starter up (I should have, I know but frankly, wasn't willing to risk waiting days before I could finish this brew, especially after seeing the ph go so low within 18 hours) and just did the full 3.5l at once. Oxygenated with an entire canister of 02 from HD (I do this with all my beers), chilled, decanted, and ended up pitching about .5l-.8l of it at about 56*-57*F. This was about ~noonish on Sunday. Temps stayed in the high 50's, hitting 60.x a few times.
By Monday morning, there was activity. By Monday night, a nice but small Krausen. As of last night, I noticed activity slowing down considerably, but the Krausen not dropping. Since I wasn't going to use my only Tilt hydro for a sour to see if fermentation is stabilized/close enough to being on the tail end (will eventually buy a second to dedicate to sours), I took a hydrometer sample and was kind of glad I did. So my og as stated above was 1.068-1.070 due to a defect and not focusing properly enough (that I think i caused) on the refractometer scale so instead of pinpointing at that point, I am left with the three point range and I go with the conservative option. So my hydrometer sample, after degassing, was at about 1.019-1.020. I was really surprised to essentially see it that low within 55ish hours after pitching. That is about 69% attenuation going off the og of 1.068. I went ahead and poured (as gently as I could but did make a couple splashing mistakes) the cherry concentrate into the fermenter and within 30 minutes I saw bubble activity rapidly increase again. Bumped the temp up to 60 and will continue the slow climb to the mid 60's or so to finish fermentation/clean-up.
So...uh, is this a normal rate for the yeast or was my starter/02 process just more adequate to facilitate this acceleration? Even in a sour? Was it maybe an over pitch? Mr. malty called for something like 355 billion cells if irc. I have had other beers take twice as long to get to that point (with similar starters/02 processes) with 05/1056 take an entire week just to get close to that point. The hydro sample was pretty darn good. Deliciously tart. Had some of the concentrate left over in the jar and mixed it with the hydro sample just to get a feel of what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised and hopeful! I am thinking of harvesting this yeast for some further sour cherry batches as I really enjoy this yeast thus far!
