The WLP630 I picked up had a use by date back in March so I decided to build a starter. The blend apparently has a balance more towards lacto than brewers yeast that, in theory, gives the lacto a head start prior to the brewers yeast eating all the sugar. Not sure what the extra age on the vile will do to this balance but the starter would likely change it as well.
Regardless of how sour the WLP630 will get the beer, the sour worting should ensure that the final beer is at least a bit sour. Sour worting involves souring part of the wort with lacto prior to exposing it to the brewers yeast. I am going to try souring it with the lacto that is naturally found on grain. There are a number of other organisms found on grain that will produce disgusting flavors that will need to be kept in check. Reportedly, pH and temperature are two variables that can be used to accomplish this as will reducing the amount of oxygen exposure (as oxygen is used to produce the off flavors).
The bad organisms do not like a low pH so I will use acid malt to get reduce it to 4.4. A good rule of thumb is that 1% acid malt will lower the pH by 0.1 - based on this I will add 10% acid malt to the wort to lower the pH. I am thinking of adding 2% for the entire mash to help conversion and then add 10% more at the end of the mash to get the pH down.
My RIMS setup seems like a great fit for controlling temperature of the sour wort. I will be doing the sour worting in flasks and maybe a growler. I will set these up in a water bath in my mash tun. Lacto works best between 113 F and 120 F so I will setup the RIMS to keep it in that range.
I will try to keep oxygen exposure at bay by filling the containers all the way to the neck and covering them with foil. I'll also be very mindful of splashing when filling the containers. Hopefully there will be some CO2 generation during fermentation to provide some additional protection.
I am going to sour 2 gal of wort this way. I'll probably let it go for 3 days (maybe longer if it isn't sour enough). I'll then boil to pasteurize prior to adding to the remainder of the beer. Hopefully 2/6 gal soured will be enough to give the entire batch a suitably sour flavor. I am also thinking of trying a few rounds of sour mashing with the dregs from this first round to see if I can isolate the lacto from the bad organisms. It would be nice to have a pure culture that I could pitch into some of my other sour beers without having to do the pH and temperature manipulation.
For the main batch I will be mashing in my old tun with all the sparge water. Additionally, I will be doing the no-boil method. So, this should be a pretty quick brew day.
Depending on how the beer turns out, I have picked and frozen some sour cherries from a local pick your own farm that could be good with the beer. I think I would split the batch so half would be with ~6 lbs of cherries and the other half would be bottled plain.
Trying a number of new things with this beer - hopefully it doesn't turn out badly for me.
Recipe Details:
- Grain:
- 3 lbs 8 oz Pilsner Malt
- 3 lbs 8 oz White Wheat Malt
- 13 oz Acid Malt
- 2 oz at start of mash
- 11 oz at end of mash
- Hops:
- None
- Yeast:
- WLP630 Berliner Weisse Blend
- Lacto cultured from Grain
- Water:
- 7 gal Spring Water
- 1 oz Calcium Chloride
- Extras:
- 5.7 lbs Sour Cherries
Process Details:
- Batch Size:
- 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
- Mash:
- 150 F for 90 min (Target 150 F for 60 min)
- Boil:
- None - Temp raised to 200 F to pasteurize
- Fermentation Temp:
- 75 F to 80 F
- Primary Duration:
- 4 Weeks
- Secondary Duration:
- 1 Month
Results:
- OG:
- 1.033 (Target 1.035)
- Efficiency:
- 73% (Target 78%)
- FG:
- 1.00 (Target 1.004)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- 100% (Target 88%)
- ABV:
- 4.33% (Target 4.07%)
Brewing Notes:
- 7/2/15 - Built a starter for the WLP630 with 1.5 L of water and about 4 oz of DME and 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient
- The starter started producing fizzy bubbles after a couple days in my 75-80 F bedroom
- Tasted it after 5 days. Hasn't developed any real sourness. The sour wort technique is definitely needed. It has a fruity smell that is very similar to my first Berliner.
- 7/5/15 - Brew day - 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM including setup and cleanup
- Brought 7 gal up to 165 F - Took 20 min
- Added CaCl to mash tun
- Added all 7 gal to the mash tun - after 10 min the temp had settled to 160 F
- Added the grain - stirred to eliminate dough balls
- After 10 min the temp has settled to 152-154 F
- Stirred after 30 min - temp was at 152 F
- Measured the gravity at 45 min as 4.2 brix which is only 1.016. Decided to mash for 90 min rather than 60
- Temp was 150 F after 60 min
- Measured gravity again after 75 min - was 5.6 briz which is 1.022
- After 90 min the temp was down to 144 F. Measured the gravity as 6.0 brix which is 1.023
- Added the additional 11 oz of acid malt - stirred the mash for 15 min
- Drained the mash tun into the boil kettle with no vorlauf - measured the gravity after this as 8.0 which is 1.031
- Brought the kettle up to 200 F - took 15 min min
- Added the wort chiller to sanitize at flameout
- Chilled down to 120 F
- Added a hand full of unmilled pale malt to 4 2 L containers
- Heated a water bath in my mash tun to 115 F
- Gently, to avoid splashing and oxygenation, drained off wort into the 4 containers and put them into the water bath. Covered the tops with foil to try to further protect them from oxygen.
- Setup the RIMS to cycle the water in the bath at 115 F. Setup the mash tun to drain directly to the pump (did not route to through the Valentine Arm and Grant)
- Chilled the remaining wort down to 80 F
- Drained the wort onto the yeast starter - let the wort fall the foot or so to allow for aeration
- Moved the fermentor to the upstairs bedroom where it has been in the high 70s to low 80s to ferment out
- Collected a total of 6 gal between the main fermentor and sour wort volume. Measured the gravity as 1.030 at 75 F which is about 1.033 at 60 F. The sample tasted noticeably tart from the large amount of acid malt used.
- 7/6/15 - The main fermentor started bubbling the afternoon after brew day and was still bubbling the next morning. I heated the water bath up to 120 F and then turned off the RIMS for the night. It had fallen to 109 F by 3:00 AM so I turned it back on and raised everything back up to 115 F. No bad smell from the sour wort so far which is good.
- 7/8/15 - No real sourness has developed after 3 days of sour worting. Not sure what's going on. I've been keeping that at a consistent 115 F for most of that period. I wonder if the grain I added didn't have much lacto on it. I added some acid malt to the containers which I'm hoping will contain some more lacto to sour the wort. I will give it a couple more days.
- 7/9/15 - Still no sourness. Added enough uncrushed grain to fill all the containers to the brim and let them chill down to ambient temperature naturally. I'm going to give this one more day and then call it a failure.
- 7/10/15 - The temperature seemed to settle out at 95 F yesterday. It was very interesting to find that the beer has started to develop some sourness now. Not sure if was the additional grain that added more bacteria or if it was just too hot before - I suspect the latter. I am going to give it another day to continue souring. The sourness is accompanied by a sort of off putting grainy flavor at this point but there isn't any garbage/puke smell so far.
- 7/11/15 - The sour mash seemed to be at about the right level of sourness so I boiled half of it (about 1 gal) for 10 min to pasteurize. I took a sample of the main fermenting batch and measured the gravity as about 1.003. It had sort of a saison like flavor - it hadn't really developed any sourness. Added the 1 gal of sour wort to the main batch. I think it's at a nice level of sourness with just this 1 gal so I'm going to dump the other gal.
- 8/2/15 - Measured the gravity of the batch as 1.000. It has a nice light level of sourness with some bready malt flavor. The batch had started to form a pellicle. I added the previously frozen, mostly thawed, and slightly muddled sour cherries to a small better bottle with a funnel. Transferred about half the beer (a bit less than 2.5 gal) to the cherries and then stirred the mix with the auto siphon. Will plan on bottling the non fruited portion later this week.
- 11/19/15 - Tasting Notes - Both halves turned out nicely with a really pleasant level of sourness. They are both refreshing, easy drinking, and fairly complex. The plain half may have a bit more subtlety but the cherries added to the second half melded very well and add a really nice dimension. I really like both of them.
Lessons Learned:
- It seemed like I freed a lot more sugar after adding the additional acid malt and stirring. I wonder if the pH during the mash wasn't good for the enzymes.
- The bacteria on the grain did much better in the 90 F than they did at 110 F. They developed a strong sourness in a day once I'd lowered it. I wonder if they were getting killed by the higher temps.
- I soured 2 gal but 1 gal was enough to get the beer very plenty sour. I would just sour 1 of 6 gal next time I do this.
- Not sure souring with grain is really worth the effort. I have used While Labs Lacto Brevis for some other beers and it's developed a real nice sourness without having to keep it real warm or worrying too much about oxygen exposure. Even if this beer turns out nice I don't think I'll sour with grain again.
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