Hoppy Sour

I have a sour buskett.

Bucket Sour — extra wort left in an empty grain bucket. Remarkably tasty.

There aren’t too many examples of hoppy and sour; they tend not to go well together. Besides the flavor clash the bacteria responsible for souring beer (mostly lactobacillus and pediocaucus) don’t do so well in highly hopped wort. Combine this with the general anxiety and fear of introducing bacteria into non-sour/non-brett production breweries and these beers just aren’t that common.

A local favorite, Black Star Coop, hosted a “Summer of Sour” celebrating sour beers and some of the techniques used to make them. My first sour beer adventure started after drinking an amazing tasting Berliner Weiss, called Waterloo, from Black Star. I emailed the head brewer at the time, Jeff Young, about how to make Waterloo. With his information as well as listening to him talk in the Sunday Session show about kettle souring or sour worting I took the plunge. Jeff is now starting up his own brewery, Blue Owl Brewing, which will focus exclusively on this technique for making sour beers.

Black Star coop released Dr. Vainglory, which is, as they call it, a Sour American Pale Ale (SAPA). It was a truly unique and tasty beverage, carefully balancing sour with lots of tropical notes and a firm, but not overpowering bitterness on the finish. Amazing.

After securing some Meridian hops, which were used in this strain, I decided, I’d give it a try. For souring, I’m using a blend of Gigayeast’s Fast Souring Lacto, and Wyeast Lacto. After 5 days at 76F, the starter was tremendously sour, a pH of about 3.4. I’ll be pitching this combination and keeping it at about 115F for about 4 days; which should create an extremely potent sour base. From there I’ll boil, hop, chill and then pitch a large starter of Brett B. Trois to finish off the rest of the gravity.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 60 min 33.9 IBUs 4.8 SRM 1.050 1.013 4.9 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Pale Ale 10 A 1.045 - 1.06 1.01 - 1.015 30 - 45 5 - 14 2.3 - 2.8 4.5 - 6.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Organic Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) 10 lbs 86.96
Munich 10L Organic (Briess) 1 lbs 8.7
Oats, Golden Naked (Simpsons) 8 oz 4.35

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Warrior 0.18 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 15.7
Ahtanum 1 oz 15 min Boil Pellet 5.2
Meridian 1 oz 5 min Boil Pellet 6.5
Meridian 1 oz 15 min Aroma Pellet 6.5
Palisade 1 oz 15 min Aroma Pellet 7.8

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 3.20 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 3.20 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.40 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 152°F 60 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

DO NOT BOIL

- Mash normally
- Drain to Kettle
- Raise temp to 176 for 15 minutes
- Chill to 120F
- pitch a pure culture of lacto and let ferment for approx. 2 days, no more than 3, retain 120F.
- transfer the sour wort to the boil kettle
- do my boil as per usual
- chill to 70F
- pitch my yeast culture.
- After ferm complete, pitch peach puree

Local Malt Pale Ale

blacklands-pale-moon-1024x768

Pale Moon – Locally malted 2-Row Barley

My local homebrew club does bulk grain buys roughly twice a year. I’ve been participating in these events for the past few years. I learned my lesson about bulk in my first purchase. I still have massive amounts of Thomas Fawcett Medium Crystal and almost a full sack of Thomas Fawcett Chocolate. You just can’t go through that much specialty malt even with close to 25 brews a year. The past few times I’ve focused on getting better base grains; more continental pilsner, higher quality 2-row, etc. I’ve experimented with a number of SMaSH beers using Marris Otter, Munich and Vienna to help go throw the grains.

Last year, the bulk buy started to get really hard. The supplier first quit allowing direct payments from homebrewers so the orders were grouped into larger sets and a handful of folks would pay for multiple homebrewers. Then they would only take a single payer. That was a bit awkward. Who wanted to front 12,000 USD? Luckily we’re all good friends and someone did pay-up and the rest of us paypal’ed our balance. And finally this year, the supplier no longer sells at all to homebrewers, only breweries.

The good news is that a number of the club members have connections with the local breweries and Rogness Brewing right here in Pflugerville agreed to proxy the purchase. While all of this negotiation was going on something great happened. A local malting house opened up in Cedar Park, Texas; Blacklands Malt. The announcement was back in December and all of the inventory was immediately picked up, mostly by local breweries like Jester King, Pinthouse Pizza, Hops and Grain, and Black Star Coop.

Around the end of January when the bulk buy was happening, Blacklands announced they still had Pale Moon, a 2-row pale barley in stock. I jumped at the chance to get a sack. I met Brandon at his malt house and got to see the whole operation. I’m excited to give Pale Moon a go in this lighter Pale Ale/IPA. Next month he’ll have his Pilsner available and I’ll be brewing version 4 of my Rekkae saison with local Pils. Not bad.

For the recipe, I’ve been entirely inspired by the awesomeness of Pinthouse Pizza’s Calma Muerta. Yeah, it’s called a session beer; which it is. And I don’t really care about the “movement” nor if it’s 3.8 or 4.2 or 4.5 ABV to “officially” be call “session”. What matters to me is that it’s easy to drink, flavorful and light. I’ve attempted a number of IPAs, but nothing this light, so I’m looking forward to seeing how to craft a smaller beer, keep it flavorful and not watery.

On top of it all, I’m throwing in an experimental hop, #1210 that I picked up a while back from Farmhouse Brewing Supply. The description sounds full of awesome.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 60 min 32.5 IBUs 4.5 SRM 1.037 1.005 4.2 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Pale Ale 10 A 1.045 - 1.06 1.01 - 1.015 30 - 45 5 - 14 2.3 - 2.8 4.5 - 6.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Moon (Blacklands) 7 lbs 84.85
White Wheat Malt 8 oz 6.06
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L 4 oz 3.03
Honey Malt 4 oz 3.03
Oats, Golden Naked (Simpsons) 4 oz 3.03

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 0.5 oz 60 min First Wort Pellet 6.4
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 1 oz 15 min Boil Pellet 6.4
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 1.5 oz 20 min Aroma Pellet 6.4
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 6.4

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 1.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 1.60 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Whirlfloc Tablet 1.00 Items 15 min Boil Fining
Yeast Nutrient 1.00 tsp 3 days Primary Other

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois (WLP644) White Labs 88% 70°F - 85°F
Denny's Favorite (1450) Wyeast Labs 75% 60°F - 70°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Protein Rest 131°F 20 min
Saccharification 155°F 45 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min