Sour Beer / Gose 1st timer

[hill1649]

Hi all,

Am about to embark on my first ever Gose/sour beer but, with a twist as I am brewing it completely from Barley! I'd welcome any tips or words of advice on the recipe below:

Barley Gose (2019) Experimental (14 litres/3 gallons)
3040g Maris Otter Pale Malt
330g Torrefied Wheat

Mash at 67 degrees C for 90 minutes:
Reduce temperature to 35 degrees C – pitch Wildbrew Sour Pitch 10g Lactobacillus Plantarum; Leave for 48 hours:
After 48 hours, bring wort to boil and add hops
5g Motueka 60 mins
5g Motueka 30 mins
5g Motueka 10 mins
15g Coriander Seed 10 mins
7g Sea Salt 10 mins

Cool to 25 degrees C; aerate; Pitch SafAle WB06 (Dry Wheat Beer Yeast) and allow to ferment out to 1.012 FG.
Barrel/Bottle and store for at least 3 months

Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5% ABV
Bitterness: 10 EBU
Colour: 8 EBC

 

[Sadfield]

Looks OK. The salt addition in the boil is the only thing I'd be wary of on your first attempt. Matching it to your personal taste and how it balances with the souring will be easier post-fermentation. The perception of sourness will increase after fermentation when there is less sugar in the wort.

The critical phase is between cooling to 35°c and the boil. Perhaps more details on your equipment and intended process here, will help.

 

[The Baron]

Agree with Sadfield Salt to taste just like you do at the dinner table

 

[hill1649]

Looks OK. The salt addition in the boil is the only thing I'd be wary of on your first attempt. Matching it to your personal taste and how it balances with the souring will be easier post-fermentation. The perception of sourness will increase after fermentation when there is less sugar in the wort.

The critical phase is between cooling to 35°c and the boil. Perhaps more details on your equipment and intended process here, will help.

Hi. I'm very low tech! Basically a Stainless steel pan for both the mash and the boil, and plastic fermenting bins of various sizes (2 gallon to 5 gallon).

So, the plan is to strain the wort and sparge once the mash is completed, putting all the strained wort into a plastic fermenting bin.

If necessary, I will use my copper tube cooling spiral thingy to cool the wart and then I was just going to chuck the lactobacillus in and cover the bin with a blanket and leave in a warm room for 48 hours. On the packet it does say that you can rehydrate it first, but not sure that I'll bother!

After 48 hours, tip the lot back in to my Stainless Steel pan and boil away! Once the boil is finished, cool down is achieved with the copper pipe coil thingy.

I have read elsewhere that some people are concerned about contamination of future brews so I guess everything will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sterilised immediately and the prior to my next brewday.

 

[hill1649]

Agree with Sadfield Salt to taste just like you do at the dinner table

So, if you are adding sat post fermentation, then you would need to dissolve the salt first, and add as liquid?

 

[The Baron]

Yes for more even distribution

 

[hill1649]

Yes for more even distribution

Fab, thanks.

 

[Sadfield]

One thing to be aware of with wort souring is it can be less forgiving than normal fermentation. The bacteria behave differently depending on the presence of oxygen, and can produce some unpleasant flavours in its presence. Ideally, your souring vessel should be airtight and the headspace of your vessel should be purged with co2. Maybe, wrap your bucket with clingfilm around the lid to ensure an airtight seal.

One thing I'd do, is give your wort a short boil for 5 minutes after the mash and then cool to your sour pitch temperature. This will kill any other bacteria in your wort and also drive off some oxygen.

There's a good best practice guide in the link below, but don't be discouraged from giving this a go with what you have.

http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LAL-bestpractices-sour.pdf

 

[hill1649]

One thing to be aware of with wort souring is it can be less forgiving than normal fermentation. The bacteria behave differently depending on the presence of oxygen, and can produce some unpleasant flavours in its presence. Ideally, your souring vessel should be airtight and the headspace of your vessel should be purged with co2. Maybe, wrap your bucket with clingfilm around the lid to ensure an airtight seal.

One thing I'd do, is give your wort a short boil for 5 minutes after the mash and then cool to your sour pitch temperature. This will kill any other bacteria in your wort and also drive off some oxygen.

There's a good best practice guide in the link below, but don't be discouraged from giving this a go with what you have.

http://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LAL-bestpractices-sour.pdf

So, if I put the cooled wort in a barrel and then injected some CO2 in to the barrel - would this act as a purge? Hadn't thought of this, but could certainly do it?

 

[Sadfield]

So, if I put the cooled wort in a barrel and then injected some CO2 in to the barrel - would this act as a purge? Hadn't thought of this, but could certainly do it?

That could work to displace some oxygen.

 

[hill1649]

That could work to displace some oxygen.

Fantastic, thanks for your advice

 

[stz]

Personally at home I've given up on kettle souring. I've found that under normal conditions things rarely get below 3.4, never below 3.2. The only benefit I gain from kettle souring is I can hop it because most hop additions prevent adequate souring. Man motueka is lovely as well. If I really want boil hops I make and add a hop tea.

My process is to mash, sparge, boil for 15m with no hops and a protofloc addition if I'm feeling it or 5m if not and then transfer without a drop/splashing (bottom fill) to a co2 purged vessel. I presour to <4.5 using lactic acid. I use yoghurt typically as my source of bacteria as it is cheap and readily available, hold at 40C for 72 hours (it is quite often plenty done 48-60 hours, but happy to run 72 hours if no sign of yeast activity) and then set chilling to 21C and pitch 1.5 - 2x as much yeast as I normally would as it passes 25C. I usually fruit them three days into the ferment and sometimes dry hop them as well a day or two later.

I have once or twice had signs of a wild yeast taking off during the souring. Maintaining a high temperature seriously puts off the yeast, but as it cools it'll start up with a vengeance. But the yeast I pitch quickly outcompetes it. I used to worry about the wort continuing the sour further than desired, but I am fine with 3.2-3.4 and a fruit addition usually makes it less sour. It never continues to sour further, the bacteria dies off/stops being an issue during the initial souring and is further hampered by any dry hop.

Why do I not want to reboil? Time, energy, effort. I like packaging a 'live' product. I enjoy the occasional footy aspect, find it brings balance, interest rather than clean, clinical. Main flavours are often fruit anyway.

I tend to make 'modern' goses. No coriander, too much salt, too much fruit. I've had examples where the souring is more restrained, fruit is absent, the coriander is the main flavour, the salt is in the background. They are very nice, just not what I want to make personally. The coriander is the thing I miss the most in mine.

If you are trying to make a sour at like 3.7-4.2 which is stable then yeah, you'll want to boil it to prevent it going lower. They always taste weirdly sweet and malty to me, like it isn't one thing or the other. Sometimes they are nice because they have a honey taste, but generally I like sours to be oh my this is sour.

 

[Sadfield]

I don't think I'd want a kettle sour much below 3.2. Although I sour down to that with probiotics and then boil and hop like a pale/IPA to 20-25 IBUs. I do like the idea of doing one and fermenting with Brettanomyces though.

 

[stz]

Well this was my last one .. took less than 60 hours at 42C to reach 3.38 and wouldn't budge. I cooled it off, pitched yeast, later on fed it a lot of fruit puree and up it came to 3.43. I thought maybe because I hadn't killed off the LAB through boiling that it'd sour some more, but it hasn't, has been stable in keg for 12 weeks now. With the exception of acetobacter I am just not afraid of things getting more sour than I want anymore ... of course aware that 3.2 - 3.4 is ideal for me. The cultures I'm using and have experience with now just don't want to take it lower without herculean effort on my behalf.

 

[hill1649]

Personally at home I've given up on kettle souring. I've found that under normal conditions things rarely get below 3.4, never below 3.2. The only benefit I gain from kettle souring is I can hop it because most hop additions prevent adequate souring. Man motueka is lovely as well. If I really want boil hops I make and add a hop tea.

My process is to mash, sparge, boil for 15m with no hops and a protofloc addition if I'm feeling it or 5m if not and then transfer without a drop/splashing (bottom fill) to a co2 purged vessel. I presour to <4.5 using lactic acid. I use yoghurt typically as my source of bacteria as it is cheap and readily available, hold at 40C for 72 hours (it is quite often plenty done 48-60 hours, but happy to run 72 hours if no sign of yeast activity) and then set chilling to 21C and pitch 1.5 - 2x as much yeast as I normally would as it passes 25C. I usually fruit them three days into the ferment and sometimes dry hop them as well a day or two later.

I have once or twice had signs of a wild yeast taking off during the souring. Maintaining a high temperature seriously puts off the yeast, but as it cools it'll start up with a vengeance. But the yeast I pitch quickly outcompetes it. I used to worry about the wort continuing the sour further than desired, but I am fine with 3.2-3.4 and a fruit addition usually makes it less sour. It never continues to sour further, the bacteria dies off/stops being an issue during the initial souring and is further hampered by any dry hop.

Why do I not want to reboil? Time, energy, effort. I like packaging a 'live' product. I enjoy the occasional footy aspect, find it brings balance, interest rather than clean, clinical. Main flavours are often fruit anyway.

I tend to make 'modern' goses. No coriander, too much salt, too much fruit. I've had examples where the souring is more restrained, fruit is absent, the coriander is the main flavour, the salt is in the background. They are very nice, just not what I want to make personally. The coriander is the thing I miss the most in mine.

If you are trying to make a sour at like 3.7-4.2 which is stable then yeah, you'll want to boil it to prevent it going lower. They always taste weirdly sweet and malty to me, like it isn't one thing or the other. Sometimes they are nice because they have a honey taste, but generally I like sours to be oh my this is sour.

Thanks so much for the advice. I like my sours to be really sour but am being a bit cautious on the first one!