First attempt at a gose

[stz]

Hello HBF.
I'm planning a gose, well two if a split batch counts. My understanding is that historically they were low in strength, barely hopped, contained coriander, salt to taste (and to help preserve) and developed a slight tartness from lactic activity. Reading about more modern takes on the classic style the coriander seems optional, the tartness comes from either upfront kettle souring, back end lactic activity and/or quite large amounts of aciduated malt and/or straight lactic additions and the SG is low to mid 40's. Reading about the craft forward takes on them they don't use coriander, use quite assertive kettle souring, assertive amounts of salt, fruit and SG's are mid 40's to 50.

I'm planning ...

47% pilsner malt
47% wheat malt
6% aciduated malt
Maybe bring calcium chloride to 200-250ppm. No additional calcium sulphate as it is approx 80ppm out of the tap. Treat mash and sparge water with lactic acid to bring rA down to 0-10ppm.

Mash at 64-65C for at least 60m. Preacidify with lactic acid to a pH of 4.5-4.7. Bring to the boil. Chill and kettle sour with delbrueckii held at 37-40C for two days.

Boil for X using sladek to reach 10-15IBU's. 1.5g/L sea salt straight into FV. Probably going to use bruxellensis trois to ferment as I've a lot of it at the moment and enjoy the bright tartness, moderately saliva provoking fruit esters? Also lots of wet s23, vermont ale and us05 if wanted. Dry yeast choices include a kolche, s04, Abbaye, K97, some depressing dry hefe yeasts, maybe some more.

Half the batch is getting blueberries, other half cherries. Maybe 41-42SG.

Main questions are ... I don't think I'll miss the coriander in a fruit beer. It seems really superfluous. Is this a massive mistake? Second is the salt rate. I've salted beers before and found the usual 1oz/5g to be weak sauce. Third is the choice of yeast, I'm sure they can be made with a lot of different yeast and that is likely doesn't matter too much. Fourth is the kettle sour aspect, lots of people are encouraging me to just use a bunch of aciduated malt and straight lactic additions, this feels ... wrong. Another person who makes them all the time ALWAYS pitches lactic with the yeast and lets it ride, but admits that it takes months to develop the desired character. I have concerns with hopping. I guess hopping too, some people are saying don't even bother, the guy who sours on the back end just uses mash hops. BIGGEST question is boil time. Pilsner malt is in my head as a good long boil to drive off DMS potential or almost no boil to minimise the breakdown of SMM into DMS. I know a guy who made an undrinkable DMS bomb with pilsner malt with a short boil and now has no problem with heat, but no boil before chilling. It would seem short boil is out, either heat to pasteurise, but no boil or go at least 40m.

The modern ones I drink are quite tart and salty indeed. Usually have a bunch of fruit character. Have perceivable hopping, are a fair strength and don't have any hint of coriander. I guess I'm aiming for this.

 

[stz]

Well I brewed this today .. sort of .. half brewed it?

Went with the grist above. Went with 65C mash for 60m. Used enough 88% lactic to knock the rA out of all the liquor used and hoping the aciduated malt got me in the ballpark for mash pH and a touch of 'pre acidification' though not testing. Not treating the water otherwise as sulphate out of the tap is plenty and salt additions will likely shoot me out past 900ppm chloride in the end. Might regret the low calcium, but probably not.

Today was just a 5m boil to sanitise the wort. Currently both are in the chamber at 44C.

 

[Harbey]

How did this turn out @stz ?

I'm hoping to brew a gose in the next week or two so would welcome any tips.

 

[stz]

hey hey!
I used sacc trois for the ferment. It didn't get crazy low, like 1.008 or thereabout. It took a little longer to sour than planned, I let it ride about another 12 hours in the end? They never taste as sour when done as they seem up front. I didn't hop it on the boil, but made a starter with hopped wort so a handful of IBU's came across with that (approx 2 litres @ 40IBU in 25L). The blueberry was 2kg of puree from HB ingredients. The cherry was 2kg of sour cherry puree and 1kg of sweet cherry concentrate. The salt wasn't that noticeable to be honest, it could have been more if you wanted a salt lick. Both beers were very tasty, but it wasn't really obviously a gose? I didn't have any DMS problems. The blueberry could have been more uhh blueberry?

 

[Harbey]

Yeah, fruit never comes across quite as strong as I expect (or coffee, or vanilla, or chocolate etc). Maybe I'm too cautious. So what kind of pH did you get down to before fermentation? Ive got all the ingredients but I was considering adding a bit of lactic acid to help the acidified malts.

 

[stz]

Currently the 'hip' thing to do is make a quick sour and then blend it with stupid amounts of fruit concentrate and/or puree prior to pack. I've settled on 100-150g/L depending on how punchy the fruits are and if they are washy/subtle fruits use one third concentrate. Prior to ferm it was 3.47. In my head I was 'happy' for it to be quite a low/moderate sour as it was a gose and it tasted pretty zingy, but the more experience I gain the more I find that it is preferable to overshoot and they never taste as sour when finished as anticipated. Generally I'm quite lucky as the fruit puckers it up some more. Also the more experience I get the more I realise that they tend to limit themselves. With lactic acid bacteria I struggle to get things REALLY sour, like it is quite rare under normal usage to find they just keep going and going, they bottom out eventually, at least the species I've played with. Also hopping is pretty much a no no unless you know that your strain is hop tolerant. I like quick/kettle sours a lot, but I'm a lot less scared of pitching mixed cultures these days! A lot of the bacteria I've tried are fussy enough to give up pretty quickly in the presence of yeast and a bit of dry hop.

 

[stz]

Also was going to say the aciduated malt was just for the sake of it. I don't believe it adds much complexity, flavour or performs any magic. It was entirely just to ensure pre acidification and correct mash pH because of the light grist and low salts in the mash, but a level spoon of lactic acid does that pretty well anyway! I have found that limiting oxygen pick up in the souring vessel is worth doing, pre acidification is worth doing and most of all a high temperature for souring to keep it quick and clean. The temperature, like 38C-43C will discourage competing organisms and make sure the pH drop is rapid. I read online that people get a decent drop in 24 hours or less, in my experience it has always been longer. This could be inoculation rate or something else, but I'm always pushing 48-60 hours. No pellicle, no slime, not even any co2 production either.