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Method: | All Grain |
Experimenting on making a quick turnaround sour beer. The idea is to perform a fast lacto fermentation at high temps using a large lacto starter, boil and then complete fermentation with cultured Orval dregs containing Brett B. 5/9/12 - Created a lacto starter adding a half cup of crushed grain with a half pint of starter wort. I wrapped a heating pad around the starter to keep it up around 100 degrees for a few days to promote the lactobacillus. 5/10/12- Stepped up to .5 gallon starter, previous night the starter dropped to the high 80's and smelled pretty gross. 5/11/12 - Smell getting better and formed an awesome pellicle. 5/12/12 - Mash and runoff approx 6 gallons straight into a carboy and add lacto starter. gravity was 1.061. 5/14/12 - Boiled (60 mins) and hopped the sour wort. I dropped in my hydrometer and the gravity reading was around 1.024! Taste was tart but not terrible. While the wort was being boiled the smell coming off was awful and filled the garage. The smell died down quite a bit towards the end of the boil. I'm thinking whatever alcohol and/or butyric acid that was present was boiled off so this looks like it will be pretty low alcohol despite the 1.061 starting gravity. Pitched 2 L stirred starter of Brett B at 80 degrees. 5/19/12 - Took a sample and gravity reading. Gravity around 1.016 and taste is quite sour along with a grainy flavor. Not too much brett character, hopefully this develops over the next few months. Gravity was 1.016. 6/2/12 - Gravity dropped to 1.014. Color is a bit too light, I'm going to look into adding some sinamar to either get a reddish or brown color. 11/10/12 - Was going to dump the rest of this to make room in the fermenter but the taste was fantastic. Light Brett character with a background sourness and a nice clear golden color that I will leave alone. Bottled 9 - 750ml corked bottles of straight "Golden Sour". 11/16/12 - Racked two gallons onto 3 lbs of Sweet Cherry Puree and 4 oz of French Oak cubes. I added the dregs of the Brett portion of my Brett Barley Wine. Bottled the remaining amount of straight Golden Sour in corked bottles. 8/16/13 - Sampled each gallon of the now 'Cherry Oud Bruin' and was pretty pleased. Color is nice, and adding this with the flanders red batches from 2012 and 2013 gave a very nice blend. |
Grains | ||
5.50 pounds | 44% of grist | |
7.00 pounds | 56% of grist | |
12.50 pounds | Total Grain Weight | 100% of grist |
Adjuncts | ||
1.00 pounds | Belgian Candi Syrup - Dark |
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