Speedy Kriek - Sour beer in < a month

[Quin]

I just finished re-listening to the Cambridge brewing session where they talked about a 36 hour sour mash. IIRC, it was a standard mash, mashout, runoff, chill to 125°F, add grain, hold for 36 hours, boil, pitch ale yeast.

I'm going to use this procedure on my next brew except pitch a pure lactic culture after the runoff.

[ChrisKennedy]

I just finished re-listening to the Cambridge brewing session where they talked about a 36 hour sour mash. IIRC, it was a standard mash, mashout, runoff, chill to 125°F, add grain, hold for 36 hours, boil, pitch ale yeast.

I'm going to use this procedure on my next brew except pitch a pure lactic culture after the runoff.

I honestly believe that adding a pure lacto culture to a sour mash is a waste of money.

The lacto is there, and if you treat the mash right, it will give you a clean result.

[11amas]

In a sour mash, won't things like mold, pedio, acetobacteria, enterobacteria, etc possibly be present? So, in my mind, if you sour mash to get that quick dumpster sour, then run off, boil, and then pitch a pure lacto you might get a cleaner finish. I have only done one sour ever though so I am just thinking out loud here.

[ChrisKennedy]

That's a danger, yes. But with proper precautions, you can get a very clean sourness out of a grain innoculation, and you don't have to worry about building up the pure lacto culture far enough for it to give you a good enough ph drop to make you happy.

Keep out as much oxygen as possible, be paranoid. Mash in quietly, purge the headspace with co2. Press saran wrap against the surface of the mash/wort. Keep it warm.

[brewinhard]

Even if it can be done, I don't see how it is worth the effort to use bugs to make a sour beer in less than a month when a sour mash is such a viable way to do it. If you perfect that method, then you have a damn nice natural sour quality, and a base for funky beers.


As an aside, I took a pH reading of the berliner I have on tap at home and it was below 3.2. Doesn't taste that sour, but if I drink two pints I do get a bit of a stomachache. Hmmmmm.

Thats crazy! Your BW is at 3.2 and doesnt taste that sour? How could that be?

With my second BW I brewed, I will be racking it on top of 10# of fresh frozen apricots and letting it sit for a few mos for the lacto to eat away at the fruit. Maybe will toss some bottle dregs in as well to add some extra sourness/complexity.

[HopRunner]

I gave it another taste test this Sunday evening and there still wasn't much in the way of sour. I'm not calling it an Epic Fail because the beer is actually pretty good. It has a light dry body with a pleasant amount of yeast derived flavors. Flavors of dark fruit and just a bit of that wild yeast horse blanket, fortunately no band-aid or banana. The actual Tart Cherry fruit comes through nicely. It does taste nicely of tart cherry.

I thought about kegging it and drinking it at this point but I decided to wait at least another week to see what happens. There is still noticeable amounts of CO2 being released so something is happening.

[Quin]

I honestly believe that adding a pure lacto culture to a sour mash is a waste of money. The lacto is there, and if you treat the mash right, it will give you a clean result.

On the Cambridge show, he mentioned doing a standard mash (not sour) for conversion, mashout, runoff, and cool to 125. He then added grain and held for 36 hours for souring. It would be at this point I would prefer to add a pure culture instead of adding grain.

[ChrisKennedy]

Thats crazy! Your BW is at 3.2 and doesnt taste that sour? How could that be?

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that it doesn't taste sour, I mean to say that it doesn't taste like it is at 3.16 or so. It does give people quite a hit if I don't tell them what it is.