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Post from a guy too impatient to read American Sour Beers or find the answer on TMF.
I'm brewing Randy Mosher's "Crabapple Lambicky Ale" from Radical Brewing (12 Beers of Christmas, page 169), and hoping to call for advice generally, as well as a sanity check on the following plan.
The recipe calls for a American Wheat Beer as a base beer (page 150). 3.75 gallon batch. OG 1.050. 44.5% Pilsner, 44.5% malted wheat, 11% Munich. Mashed low and long at 145°F for 2 hrs. But fermented with a Belgian yeast of my choice. Rack (?!) onto 3.75 lbs. of cranberries and pitch mixed lambic culture. Ferment for two months. Transfer again (!) and allow to clear for 2 months. Bottle. Allow to condition in bottle for a long while.
I'm thinking about brewing around Feb. 1. Skipping the secondary, and adding fruit and lambic culture directly into the primary vessel visible fermentation stops (mid-Feb.). Then racking to tertiary (secondary in my case) in two months (mid-April), along with a double dose of pectinase. And then bottling in mid-June. That gives it six months in the bottle to develop lambicness. Any thoughts?
Will there be enough dextrins and other stuff for the lambic yeast? What should I do for the wild bugs?
Posted 34 days ago.
Why not make it like a proper americanized lambic and pitch the bugs first? Then leave it on the lees for 6 months. Add the fruit for a couple months and then in the bottle for a couple months. I think this is the proper procedure from american sour beers?
Posted 34 days ago.
@testingapril. That sounds like a much easier plan. I'm going to have to finsh Tonsmiere's book, I guess. Anything that involves doing nothing and letting the beer sit and get good by itself works out great in my home brewery. If the plan is for me to have to do something, it usually devolves into me letting the beer sit and actually do nothing.
Posted 34 days ago.
Why not sour mash/kettle, sterilize the wort when it gets to the sourness of your liking, then pitch Sacc/Brett? It's the souring that takes the longest.
Posted 34 days ago.
Thanks for the input! That's yet another way to go. That made me run to read Chad Yakobson's 2011 presentation on Brett, as well as Carolina Brewmasters' 2013 Brewing with Bugs.
I'm having a difficult time settling on a plan between sour worting and then pitching Sacch/Brett, or Dan's idea of doing it the American Sour Beers way.
I'm struggling because:
1. I'm not sure how much sourness the cranberries are going to add, so it makes me unsure whether I want to affirmatively sour the beer with lacto.
2. I think I want to achieve more of a fruity character than a funky character, and I'm not confident about how to achieve the precursors to do that, or yeast/bugs selection.
3. I'm afraid a sour mix is not going to be ready in the 10 mos. I have., so I'm back to maybe skipping the lacto/pedio and just pitching Sacch, Brett ("brett" trois, or Brett C) and maybe some dregs.
4. I'm trying to stay as true to the recipe as I can without racking so much.
I've spent more time just thinking about this beer than test brewing and rebrewing other beers!
Anyway, I don't know if that helps.
Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by chino_brews
I still think you should:
1) sour mash to desired pH.
2) pitch fruity Brett (B. claussenii, maybe).
3) add cranberries a month or so before bottling.
Posted 34 days ago.
See also: http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Brettanomyces
Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by KidMoxie
OK, I am going with a mix of @testingapril and @KidMoxie's plan. I'll sour wort it in the kettle with lacto from Pilsen Malt, and then pitch WLP 670 (American Farmhouse Blend aka Lost Abbey) and dregs (I have dregs from Goose Island Sofie and Olvalde Farms Brynhildr's Gift right now).
Posted 34 days ago.
Cranberries have quite a bit of malic acid, that gives 'hard' and 'sharp' acidity. To overcome that you can add malolactic bacteria (Oenococcus oeni) that convert the malic acid to softer tasting lactic acid. Malolactic fermentation/conversion takes time and the right conditions.
Posted 34 days ago.
@ignooni Interesting point on the malic acid. Any tips on adjusting for it? (I am "fruiting" at a rate of 18.3 ounces per gallon, or 45.7 g per liter).
Posted 34 days ago.
Pitch Wyeast or White Labs Lacto Brevis. It will convert malic acid. It will also produce lactic acid though, so depending on sourness level, you may want to stick to malo lactic fermentations. You can always pitch both if you want.
If I were kettle souring a cranberry lambic, I would probably sour to 3.4 or 3.5 pH instead of my normal 3.3. Just to keep the sourness level a little lower so the sourness the cranberries add isn't overpowering. That said, if you pitch bugs and let them ride, you are pretty much at their mercy. They are going to take that thing wherever they want, so it might get really sour. I would probably mash high in an attempt to keep some residual sweetness, but the Brett is going to eat most of that anyway, so it may be futile in achieving residual sweetness, but still make for good beer because of the flavors the brett will add from eating the complex sugar.
The only thing that REALLY takes forever when making a mixed culture sour beer is the pedio. It's the fussy one. It wants to produce tons of diacetyl and exopolysaccharides (this is the 'ropy' sick thing you hear about) and basically just make a mess of your beer while taking it to a serious sourness level and producing some serious complexity. But the problem is that Brett then has to go behind it and clean up the mess. Breaking down those exopolysaccharides takes a long time and the right conditions, Brett handles diacetyl easily, but it takes time for pedio to finally quit working and making a mess.
If you do a mixed culture and skip the pedio, you should be able to get this beer done pretty quickly, even without a sour mash. Especially if you use Lacto Brevis. It makes a lot of lactic acid and it does it pretty fast, just a month or two. This is where I would caution you against adding dregs because you never know if the dregs might contain pedio, and if they do, you could be in for a long ride.
Posted 34 days ago.
@TestingApril/ Thanks for that tip on slow-acting Pedio. I definitely want to skip Pedio for this "fast sour". The dregs I plan contain only Belgian Sacch and Brett strains, so I think I will be OK. The American Farmhouse Blend is Lost Abbey's blend, and it's supposed to a saison yeast mixed with the culture from Tomme Arthur's keg where he stabilized a house Brett culture (Brett A, Brett Brux, and Brett L). I think I should be able to safely get it under 1.008 in 10 mos. even with a fruit addition. Also, I'll keep that tip on the pH in mind.
Posted 34 days ago.
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