Right when I left Michael Tonsmiere’s talk on Hoppy Sour Beers at HomebrewCon I knew a hoppy sour was going to be on my to brew list in the near future. Well, here goes nothing. I based my recipe off of his that he shared with us at his talk. I brewed 11 gallons of wort and split the batches, 6 gallons in one carboy, 5 in another. The 6 gallons will become the Hoppy Sour Beer and the 5 gallons will be a Gose (by request of the wife).
Carboys sitting in my hot storeroom
85% 2 Row
15% Flaked Wheat
Mashed at 152
Boiled for 60 minutes, cooled to approximately 105 degrees, racked to each carboy.
Both carboys were soured for approximately 24 hours. My pH meter was a cheap one and it read 3.5 or so. Hey it tasted tart enough for my taste, I continued on. I’ll need to purchase a meter that I can rely on. This one is not very reliable at all.
Hoppy Sour (6 gallon carboy)
Soured with Omega Lacto Blend
I racked the 6 gallon carboy back into kettle, brought to 180, whirlpooled hops for 15 minutes with the following hops.
- 1 oz Citra
- 1 oz Simcoe
- 1 oz Mosaic
Omega Lacto Blend, yes I saved this cake, will sour with it again.
WLP644 Sacc Brux Trois for “primary fermentation.”
Dry hopped for 7 days with the same amount of hops as above.
Before I dry hopped the beer, I tasted them and the beer was just a touch bitter with a quenching tartness. The hop flavor was good, but not as quite as quenching as the sample I tasted at HomebrewCon. After I dry hopped the beers I got an overwhelming bitterness and the sourness clashed together. Very interesting that I got some bitterness from the dry hopping. I believe I am going to try to blend some of the Gose into this beer to see if it will round out that bitterness. I’m pretty upset with that, but hey you learn from these mistakes. I love the hop flavor and aroma though. Next time I will bring the wort up to 180 and start the whirlpool, once the beer is well below 180 from the whirlpooling I’ll add my hops so I don’t extract as much bitterness from the hops. I will also only dry hop with a half an ounce of the hops this time. I believe 3 ounces for this was a bit much. I’m not sure what I was thinking.
I carbonated this beer with my new Blichmann QuickCarb. I’m going to write a review on it soon. I served this beer at a local food event. I believe calling this a Hoppy Sour turned people off and it they really weren’t interested in it. That’s ok thought because it is not
my best.
Gose (5 gallon carboy)
Soured with 2 Mango Good Belly Plus Shots
Racked this beer back to a kettle and brought it up to 180, I then added 15 grams of kosher salt and 10 grams of ground coriander. Before anyone gets onto me about not using whole, I know, I know. None of my grocery stores in town have whole coriander (ooof, I forgot to check the Asian Market, I will check there). That is the reason I backed off the coriander some because I knew the ground would be overwhelming. When grinding whole coriander in a mortar and pestle, it is meant to go into a beer.
I used US05 for “primary fermentation.”
This beer is in my kegerator with 12 PSI attached to it and I’m waiting patiently for this one to carb. I didn’t need this one for an even like I had the hoppy sour beer slated for.
Going back to my Busty Porter recipe I brewed at the first of this year and my other robust porter recipes, the Busty Porter was just stuff I had sitting around at home because it was not my normal porter recipe. Well, this time I made sure I had everything. This is also going to be one of the quickest turn-around on a beer I’ve ever done. I brewed this beer exactly 2 weeks before the event. Racked to the keg after being in the fermenter for 11 days, thew it in the kegerator, and used the Blichman QuickCarb the next day to carb this puppy up. I pushed this beer through Strange Brew Coffeehouse House Blend beans to have a coffee porter at the event. It turned out pretty good for such a quick turnaround beer. Would I normally do this? No, not really, but I’ve had a lot going on lately at the house (ahem, bathroom reno). This is why I went back to the cooler mash tun instead of my direct fired mash tun. I have everything stored away right now. The direct fired isn’t very portable right now, which this is something I need to change.
But why did I brew 8 gallons? Well, before I started my boil, I pulled off some wort. A friend wanted to make pastrami and wanted to braise it in beer. I suggested braising it in sweet unhopped wort. I suggested this when braising the meat you wouldn’t make the wort more bitter while letting it break down the fats. I thought this was a really cool idea. The final product was really good and interesting. I think beer wort has some potential to do some really creative things in the kitchen.
