Take THAT, BJCP style guidelines

[joolbag]

On 2/1/2019 at 9:48 AM, headmaster said:

If not it may take a long time for them to ferment out. 

When you say “a long time” how long do you think? Still pink Krausen. Am going to check gravity on Thursday, 7 days after pitching the raspberries

[headmaster]

I'm not sure but have seen mention of two weeks to a month for mixed fermentation sours that contain Brett, Lacto, Pedio, Sac etc. 

But as you say, freezing does break the fruit cells and make them mushy, so I'd be going with if it tastes good with enough raspberry character, and appears to have reached FG, krausen dropped, then it should be fine to rack off to a bottling vessel. Even if there are still sugars in the berries, you will be only releasing a small amount from whatever is left in the berries through the  action of racking it. 

I have since done some reading about the amount of raspberries recommended for a beer like this, and I think the amount you chose was certainly enough. I have tasted some wild sours from Belgium, like this one  and to be honest it just tasted like alcoholic raspberry juice, and quite expensive at that. There was still some wild funk showing through, but I think too much raspberry. I think they use the equivalent of 5 to 7 kg of berries in this beer talking a 5 gallon or homebrew batch size. 

For a more delicate beer like you are making here, as you probably well know you are only going to need a fraction of that to get a nice colour, subtle and complementary flavour

[joolbag]

Thanks Mark.  I did some research on that beer and 300gm of fresh raspberries per lite of beer!  Wow, extravagant.  No wonder it is so expensive.

 

I checked the FV this morning before work and the pink krausen has dropped.  I can see berries floating on the surface still.  Will take gravity reading shortly, then cold crash.  I expect and hope these raspberries drop into the trub and I can rack reasonably clean beer into my bottling bucket.  I haven't tasted it since I have added fruit, so pretty keen to see the colour, smell the aroma and taste the flavour of my SG sample!

 

Bottling next week, drinking by the end of Feb.  Will bring to March meeting if it is any good!

[headmaster]

Sounds like it's pretty much finished. Should be back to the FG you measured before or even lower. 

The sour beer breweries in the US talk about "punching down" fruit floating on the surface of their big wooden fermantation tanks known as Foeders. They use tools like big potato mashers to sink the fruit (sometimes CO2 bubbles are clinging to the pieces) to try and prevent moulds forming on the fruit poking into the air on the surface. 

My Catharina is tasting good, better than my berliners, I think I like the extra strength of this style. Was at 1010 yesterday, almost finished, krausen dropping fast, will add my frozen passionfruit soon, not sure if I'll do that in primary or rack to secondary just yet. And not sure how much passionfruit pulp to use as well, I don't want to overpower it as we discussed above. I froze approx 1.6kg of pulp from my 6kg of passionfruits. 

[joolbag]

I peeked into my FV as you made me a bit wary of mould now that my krausen has dropped. I could see fruit poking up above the surface but unsure if it was mouldy or clean.

 

As you can see from the pic, it's OK! A few pieces of whole fruit in there so clearly I could have and should have pureed it. Never mind I will try this one and adjust in the future.

 

Hopefully these berries drop in the cold crash.

 

Jools

 

[joolbag]

Couldn't resist. Drew a SG sample to check colour, gravity and taste. TICK, TICK, TICK! As my buddy said to be yesterday "Jools you've been seduced by the sours"

 

Guilty as charged.

 

Colour is radiant, gravity is back down to 1.008 and taste is reminiscent of Wayward Sour Puss. Cold crash and bottling coming up.

[porschemad911]

Looks great Jools! 

[headmaster]

That looks NICE. Making me thirsty! Was a kettlesour beerfest at the ISB club meet last night. I too have been seduced by the sour side...