Kviek Sour Ale

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Looking to do a simple sour ale. Never done a sour before except for my flanders red which is 2 months in the fermenter. I have been looking around on the methods people use from the kettle sour to the cube sour to the use of acid or acid malt to sour. Seeing as I am going to use my oldest fermenter to bottle my flanders red in a few months and then not use it again for anything other than bacterial bottling I am thinking to just use it as a fermenter for bacterial as well. So the plan is to do a normal batch to 5 IBU. Fast chill to 35c. Pitch a 1lt starter of kviek and 4 IBS tablets ( lacto plantarum) and hold the ferment at 35c. Then a dry hop at the end.

The things I am unsure about is

1. Will the kviek out compete the lacto and ill be waiting ages to get decent sour?

2. I'm not killing the lacto like the kettle sour or cube sour so will it continue to fermentin the bottle?

Any help from experienced sour brewers would be great.

Cheers

[ben 10]

Sorry i missed this... how did it go?

On 7/31/2020 at 8:05 PM, Greeny1525229549 said:

1. Will the kviek out compete the lacto and ill be waiting ages to get decent sour?

2. I'm not killing the lacto like the kettle sour or cube sour so will it continue to fermentin the bottle?

I would have said yes to both of these.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Went ahead with this this afternoon/evening though I have changed it around a bit.

27L Rain Water

3kg pale malt 

0.5kg wheat malt

0.5kg Acid Malt

Mashed at 65c for 60 mins then added the acid malt. Was 5.2ph  pre the acid addition. The acid took it to 4.4.

Boil for 60 with Irish moss at 10 and 10gm Rock salt. Then cubed overnight.

Tomorrow morning will add 4 IBS tablets ( lacto plantarum) and a 3 week old slurry of kviek. Looking to pitch and hold around 32c. From my research the lack of IBU will allow the lacto free reign and hopefully will hit ~3.4ph after 24-36 hours. I will take ph readings every 6 hours to see how it is going.

Once it hits 3.4 will do a stovetop boil of 30gm lemondrop hops with 15gm coriander seed and the rind of 1 lemon. Strain and cool and pitch into the fermenter. Also adding a 20gm lemondrop dry hop at this stage as well. The IBU should stop the lacto in its tracks ( so I am told ) and halt any more ph drop. Wait till the kviek finishes then cold crash and bottle. 

See how she goes

[ben 10]

17 minutes ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

The IBU should stop the lacto in its tracks

interesting

what ibu r u predicting and how the fffffff did you werk it out?

[MitchBastard]

Won’t the boil halt the lacto and pH drop regardless of hop additions or not ? 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by MitchBastard

[ben 10]

he's not boiling it again

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

21 hours ago, Ben 10 said:

interesting

what ibu r u predicting and how the fffffff did you werk it out?

I am aiming for around 10-15 but its a guessing game with a small boil. When I was doing extracts i never found a calculator to predict it. I will be doing the boil in lower gravity wort to help with the utilisation but the boil will only be 5 litres so that will affect utilisation as well. 30 grams boiled for 60 mins in 5 litres gives 149 theoretical IBU for 3.5 litres output. In 23 litres that will be 22 IBU but i will lose some with the small boil so I figure that will bring me somewhere mid teens.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

21 hours ago, Ben 10 said:

interesting

what ibu r u predicting and how the fffffff did you werk it out?

From milk the funk.

"Lactobacillus plantarum has proven to be the most successful species for kettle souring because it produces acidity very quickly, and it is not as vulnerable to temperature shifts, although using any hops will usually completely prevent this species from producing lactic acid."

I read the same thing in other sites. I guess I will see if its true or not.

My first ph check was 4.2. Checking later on to see if it moved more and will check in the morning then. The kviek is certainly going. It has about an 8cm Krausen.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Reading last night was 4.1 so it had dropped very little in the evening.q This morning at 3.9 so it is dropping albeit a little more slowly than I was expecting. At 11am will be the 24 hour mark so will take another reading then. 

Sample tasted interesting. Can definitely taste the sour coming but pretty weak at the moment.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Coming along great. Sample taken at 24 hour mark has it down to 3.7. So its dropped from 4.4 to 3.7 in 24 hours. So it is working well with the kviek yeast. The gravity reading is 1.030 which is from an OG of 1.048 so the kviek is dropping the sugars nicely as well. Tasting the sample the sour is more prominent now as well albeit masked by the sugars that are still there. 

 

[ben 10]

I'd say it will keep getting sour but really how bad can it be?
I ferment my Flanders for 5 to 6 months. My Berliner is going to be similar and it's not an issue.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Yeah I think you might be right mate. Looking at how it works it really levels off anyway.