First sour beer (Kriek)

[jtreach]

Hi all, I'm planning on making a Kriek (sour cherry beer) and wondered what your thoughts were.

My ingredient list for 9L is as follows:

Pale malt 2kg
Wheat malt 0.6kg
Morello cherries 3kg
Fuggles hops 15g at start of boil
Wyeast belgium lambic blend 3278

BrewMate reckons that should give me IBU = 20.6, ABV = 6.68% (cherries estimated at 1.0044 potential extract i.e. 12% sugar)

The morellos are just coming into season so I'm planning to go to 'pick-your-own' to get them.

My questions would be...

When do you think is best to add the cherries I've heard it's best to let primary fermentation happen and then rack on to prefrozen and thawed cherries - is this true?

Also, I've heard adding the dregs of some sour beers on the market can help develop the bugs in the beer, can anybody recommend a good beer for this purpose?

I've seen a lot of mention about using 'aged' hops that have lost most of their alphas. Is this really necessary as these are not easy to obtain?

I normally do a very simple BIAB brew day and don't really have the ability to do any fancy rests in my process, how much does this matter?

Any other info in relation to sour beers would be great and much appreciated. I'm planning to leave this one for around a year as I've heard that's really the only way to develop the sour taste properly. This is my first sour!

 

[IainM]

I can't help you with any of your questions, and my hopes of doing a cherry beer were scuppered by our cherry tree being decimated by birds, SWMBO and IainM Jr. Still, this is a fantastic style of beer and I'm eager to hear how it pans out and what others have to say about it.

 

[strange-steve]

First of all, hats off to you for attempting this, kriek is a truly beautiful thing and while not necessarily difficult to make, it requires serious patience.

Your recipe doesn't look too bad, though I'd probably increase the wheat to at least 30% of the grain bill. Flaked wheat is more traditional but it can be difficult to source sometimes so malted should be fine.

I'd wait around a month or more before adding the cherries, then give it a good 6 months at least. The longer you leave it the more of the delicious almond flavour you'll get. Tbh I think at least a year is needed for a decent sour.

You can add dregs from commercial beers but it's not a must. Any geuze you can find would do, eg. Oud Beersel, Girardin, 3 Fonteinen etc.

As for your hops, you don't want any more than 15 IBU otherwise you may inhibit the lactobacillus. The pediococcus will still be active so it wouldn't be a disaster but it will slow down the souring process. Ideally you want to use the lowest AA hops you can find so that you can use enough to get the preservative quality without the antibacterial effect.

A stepped mash can be beneficial but I wouldn't worry too much if I couldn't do so, especially if using malted wheat rather than flaked.

My first lambic is about 15 months old now and still very rough, so be prepared for a long wait. I've done a few sours so I'll help where I can. I'm rather jealous of your morello supply I think this'll be great. Would you not consider doing a larger batch? It's a hell of a wait for a small amount of beer.

Btw I have a hefty supply of 3 year aged hops if you'd like some?

 

[YeastFace]

Malt Miller sells aged hops. Lactobacillus growth is inhibited by alpha acids, so the aged hops provide some antibacterial function but not the bitterness. I belive some lacto strains are more tolerant to higher levels of bitterness, so best to check.

 

[BeerCat]

Have to admit i have never tried Sour Beer. Can anyone recommend anywhere easy to get a bottle?

 

[CraftyZA]

I am planning one as well, albeit a bit smaller.
Also rather than cherries, i'm going to add marula fruit. Just waiting for summer to start seeing i'm using saison for attenuation.


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[Leon103]

I would use a seperAte fv just for sour beers.

 

[YeastFace]

Have to admit i have never tried Sour Beer. Can anyone recommend anywhere easy to get a bottle?

Most larger Sainsbury's sell Bacchus Frambozen/Kriekenbier. But personally I'd avoid them, Lindemans and Timmermans as these are backsweetened. Not to say that they aren't nice beers, I just find them a bit too sweet and cough syrup-like.

Wild Beer Co. are a UK brewery that specialise in sour beers, as are Burning Sky from Sussex and Chorlton from Manchester.

For proper Belgian lambic, Cantillon, Boon, 3 Fonteinen and Oud Beersel are definitely worth seeking out.

 

[jtreach]

First of all, hats off to you for attempting this, kriek is a truly beautiful thing and while not necessarily difficult to make, it requires serious patience.

Your recipe doesn't look too bad, though I'd probably increase the wheat to at least 30% of the grain bill. Flaked wheat is more traditional but it can be difficult to source sometimes so malted should be fine.

I'd wait around a month or more before adding the cherries, then give it a good 6 months at least. The longer you leave it the more of the delicious almond flavour you'll get. Tbh I think at least a year is needed for a decent sour.

You can add dregs from commercial beers but it's not a must. Any geuze you can find would do, eg. Oud Beersel, Girardin, 3 Fonteinen etc.

As for your hops, you don't want any more than 15 IBU otherwise you may inhibit the lactobacillus. The pediococcus will still be active so it wouldn't be a disaster but it will slow down the souring process. Ideally you want to use the lowest AA hops you can find so that you can use enough to get the preservative quality without the antibacterial effect.

A stepped mash can be beneficial but I wouldn't worry too much if I couldn't do so, especially if using malted wheat rather than flaked.

My first lambic is about 15 months old now and still very rough, so be prepared for a long wait. I've done a few sours so I'll help where I can. I'm rather jealous of your morello supply I think this'll be great. Would you not consider doing a larger batch? It's a hell of a wait for a small amount of beer.

Btw I have a hefty supply of 3 year aged hops if you'd like some?

Yeah I was loosely basing this on a recipe in Greg Hughes book and he used a higher proportion of malted wheat. The only reason I had kept it that low was due to what I have left from a previous brew!

My batch size is normally 10L as that's what I can handle in my kitchen but I'm aiming for 9L due to the amount of malted wheat I have and with a view to ageing it in two glass demijohns I have. Also the morello's are not that cheap at £6/kg.

Thanks for the offer of hops, I live in Oxford so unless you're close by it's probably not worth it...

 

[jtreach]

Most larger Sainsbury's sell Bacchus Frambozen/Kriekenbier. But personally I'd avoid them, Lindemans and Timmermans as these are backsweetened. Not to say that they aren't nice beers, I just find them a bit too sweet and cough syrup-like.

Wild Beer Co. are a UK brewery that specialise in sour beers, as are Burning Sky from Sussex and Chorlton from Manchester.

For proper Belgian lambic, Cantillon, Boon, 3 Fonteinen and Oud Beersel are definitely worth seeking out.

Yeah I tried the Bacchus Framboise (raspberry) from Sainsbury's which I thought was nice but I noticed that there were no 'dregs' to speak of.

I might have to indulge and buy some of the beers you suggest....

 

[Halfacrem]

Good luck with this. I'm really interested in doing some sour beers, so keep us informed how it goes.

I've tried the Bacchus and I quite enjoyed it. I've also tried a few sours from Wild Beer Co. I loved their'Sourdough', which was more like a super dry Cider (in a very nice way), and their 'Somerset Wild' is deliciously tart!

 

[jtreach]

For those interested I thought I'd give an update.

Brew day went to plan other than an incident in which I managed to scalp myself quite badly during the cooling of the wort. :s

It's been crazy hot here and I have no temperature control whatsoever. First two days of fermentation were around 26 - 27c I think, which wasn't ideal but the temperature has eased off now.

I had a pellicle by about day three and now a week later I've noticed what looks to be a little mold on top. What are your thoughts on this, is everything still okay? The green mold makes me worry a little.

 

[MickDundee]

Have to admit i have never tried Sour Beer. Can anyone recommend anywhere easy to get a bottle?

The only one I've ever had was Bacchus framboisen, but I've not had that for years. They usually have it as one of the continental beers at my local beer festival and it sells out before anything else so I'm assuming it's not really typical of a fruit sour beer.

I must say the "sweaty horse" and "barnyard funk" flavour profiles don't sound very appealing, but it has made me a bit more inteigued about the beer style.

 

[BeerCat]

"sweaty horse" and "barnyard funk"

Hmm, not exactly making me wanna rush out and track any down. :)

 

[mrnebbi]

For those interested I thought I'd give an update.

Brew day went to plan other than an incident in which I managed to scalp myself quite badly during the cooling of the wort. :s

It's been crazy hot here and I have no temperature control whatsoever. First two days of fermentation were around 26 - 27c I think, which wasn't ideal but the temperature has eased off now.

I had a pellicle by about day three and now a week later I've noticed what looks to be a little mold on top. What are your thoughts on this, is everything still okay? The green mold makes me worry a little.

How did your brew go? Was the mould anything to worry about?

Looking to make my first sour cherry beer and keen to see how yours turned out.

 

[Sadfield]

I've had this saved in my bookmarks for a while, although not got round to doing anything based on it. Pretty impressive result from a quite simple recipe and process by the sound of things.

 

[mrnebbi]

I've had this saved in my bookmarks for a while, although not got round to doing anything based on it. Pretty impressive result from a quite simple recipe and process by the sound of things.

Thanks! I'll take a look :)