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  • Kettle Soured Brown Ale

    Hello everyone and thanks in advance for any help you might be able to supply.


    I’m in the process of trying to formulate a recipe for a Kettle Soured Brown Ale. I’ve brewed a Kentucky Common in the past where after mashing in about 70% of the grain bill through a protein rest, I brought the mashtun to about 100-110 degrees, and left it around that temperature overnight to allow it to sour. I then mashed in the remaining malt the following morning (I was on a German system, and so did a partial decoction on the remaining mash in order to bring the whole mash up to Sac. Temp) and then lautered/brewed like normal. Well, the lauter was a nightmare as was the gravity (the beer had a significant amount of rye, which only added to the lautering issues). I was allowing for a lower gravity due to some strange temp issues sure to happen, but even after a hellish day and a successful fermentation I wasn’t very pleased with the outcome. Not undrinkable by any means, not even bad, but a little too light/mild/bland, and the sourness, while okay, was too much in the background, and too one-note. I’m looking for a simpler route to a beer that’s soured outside the fermenter (I’m a little leery to allow anything ‘wild,’ tamed as it may have been by WYeast, into my fermenters for fear I won’t be able to get it out).

    I have a new plan for a similar beer (sans rye) based on a beer that I tried at Wyncoop brewery in Denver this summer (I’ve already tried emailing them, and they haven’t responded). They brewed a Saison that was described as being soured in the kettle with the addition of Yogurt. So, my plan is to take my pretty standard brown (at a little over 16 Plato) through the mashing/lautering process as usual, and then chill it in the boil kettle with my wort chiller until it is about 105, and then add some yogurt, stir, and then leave it overnight, and start the following day by heating into the boil, and then continue as if it were a normal beer.

    I am looking for advice on several points. First, is this simply insane (in a bad way)? Second, can anyone speculate on the amount of Yogurt I should be using to get some souring, but not to make it a full blown pucker-inducing beer (I have a 3bbl system)? Third, I am debating whether to use standard plain yogurt or Greek. The Greek is concentrated, so it should have a higher cell count, but it also has a higher amount of fat. I think sour cream would also be a good option, and that should be lighter in fat than either of the yogurts. Can you advise? And that leads me to my forth question – how should/might the fat in the boil kettle effect the resulting beer? Is it enough to get in the way when, right now, I’m thinking that I’ll probably add about 1-2 quarts of yogurt to the 100 gallons of wort? I’m especially worried about the possibility of emulsion, and have no idea whether that emulsion will break as the beer ferments. When making stock, if you don’t skim enough and boil it too rapidly, and it emulsifies, after it is chilled, you can bring it up to boiling temp and it will separate, but obviously I don’t have that option with fermented beer.

    Does anyone have any experience with something like this, or am I out in left field all alone?

    Cheers,
    Brian

  • #2
    I've brewed a couple kettle sours in the past and have used the yogurt technique. I've gotten away with 2 quarts in a ~8 bbl batch, although from what I've read you could do less. I use greek yogurt, the "probiotic" kind as it has a maximized live culture. If you can recirculate it in your kettle you will find quicker results (16 hours) as far as souring goes, where as letting it sit undisturbed can take much longer (2 days.)

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    • #3
      Thank you for your help. After reading your reply and doing a little more research, I think I will be going with 1Q of Yogurt (probiotic is an excellent idea I hadn't considered), especially since I want it to complete souring in about 24 hours.

      As a follow-up, when you refer to a circulator, do you mean your standard pump set very slow on the side jacket and slowly whirl-pooling? I don't think I'd be willing to run this overnight without anyone being in the brewery, but I could certainly have it going for the rest of my day as I do my cellar work after chilling the wort. Does circulation really make that much of a difference after the yogurt has been thoroughly mixed into the wort?

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      • #4
        I haven't tried souring with yogurt before, although I've had a few tasty beers that have been done that way.

        When I've done a kettle soured beer in the past this is what I've done.
        First after finishing the sparge I've always heated the wort in the kettle to 185 or 190 to pasteurize it before cooling it back down and souring.
        Secondly to get a nice sour charater in the beer I usually mash on Friday and let the beer sour in the kettle over the weekend. On Monday its usually ready for the boil.
        Manuel

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        • #5
          Originally posted by mmussen View Post
          I haven't tried souring with yogurt before, although I've had a few tasty beers that have been done that way.

          When I've done a kettle soured beer in the past this is what I've done.
          First after finishing the sparge I've always heated the wort in the kettle to 185 or 190 to pasteurize it before cooling it back down and souring.
          Secondly to get a nice sour charater in the beer I usually mash on Friday and let the beer sour in the kettle over the weekend. On Monday its usually ready for the boil.
          When you are doing it via this method, are you inoculating it with some souring bacteria you get from a yeast supplier? Or are you just letting it pick up stuff from the air? If that is the case, what is the purpose in pasteurizing it first? I've soured a beer without an innoculent with the mash still intact, as I described in the original post, but I've never done it just letting the wort sit. I've also let it sour during fermentation with some wild, natural bacteria in an only-partially-sealed fermenter outside. That stuff was crazy sour and had to be cellared for 4 months just to be drinkable.

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          • #6
            I used a pitch of Lacto from a yeast supplier. It worked quite nicely.
            I've wanted to try using yogurt at some point, but I haven't had the time or chance to experiment yet.
            Manuel

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            • #7
              We have a wort out port, as well as a kettle drain port. You could also use a whirlpool port if you had one. I'd want to keep the recirc under the liquid level as adding oxygen can obviously promote organisms and flavors that are less than desirable. We also keep a co2 blanket on the kettle to keep the bad bugs at bay, I don't know how much this helps, but it does offer some peace of mind.

              Although I've never let the wort sit and sour without recirculating, a fellow brewer had no other options at his brewery and claimed to have to wait an upwards of 72 hours to get the souring I was getting in 16 hours. Being that he was a state or two over I don't know what temp he was holding, or what kind of culture he pitched.

              I definitely had my worries the first time I left a pump on over night, but they're made to run. And I've had pumps run for four days before being turned off without a problem. As long as there is liquid flow you won't have to worry about your seals.

              I'm doing a kettle sour tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

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              • #8
                No need to circulate in my experience. We just bubbled CO2 slowly with the lid closed. Boil before and after to reduce off flavors. Cool with whirlpool circulation through HX to desired temp then stop and inoculate. Boil when desired pH reached. Add hops during second boil, not before. Make sure to store your culture at room temp, if you refrigerate it can cause a slow souring. Our took 48 hrs, probably would have take 24 if we didn't refrigerate.

                We use a culture from BSI but yes, some will use yogurt. Nancy's Greek yogurt. If you have access, look up the seminar from CBC 2015. Gigantic and Cascade discussed their experience with kettle sours and yogurts.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by mikeyrb1 View Post
                  If you have access, look up the seminar from CBC 2015. Gigantic and Cascade discussed their experience with kettle sours and yogurts.
                  Indeed! Here's the article: http://www.craftbrewersconference.co...le_souring.pdf
                  There's some great information here, thank you!

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                  • #10
                    Personally I've never recirculated in the kettle while souring. I just let it sit over the weekend - takes a little more tinkering in the schedule to get the timing right, but it seems to work well.

                    I do bubble some CO2 through the wort when I pitch, both to make sure the wort is well mixed. And to try and put a bit of a CO2 blanket over the top of the kettle. From what I've heard O2 pickup during souring can lead to butyric (vomit) flavors. And I don't think anyone wants to drink that.
                    Most brewers I've talked to try to keep the kettle around 105 during the entire souring process - I've actually never done that, just cool to 110 and pitch. It always seem to work.
                    Let us know what you end up doing and how it works out for you.

                    Cheers
                    Manuel

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                    • #11
                      Tapped today!

                      My K.S.B. was just tapped today, and I'm very pleased with how it came out.

                      After much research here's my basic process:

                      My recipe formulation made me a little nervous because the paper linked above mentioned that dark malt created some odd peanut shell aromas/flavors. I didn't have this problem despite my recipe.

                      1% Chocolate
                      16% Brown and C-60
                      83% Various Base Malts

                      Galena Hops for Bittering and Willamette Hops for flavor/aroma. 32 IBUs.

                      I used Siggi's Brand Vanilla Skyr (an Icelandic yogurt - they don't sell the bulk plain stuff in my market, so I went with the vanilla, which was flavored with vanilla seeds, so it was pretty pure). I ended up using a quart and a half for 3 barrels (their containers are 24oz, so that's how I hit the amount, which I had intended to be either one or two quarts).


                      I made the beer normally through the lauter. During the mash I ran a CIP (including sanitizer) on my brew kettle and my heat exchanger. I brought the wort up to 190 to pasteurize it, but not bring about the hot break (I don't have any paddles at the bottom of my tank, and I was nervous that any precipitate might stick to the bottom and scorch during the boil). I held it at 190 for 15 minutes. I then put it through my heat exchanger until it read 110. I took a bucket of the wort and whisked in the Skyr before adding it back into the kettle. I then disconnected the heat exchanger and ran the pump from the bottom port to the side jacket on medium for half an hour. I added a CO2 blanket on top of the kettle (I was running CO2 off and on from flameout, and let it run for 10 minutes after I turned off the pump and clamped down the lid). I covered the top port on the kettle (loosely, so it could gas out, if necessary), and left it over-night.

                      It was still reading 98 degrees when I got in the next morning. I brought the temp back up to 105 and kept it there as I did my work day. I had attached a sample valve onto the side jacket and took a sample before I was planning on going home, but shockingly it was already done after only 18 hours. I had planned on letting it go 28 hours. So it made for a late night, but I started the boil (being careful to get a deep stir a couple of times as it warmed just to ensure nothing was on the bottom [there was a goodly amount of what I assume to be bacteria trub, but nothing that looked like hot break]). I hopped as normal during a 90 minutes boil, and finished as normal before pitching the house ale yeast in the fermenter. Oh, and what seemed pretty important: I skimmed the large amount of scum that formed on top of the tank as it got ready to do the hot break. I assume it was a lot of the fat and protein from the Skyr.

                      My efficiency on the lauter wasn't great, sadly, so it was a little low to start. I was shooting for about 1.064 if the beer had been standard. After pasteurization I hit 1.058. Post-souring and post-boil the wort was 1.050. It finished a little earlier than I wanted at 1.019, but it didn't taste under-attenuated, and I was satisfied. The final beer is 4.1%. I calculated that I lost about 1.1% abv from the pre-fermentation/boil. So, while I was hoping for something a little closer to 5%, the product is good, so I can't complain.

                      The aroma is mildly soured, but the coolest part is that it smells just like a mash - very grain-forward - that brown malt really did the trick. The flavor is certainly sour, but not puckering, and the sourness, while not terribly complicated, is incredibly clean. The malt is expressed as "Wheaties" cereal, toast, and bread crust. There is a little earthy/boggy and incense character in the background from the Willamette hops, and there was enough hop bitterness to create balance, but not make it a beer about the hops.

                      Overall, I think it was a great success. My brewpub has never done a sour, so we will see how it goes over in this fairly rural community, but I'm pleased, and so was the owner (who was dubious), so... success!

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                      • #12
                        Hows the clarity on the brown? I've only ever done one once, and the super hazy + brown combo looked so unappealing I pulled the tasting room experimental keg after 1 week. I used Good Belly to get my pitch of L. Plantarum. In a yellow/white beer I find the resulting hazyness appealing, but in the brown beer it just hurt my eyes too much.

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                        • #13
                          It is brilliantly clear, and sports a garnet undertone that is quite beautiful.

                          I only used a little whorlflock in the boil, but otherwise, no clarification, and absolutely no filtration.

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                          • #14
                            pH at different stages?

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                            • #15
                              I did everything by taste. I did find an old pH meter at work, but it was too late. I think if/when I do another beer like this again I will test it out, but it wasn't my goal this time around.

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