pH of Gose wort

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

I'm looking into the process of brewing a Gose. Does anyone have a recommendation of what wort pH I should shoot for going into the kettle? I thought I read somewhere that 3.8 is a good place to start.

 

[oliver]

3.5 - 3.75 is a nice range, also depends on your taste preferences on how tart you like it. Also depends on if you're adding any salt or fruit to balance out the tartness.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

3.5 - 3.75 is a nice range, also depends on your taste preferences on how tart you like it. Also depends on if you're adding any salt or fruit to balance out the tartness.

Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation. I'm not much of a sour guy and appreciate more tartness than anything. I will be adding some salt and perhaps some citrus zest to this batch.

I could be way off...
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/edit/307798

 

[Nosybear]

3.8 is about as high as I would go.

 

[Mark Farrall]

By going into the kettle do you mean pre-acidifying the wort before you add your lactobacillus source?

If it's just the pH after you've let the lactobacillus sour the wort I'd put a pH meter in a few beers you enjoy. Much better than asking us what we enjoy as I prefer it down around 3.2-3.3 pH. It's easy to get something you may not like in a range from 3.2 to 3.8 pH.

If you do mean pre-acidifying, then that's around 4.2 - 4.5 pH. That's important if you've got a fairly mixed source of souring microbes (say grain souring) or one you're unsure about. But it's not that important if you've got a reliable source of a single strain lactobacillus.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Oh and on the history of Gose side of things - http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-sour-is-gose.html

 

[Ray Wong]

3.5 is too low. In my opinion, 3.7 is a good start.

I just finish my gose in PH3.5, but it's too sour for me...

 

[thunderwagn]

Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation. I'm not much of a sour guy and appreciate more tartness than anything. I will be adding some salt and perhaps some citrus zest to this batch.

I could be way off...
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/edit/307798

I like what you described there because in my opinion I think 'tart' is a better descriptor for a gose or even a berliner for that matter. Everyone's tastes are different. I like mine at about 3.2. Tart, crisp, and highly carbed. Makes a super refreshing beverage.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Oh and on the history of Gose side of things - http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-sour-is-gose.html

Interesting read. No idea that Gose is traditionally that sour. I guess I am going for an Americanized tamed down version....

 

[Nosybear]

By going into the kettle do you mean pre-acidifying the wort before you add your lactobacillus source?

If it's just the pH after you've let the lactobacillus sour the wort I'd put a pH meter in a few beers you enjoy. Much better than asking us what we enjoy as I prefer it down around 3.2-3.3 pH. It's easy to get something you may not like in a range from 3.2 to 3.8 pH.

If you do mean pre-acidifying, then that's around 4.2 - 4.5 pH. That's important if you've got a fairly mixed source of souring microbes (say grain souring) or one you're unsure about. But it's not that important if you've got a reliable source of a single strain lactobacillus.

I kettle sour mine, meaning the lacto is incubated before the boil. Works nicely for Gose since you're not so much looking for the funk as the acid. But Gose is such a mild beer that "complexity" isn't what you're after, so souring with lactic acid at packaging is just fine. It's a fairly small beer so going to 3.3 would give you a Sour Patch beer, I'd stick with around 3.6 (the number I could find referenced as an historical value and what I use based on experience).

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

I kettle sour mine, meaning the lacto is incubated before the boil. Works nicely for Gose since you're not so much looking for the funk as the acid. But Gose is such a mild beer that "complexity" isn't what you're after, so souring with lactic acid at packaging is just fine. It's a fairly small beer so going to 3.3 would give you a Sour Patch beer, I'd stick with around 3.6 (the number I could find referenced as an historical value and what I use based on experience).

So is my plan to add lactic acid to the kettle to acidify the wort ok? It seems I would need about 15 mL to bring it down to 3.7. I was going to add acidulated malt to the mash after conversion was complete but thought I would simplify it.

 

[Nosybear]

So is my plan to ading lactic acid to the kettle to acidify the wort ok? It seems I would need about 15 mL to bring it down to 3.7. I was going to add acidulated malt to the mash after conversion was complete but thought I would simplify it.

That will work as well, in fact, it may be what I try next round to knock some of the brewing time out (no kettle souring). You could acidify completely with acidulated malt, too, if the Reinheitsgebot is important to you. But mash it - its starches need mashing to convert. I'd shoot for 3.8 if I were acidifying in advance - you can always add more when you package.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Interesting read. No idea that Gose is traditionally that sour. I guess I am going for an Americanized tamed down version....

Yep, go for what you enjoy.

I've found that a fair bit of Mosaic as a dry hop makes it far more interesting. I've tried a few of the modern German versions that were trying to reproduce the 70/80s versions that died out and they're more like 3.5 or lower. BJCP sounds like it's more with nosy's preference around 3.7, though it recognises that it may have been far more acidic historically.