Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Getting ready to sparge my first ever sour mash. That is one "interesting" smell.

I saw someone refer to it as "clean vomit" (not to be confused with the rank, nasty vomit of clostridium).

I will say, the beagle seems to find it really enticing....



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Half-way through boil, and some of the odor is dissipating. Have to admit, the smell's a bit disconcerting at first.

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You should have been at the tech meeting last night and smelled the Ziva Voda after 5 days in the primary fermenter - I thought we'd just snaked out a sewer line for all the sulfur aroma!

I'm starting my first berliner right now also. Making a lacto culture/starter from wort and raw Rahr 2-row malt currently.

Plan is to very lightly hop with tettnanger, and use US-05 to ferment after kettle souring.

after the culture/starter finishes, I am not sure if I should mash a fresh wort to kettle sour, or if I should use the jug of 50% wheat LME that I have on hand -- think it will make much difference?

I tried this last fall by using some grains to kettle sour it over a couple days at higher temps. Oxygen had to play a negative role in the failure. I boiled it, cooled and pitched. the smell NEVER went away. I associated with an old sweaty jock strap

It never made it into a keg much less a bottle.

czubak wrote:I tried this last fall by using some grains to kettle sour it over a couple days at higher temps. Oxygen had to play a negative role in the failure. I boiled it, cooled and pitched. the smell NEVER went away. I associated with an old sweaty jock strap
It never made it into a keg much less a bottle.

I currently have the starter almost filled to the top, and airlocked to prevent exposure.
Did you do anything to prevent oxygen exposure of the kettle souring? Current options I've seen include
1) saran wrap over the whole kettle
2) saran wrap on the surface of the liquid
3) 'kettle' sour in a purged corney keg

Option 3 seems like it would be pretty darn foolproof

I did #2 with the lid on the kettle and would never put it in a keg to sour after trying to clean this smell out of everything it touched. I disassembled my entire kettle and boiled everything and could still smell hints of it.

No offense, but I will be passing on any kettle soured samples from here forward.

Just don't tell Zubak that it's kettle soured until after he's tried it [emoji13]

whitedj wrote:Just don't tell Zubak that it's kettle soured until after he's tried it [emoji13]

Oh, are you talking about my completely clean store bought lacto cultured sour beer?

whitedj wrote:Just don't tell Zubak that it's kettle soured until after he's tried it [emoji13]

I assume others will have better luck than myself. If it's anything like mine I will smell the nasty before it hits my lips. I may try it again someday when I make time to learn more about sours

Well, step one successful, 3-day lacto starter from raw grain has almost no discernible aroma at all, and no flavor aside from lactic acid. (I kept it completely protected from oxygen and pre-acidified it to below pH 4.0 )

Kettle sour looking good so far.
Did a stopvetop BIAB mash (loving this ANOVA for BIAB mashing) of 6lb white wheat, 7lb pilsen, 11gal filtered/softened water, and some acid for pH. Ended up with 10Gal of 1.044, pH 5.6, massively overshooting my expected efficiency (targeted 70, got 86+).
PItched 2L of grain lacto culture that I kept in the fridge for a few days till ready, covered with plastic wrap, purged with CO2, and put in the temp chamber at 110.
After 24 hours, pH was down to 3.4/3.5, which was not sufficiently tart -- the target should be 3.0-3.2 from what I read, and a lactic addition to the sample to bring it down to that pH seemed to taste about right, so giving it another day.

Always go by taste when evaluating sourness. The pH can be misleading.

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It wouldn't drop under 3.3 at the 72 hour mark (I don't think it was sour enough, but there's sugar, and no CO2, so hard to tell). I decided "whatever" and did a quick boil with 3or 4 IBU of tettnang, diluted them down to the stylistic max of 1.035 and pitched heavy on US05. Hopefully I'll have 10 gallons of good mild sour in a week, and I can always add more lactic if really necessary -- at least it will have the character of a live culture.

Might experiment with some dry hopping on part of it -- any suggestions?

Mosaic