The Beer Thread • Page 245

Do you have any sort of temperature control where you ferment or will the temps be swinging wildly throughout the days/nights?

Saison is the usual suggestion for brewing in the summer as the yeast does well at warm fermenting temperatures. However, the Wyeast Belgian Saison strand requires it to be hot (like 80+) and is prone to stalling. The French Saison strand is more forgiving.

Any of the new kveik strains that have recently come out. They supposedly work at any temp range from 65-90 or so and will finish out in 3-5 days. You'll have to do some research on what's available and what kind of characteristics they give off to give an idea of what kind of style to use with it.

I like kettle sours for the summer as I find them very refreshing. They're a little bit harder then regular brews to make but not much.

 

we just put in my friend's living room which he usually keeps at a cool 65-70 degrees. I will certainly look into those yeast strains and keep the temperatures in mind. thank you!

do you have any starter kettle sour recipes that you would recommend?

 

Going to the Chicago Beer Classic inside Soldier Field this Saturday. Super stoked for some area breweries that don't get much distro in the city.

Breweries

 

Your kettle sour options depend on if you want to sour on hot side or cold side. On hot side you'd be mashing/mixing extract as normal, then pitching bacteria and letting it sour for 24-48 hours. After that you boil and continue the normal brewing process. Pros on this method are you don't need extra "sour only" equipment since boiling the wort after it's sour will kill off all the bugs. Con is that you need to be able to keep the wort at 90-100 degrees while it's souring, which isn't always an easy process.

Now, if you want to sour on the cold side (my personal preferred method), you go through your entire normal brewing process, but instead of dropping to yeast temps, you drop to 90-100 and pitch bacteria instead. Let that go for 24-48 hours and then pitch your normal yeast. Pro/con here being the reverse. You don't need to try to hold it at temp for the souring process, but you would need to set aside a fermentor/airlock/siphon/etc as sour only equipment if you don't want to risk infection of future clean batches.

Really just comes down to personal preference. If you like kettle sours and want to make them with any regularity, I think it's worth the little extra investment in equipment to be able to have a process that's very similar to your normal brewday (as opposed to splitting it over multiple days the other way).

All that being said, if you go with the cold side option, the recipes/guides on the Milk the Funk wiki work great:

Berliner Weissbier

Gose

 

That's a pretty good temp range, but may be a little warm for some yeasts. Generally the fermenting temperature is 5-10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature so you'll have to look at the ranges that the yeasts will work at and see if there are any notes on flavor compounds that can appear in that range.

Berliner Weissbier
This is a pretty good starter recipe to base something on. I make a 3 gallon batch and my process is:
-Get enough grains, 50/50 pilsner and wheat, to get ~3.5% ABV. I think I added a couple oz. of acid malt too to get the pH a little lower
-Mash at whatever temp you like (usually low temps ~148-150)
-After mash heat to just a boil then turn off. This will make sure to kill any bugs that may have been on the grains/in the air/on your equpiment. Add lactic acid to adjust pH down to 4.2. This is to prohibit growth of unwanted bacteria and also has been shown to help with head retention. Do not add any hops, especially before the souring process as the lacto bacteria does not work if hops are present.
-Cool down to 90-100 and pitch 5 tablets of Swanson's L-Plantarum probiotic pills.
-Cover with plastic wrap and flush with CO2 if you have it. Leave for 24-48 hrs until your desired pH or sourness is reached. The good thing about the Swanson's pills is that they work at room temperature and you don't have to keep the kettle heated.
-After souring, heat to just a boil to kill everything and then cool to regular ale temps. You can add hops at this stage if you want (or during dry hop) but they are not necessary
-Use whatever ale yeast you want and ferment like a normal beer. I've used SafAle Germal Ale yeast to try and keep within somewhat style tradition, but any clean ale yeast will work well.
-Add fruit puree if you want for some more complexity and flavor and be sure to let it ferment out unless you are able to keep it cold (like The Veil does for their dynamite cans)
NOTE: Be sure that whatever kettle you are souring in is stainless steel and not aluminum. These pH levels can cause problems in an aluminum vessel

As @Oddpac87 said, this is the hotside souring process and is a good way to sour without needing much extra equipment other than possibly a pH meter. This method gives a clean sour but is not complex in flavor or aroma at all. There is no Brett or any other good brewing bugs involved so that is a reason a lot of people add fruit to them so that they get a little something more out of the beer. If you want to make a Gose instead you would just add the salt at the boil after the souring process.

It might seem a little complicated at first but it's not much more than brewing any regular beer. I kind of like them because it splits the brew day up into two shorter days instead of one long day. Any other questions don't hesitate to ask

 

That beer will put you on your ass in a hurry. Woof.

 

My work made our first gose and it’ll come out in a week, depending on the tap list. I’m excited. Only took 2.5 years of hounding my boss about it.

 

They should have just called this beer "Fuck @bigmike"

 

Stopped by Burley Oak Brewery in Berlin, MD (right outside of Ocean City) over the weekend. Highly recommend anyone who's in that area to stop by. They have a special sour series called J.R.E.A.M. and the two I had were phenomenal.

Also tried What's Kraken from RAR. Sour beer brewed with peaches and cherries. Also highly recommend.

 

I’m down for dumb flavored stouts! Just keep marshmallows and vanilla and shit outta my IPA’s. IPAS SHOWCASE THE IMBALANCE OF HOPS COMPARED TO MALT NOT ADJUNCTS GODDAMMIT

 

Tired hands milkshakes use vanilla perfectly but all other ipas I’ve had with it were horrible

 

Tired Hands Milkshakes are perfect and I will hear no argument otherwise.

 

those JREAMS are insane. I wish I had more of them.

 

Completely disagree.

*goes to my untappd*

*gave Pineapple milkshake a 4.25*


God dammit

 

Their Apple Cider Doughnut shake was really good. I think that may have been my favorite one of them that I’ve had.

 

praying that I get to try Tired Hands someday

 

They get all the press for the milkshake IPAs but they do a ton of really awesome/interesting stuff aside from those. And their brewery has some seriously great food as well.

 

Alien church is the best of the six beers I’ve tried from them. Damn near perfect.

 

Among the 71 TH check ins I have on untapped a few I commented on in amazement (cringe) are Extra Knuckle, Hissing at Snakes and Space is Limited. I do know the first time I had Altar, which is their like winter berliner, I was pretty stoked on it.

 

Alien Church is the truth. TH is like 80 minutes from my house so I don't get out there as much as I'd like, but when I do I always bring some of that home in addition to whatever else I went for.

 

TH fucks

 

Damn, want

 

I feel guilty for not buying Speciation Artisan Ale beers and shipping them out to y’all. Some amazing fruited sours coming out of that place.

 

Checking out their website right now and this looks like my kind of place.

 

I’ve not been to the taproom yet but almost all of their beers are on point. They’ve moved into wild ciders too and have started with natural wine too