Sour mashing?

oliver said:
OK I have another idea... I found some reading on braukaiser.com..


in this case, what I could do is extremely similar to pitching lacto, but instead add a good amount of lactic acid post sparge to lower the pH. I think I could mash at 5.2, get my conversion, then "sour" the beer with lactic acid. Then boil, hop, cool, pitch regular yeast. good idea? bad idea?
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Should work.
 
oliver said:
Are the calculations on the Advanced calculator generally the same? I should put in my amount of lactic on the calculator to my desired pH, but then instead add it preboil?
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Again, you can add it at any point after the mash. PH isn't what you're after, though, it's flavor, related but not the same.
 
Have you kettle soured a beer before?..... id just go for it myself, using grains or yogurt. The one I did, didn't end up being overly sour using the grain method..... and the end result was outstanding!
 
Joshua Peterson said:
Have you kettle soured a beer before?..... id just go for it myself, using grains or yogurt. The one I did, didn't end up being overly sour using the grain method..... and the end result was outstanding!
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I've never tried a kettle sour yet. I could pitch GoodBelly. I've had friends who have done a good belly sour and they came out great. The grain method sounds OK, but I hear it's harder to control. Might as well do GoodBelly or a real tube of Lacto
 
For kettle souring, you could pitch a handfull of uncrushed grain, a tablespoon of sourdough starter (I've done that one and it worked well), some active-culture yogurt, a real tube of lacto, whatever source of bacteria you want to use. The end result is the same as long as you keep the temperature up and the oxygen out while doing the lactic fermentation, the lactobacillus will out-compete everything else and in about 18 hours you'll have a clean, soured wort. Less time means less tartness, more time can produce something you don't want to boil. Two keys: Keep the temperature up, above 95 is good, around 105 is better, and keep oxygen out say by putting a layer of shrink wrap on top of the wort when souring. And good luck with it!
 
Nosybear said:
For kettle souring, you could pitch a handfull of uncrushed grain, a tablespoon of sourdough starter (I've done that one and it worked well), some active-culture yogurt,
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I cant wait to use some yogurt myself.... I had the chance last weekend because the girls were gone that weekend and the next which would have gave me the time to let it sour and then later boil the stuff off! ….. but such is my loss!

What do you know about adding some funk there my friend, I was thinking about adding in some unpasteurized fresh fruit....? should I do it at the same time as I add the yogurt, or add it during primary?..... or is that not even how you add some funk to a brew? open ferment it outside I guess?
 
Just bottled my second batch of kettle sours this week. Much cleaner taste this time, which is great as it was a couple of different yeasts with a Mosaic dry hop. This time I used Yakult (an Australian equivalent to Goodbelly).

The first batch was a bit daungint after reading all the various options and opinions out there. This time it felt fairly routine. I just put the lid on the kettle and kept it in the fermentation friedege as I'm hearing that the fears about oxygen during souring may have been overstated. Depends on what microbes you've got in there of course.

I found this page really useful - http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Wort_Souring
 
Joshua Peterson said:
I cant wait to use some yogurt myself.... I had the chance last weekend because the girls were gone that weekend and the next which would have gave me the time to let it sour and then later boil the stuff off! ….. but such is my loss!

What do you know about adding some funk there my friend, I was thinking about adding in some unpasteurized fresh fruit....? should I do it at the same time as I add the yogurt, or add it during primary?..... or is that not even how you add some funk to a brew? open ferment it outside I guess?
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The ways to get the funk in are endless and endlessly confusing.

Fresh fruit is a common approach, it generally has a fair bit of brett on it. And it's the brett, not lactobacillus that'll generally gives you the funk. Also funky brett flavours generally come from reworking the outcomes of earlier fermentations of lacto and sachromyces. I've just brewed one with brett as the primary fermentation yeast and it's not funky at all (nice mild tropical fruit flavours)..

Some people talk about getting funk into a 1-2 month fermentation, while the traditional approach is generally blending 12-36 months of fermentation (I've also got one of those going, but it's only 3 months in and I haven't sampled yet).
 
Joshua Peterson said:
I cant wait to use some yogurt myself.... I had the chance last weekend because the girls were gone that weekend and the next which would have gave me the time to let it sour and then later boil the stuff off! ….. but such is my loss!

What do you know about adding some funk there my friend, I was thinking about adding in some unpasteurized fresh fruit....? should I do it at the same time as I add the yogurt, or add it during primary?..... or is that not even how you add some funk to a brew? open ferment it outside I guess?
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Kettle sours aren't good for adding funk, just tartness. If you want funk, it's back to souring in the fermentor. I'd use a commercial pitch of brett for consistency but you can just leave it open. A few fruit flies and you're in the funk business.
 
This reminds me I need to score that other cooler from my buddy for a sour mash tun.
 
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