Funkadelic Mastery part 4: Easy Sour (not funky beer) Torrid Liaison Recipe

Your friends may react a little when they
first try a good sour beer.

So, in our last episode we talked about the easy way to make a brettanomyces fermented beer by just pitching commercial dregs.  But brettanomyces yeast is not sour, it is funky, and peculiar, but not sour.  100% brett yeast produces very little acid.  That is the very reason so many commercial brett yeasts are actually blends of brett and bacteria.  So what do we do to make a truly sour beer?   A mouth puckering delicious beer?

Well, for that we have to turn to bacteria.   Yes, bacteria.   I know that the word bacteria is kinda scary.   You have been taught, you have read,and it has been instilled in your very being to avoid bacteria.  Bacteria is after all an infection, right?  Well, not really.  In an earlier post I stated that an infection is a biological process that is unwanted.  If you want that biological process, it's not an infection, it's just a mixed fermentation.   Mixed fermentation is a term that means, more than one yeast or bacteria is active and fermenting the beer.

"Ok, you did it again, just when I was starting to think you weren't bat sh!t crazy, you went and said something crazy again"  Calm down my occasional and somewhat loyal readers.   I am not advocating using bacteria for most of your fermentation.  Only when you intentionally want a truly sour beer.    If you don't want to drink sour beers, well then... go watch a cat video.

A beautiful pellicle has formed on this beer.

A big part of brewing sour beer is understanding that some sour beer is made with beneficial bacteria. Bacteria is neither good nor bad, it just is.  Bacteria helps make cheese, and yogurt.  Without bacteria you would not enjoy Kim-chi, pickles, or sauerkraut.   So bacteria is/are pretty cool stuff.

Bacteria are single celled micro organisms.  They are the most prolific life form on the planet. This is their world, we're just squirrels looking for a nut. There are about 40 Billion bacteria cells in a tablespoon of dirt from your backyard.  Bacteria survive by consuming, sunlight, inorganic materials (minerals), and organic materials (sugars, proteins, etc.) . Bacteria multiply by dividing.  Generally into two cells (binary fission).    We are only concerned about the bacteria that consume organic materials (Organotrophs).

The two main bacterias (by the way it is bacteria, not bacterias, bacteria is already plural) we are concerned with as brewers are; Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus.   And for the purpose of this post we are really focused on lactobacillus.   Pediococcus will be covered in another post at a later date, on "true mixed fermentation the hard way".

Lactobacillus is a bacteria that consumes sugars and turns them into acids.  Specifically Lactobacillus turns sugars into lactic acid.  It can also produce some alcohol.  But be warned.  Lactobacillus is fast to make lactic acid, and slow to make alcohol.  So attempting to ferment 100% with lacto is probably not the best idea.  I say probably, because I have never tried it.   But I know that the madfermentationist tried it and he felt the results were less than stellar.

"Ok fancy boy, we get it... lactobacillus makes things sour... so what? what does that do for me?"

Fair question.  Well, first ask yourself, do you like sour beer? Again if you don't there are hundreds of great cat videos you could be watching.    If you do enjoy sour beer, well then I am going to show you an easy way to make a sour at home.  And this is a sour where you can control the amount of pucker you want, from the beer, from a gentle sourness, all the way to a bracing pucker.

The easy sour method. Sour wort process for a 2 gallon batch of beer.  There is an awesome video of this process at basicbrewing on youtube.  If you haven't checked out basic brewing, you should.  James and Steve do an excellent job.

• Make the wort
• Add room temperature water to chill the wort to 120 f 
• You're trying to collect a little over 2 gallons of wort.  
• Add 8 ounces of 2 row malt un-milled
• Allow to sit for 30 minutes.
• Transfer wort to 1 gallon jugs filled all the way to the top
• Hold wort at 110 to 120 f for  24 - 72 hours
• How?  A box with a space heater and a temp controller, an electric smoker, a heating pad. your oven with a heat light.  or just try to keep it pretty warm as you can for a little longer.  There are guys that just go 4 or 5 days at 80 to 90.
• How Long? Well how sour do you want it?  For a mild sour, leave it for 8 - 24 hours.  For a more intense sour leave it for 72.
• After souring period, transfer to boil kettle boil for 15 minutes. adding hops.
• We don't want to lose too much wort to evaporation.  
• If you want to make a more bitter beer, you can add a hop tea to add the bitterness.
• Chill the wort, as normal. 
• Transfer to fermenter
• Pitch yeast
• Ferment
• Package

That is how easy it is to make a sour beer at home.   And here is my favorite recipe for sour at home.

Torrid Liaison - Sour Blonde

2.5 gallons of wort
2.0 gallons after souring
1.875 gallons after fermentation
1.045 OG
1.004 FG
16 IBU

2.5#   of Pilsner
0.8 #  of Vienna
0.3#   of C40
0.3#   of Carapilsner
0.5# of any base malt.

0.2 ounces Centennial at 15
0.2 ounces Cascade at 5
.02 ounces Cascade at 0

US 05

Dough into 1.5 gallons of  162.5 F water. Mash at 152 F for 1 hour.  This is a single step mash.   Add a mixture of cool and room temperature water to get the mash to 120 F.  You should have added about 1.6 gallons of water.   If you haven't added enough to have 2.5 gallons, you'll need to add more water. (Hint, heat it to 120 F before you add it!)  Add 0.5 # of base malt and let it sit for half of an hour.   Then pull the bag, squeeze, and transfer into two 1 gallon glass jugs.   I always have a 1/2 gallon growler around too, just in case I have extra.  Fill the jugs to the very top before you put the air locks on. Now,  use a heating pad, or a fermentation chamber, or an electrical blanket to hold the temperature between 110 F, and 120 F.    Hold it at this temperature for 2 to 4 days.    After the sour rest, pour the contents of the two 1 gallon fermenters into the boil kettle. Immediately add your centennial hops.  Bring to a boil. You'll only be boiling for 15 minutes.  Follow the hop schedule. the boil kills off any active Lactobacillus.  From here on out it is just like a normal fermentation.  Chill, and ferment as usual.   The beer will ferment quickly.  It is a low gravity beer.  It will finish Low and strong.   I ferment this in a 4 gallon plastic bucket I got at Walmart from the bakery.  And this beer will be ready quickly.  There is no reason to extend fermentation, or to age this beer.  Make, package, consume, repeat.  I also hoped you noticed there is no fining agent in this beer, I prefer it hazy.  But if you like, you could clear it up with some gelatin.

Here is the best news.  Most of your brewing gear will be sanitary, including your fermenter.  There is no active lacto going into anything other than the 1 gallon jugs.  They are made of glass and are easy to sanitize.  Just put them in the oven at 160 F for an hour.  Turn off and let them cool.  The air locks are the only part of this system that will need to be for sour only.   Pretty cool, huh?

That's all for now.  I think Mark and I are going to brew this up this week.  Although we have the gear to do a 3 gallon version of this recipe, so we may do that.

Wishing you all peace, and good beer!

Funkadelic Mastery; Part 3: The easiest way to make a funky sour Brett beer.

This is not the secret dog skull society of sour brewing.
It is all just common sense.

What I am about to share with you is not a carefully guarded government secret.  It is not some arcane mystical rite.   You are not joining a secret fraternity. There will be no initiation ceremony. Sour brewing is all about common sense and sanitation.   You will not need a goat, a bat's heart, worms wood or wolf's bane... well OK, you won't need wolf's bane but you will need wolf's bine (get it?).

There are brewers who make sour beer brewing seem like it is the most advanced of all of our brewing processes.   There are sour beer brewers who would love for you to believe that if you want to make sours, you had better get an advanced degree in micro biochemistry.  These are the same ninnies who try to make all grain brewing difficult, and the exact same guys who tell you that you absolutely must fly sparge, or use only certain water salts.   They are ass hats, and they are wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth.    

Today, I will show you the easiest way to make a sour beer.  It is, in fact, a nearly fool proof method for making a sour beer.   But first a reminder, the yeast and bacteria you will be working with are just yeast and bacteria.  There is every reasonable chance that standard cleaning and sanitation practices will keep your brewery and brew gear clean.   There is also the very real chance that your cleaning and sanitation practices are not as clean and sanitary as you imagine.  Therefore,  here at counterbrew, we treat all sours as if they were contaminates. Delicious, funky contaminates, but contaminates never the less.  So when we brew / ferment a sour or funky beer,  we take some precautions.   

• Wash your hands
• The fermentation vessel you use for sours should only be used for sours (unless it is smooth glass) not rimmed glass, smooth!
• Sour beers should never ferment in the same fermentation chamber as other beers.  
• Wash your hands
• Sour beers should ferment in a separate space from your clean beers, mine are over 20 feet away.  so far no unwanted infections.  
• Yes, I know the chances of wild spores coming through the air and infecting other batches is incredibly minuscule.   I also know that by putting the sours in another area you think about cleanliness before and after you handle them.  And that is the real key.  
• You should use separate racking and bottling equipment for sour beers.  Clearly label them for the sour beer production.
• Wash your hands
• Brettanomyces is yeast.  Star San does not kill yeast.  No rinse sanitizer does not kill yeast. Iodophor does not really kill yeast.  Camden and KMeta will kill yeast.  But so does cheap bleach.
• Use a mild bleach solution to clean up spills, the outside of fermenters etc... I even clean my sour equipment with mild bleach solution.   10 parts water 1 part bleach, then I rinse the hell out of them.   I store my sour stuff in a plastic bag.  So that I don't inadvertently touch it and thereby infect my other stuff.
• Wash your hands

If you have followed these procedures, you will give your self the best chance at avoiding an unwanted inoculation, i.e. infection.

So now, on to the easiest way to make a sour beer.   Are you ready... You sure?   I'll wait if you need to get a note pad, or some popcorn or something.    By the way, waiting and patience are major themes of sour beer brewing. Many sours take over a year to ferment. If you're not down for that, I'll show you some tricks to make speedy sours.

OK... here we go. Here is the secret process the ninny beer nerds don't want you to know.   Make a regular beer, ferment it as you normally ferment (unless you are fermenting in your sour bucket, in which case don't put it near your clean beer) and then after fermentation transfer it into your sour bucket,  pitch the dregs of a favorite sour or funky commercial beer.   That's it. That is all it takes.  Make beer, pitch Brett/bacteria dregs, wait a while and boom! You have sour beer.

So what beer should you make? "Are there any special guidelines or advice on making the beer?" Yes, there are some guidelines, but they are just guidelines.   You can truly do what you want to do.  Here are some guide lines.

• If you are an all grain brewer, mash higher than normal.  Mid to high 150s F. (High 60s C)
• You want more long chain sugars, trust me, the Brett will break them down.  
• If you are an extract brewer, add some long chain sugars i.e. dextrin (maltodexterin).

You can take it from there. You can even make a dry fermented beer, like a highly attenuative saison. Just ferment it out all the way,  add some maltodexterin dissolved in boiled h2o, and then add the brett dregs. The brett will work on the maltodeterin for months and create the funky taste profile you are seeking.

Well, check the list and buy a beer
that you love.  Don't drink the last 1"
of the beer.  Pitch it into your sour. 

So what dregs should you use?   This is actually the bigger question in my mind.  What dregs can you get a hold of that are still viable?  What dregs are not pasteurized?  For that we turn again to the a great source, www.themadfermentationist.com .   Mike keeps a list of sour beers that are not pasteurized.   My personal favorites are Boulevard Love Child Dregs, and Boulevard Saison Brett Dregs.   But, I am partial to Boulevard, and I live in the KC area, so they are readily available to me year round.  By the way, www.milkthefunk.com is another great resource, more on that in our next post.

"Can I use commercial Brett/lacto/bacteria strains to get the same result?   Yes, yes you can.    Wyeast makes several that I love.   #5112 Brettanomyces bruxellensis™ , #5526 Brettanomyces lambicus™, and # 3763 - Roeselare Ale Blend.  I will admit that I haven't used White Labs for sours yet.  This past weekend, we pitched a starter made with Chimera by Imperial yeast into an un-fermented Hennepin (saison) wort.  It is low attenuation Belgian saccromyces, lacto, brett L and brett C.  Can't wait to try that in 9 months to a year.  Should be great beer for next spring / summer.  Yes, spring or summer.  It really does take time to make a great sour beer.  But, the good news is that it takes way less time when you are pitching on to a previously fermented beer.   Those are generally ready in 3 to 6 months.  

"Should I save and culture my sour dregs?"  No, no you should not. Or perhaps I should say, not yet. Get some experience with sours before you start culturing.  I know guys do this.  And I know some have success with it.  But my experience is, these strains mutate quickly. It is just not worth the risk of handling these strains more.  We are trying to keep sour beer easy.   When they are done, pour them out.  That is all.  Just pour them out. Wash your hands.  Clean and sanitize with a bleach solution.  Wash your hands.  Rinse, wash your hands.  Mist everything with the bleach solution, and you are done.  And then, wash your hands.  Do not touch any of your other beer stuff until you have washed your hands a couple of times.  And hand sanitizer isn't a bad idea either.   If you are really experienced with culturing, and you want to do it, go for it. Just keep it separate from your other cultures.  Eventually, I'll write on culturing dregs.  But let's let the newer guys get comfortable first.

Here is my favorite recipe to make an easy brett sour.

See? making sour and funky beer isn't that hard.  Next time,  I'll write about an easy sour that is ready in weeks, not months.  That should be cool.   Cause, I really need this beer for the summer.   It is the counterbrew sour blonde ale.   Liason Fast Sour!  But I'll explain all of that next week. 

Funkadelic Mastery; Part 2 Setting up for Sour... The easy, affordable way.

Belgian brewer's, the masters of Sour Beer.

So you have decided that you want to get into sour / funky brewing.  Cool.  This is a segment of brewing that is loads of fun, educational, and delicious.   The very best brewers I know, all dabble in Sour / Funky beers.   And it is widely suspected that the very best brewers in the world, the Belgian Lambic Brewers of the "Knighthood of the Brewer's Mash Staff", brew sours exclusively. Their techniques and practices are carefully guarded secrets that are literally handed down from father to son.  

The truth about sour beer is it actually is the older, more traditional process of beer making.  Pure yeast strain brewing has only been with us for about 200 years.  Hops as the predominant flavoring and preservative agent in beer has only been with us for about 600 years.  Beer however has been with us much, much longer.  And before the development of pure yeast, and the advancement of sanitation,  many beers were sour.  Or, to be more accurate, they became sour.  

This beer is insanely good!
English Raspberry Rye
Sour!

Have you heard the term young beer or fresh beer.   What about the term old ale?  These terms refer not only to the age of a beer, but also how long it had been in an oak cask.   In the oak casks the beer took on flavors from the wood, and was acted upon by microbes living in the cask.   You are probably aware of Belgium's important place in sour beer production.  You undoubtedly know that America is pioneering amazing sour beers.  But did you know England also has a rich history with Strong Sour Ales?

So getting into this realm of brewing is embracing the total history of brewing.  It makes you a better brewer because it makes you think about what the microbes are doing,  and what you want them to do.   It teaches you patience.  Some of the beer's you'll make won't be ready for years.   Yes, years.  But the reward of opening a beer you brewed 3 or 4 years ago, is unlike any other reward in home brewing.   

I ferment, and bottle right from the
same bucket.  In truth, I made my own
so that I could put the spigot higher,
and not pick up any trub at all.

OK, I'm in.  I won't brew sours all the time, but I'd like to make them occasionally.  So what do I need?  If you are a home brewer, you already have almost everything you need.  But you will need a couple more items.   You will need a dedicated fermenter / bottling bucket,  The idea that brettanomyces can not be removed and cleaned out of a fermenter is absurd.  The idea that it takes a lot more work than it is worth to go to that level of sanitation... is not absurd.   So for your 5 gallon batches go get a 6.5 gallon bottling bucket with a lid. And never scratch the inside of it or use abrasive cleaners, or cleaning gear.  The lid should have a hole and a grommet for an air lock.  You will need a length of tubing the same size as your bottling tubing, and you will need a separate bottling wand.   That is it.  That is all you need for 5 gallon batches of funky beer.

Barnyard Funkadelic
a sour mash beer.

For sour beers (not necessarily funky)  I promote the practice of mash souring, or wort souring. These beers can be fermented and packaged like any other beer.  The lactobacillus and pediococcus die in the boil. (more on that later)  But you will probably want 2 or 3  one gallon jugs for souring your wort.   

That is really everything you need.  See?  It isn't that bad.  You will also want some pH strips, or a separate pH meter for checking the wort as it sours, and/or the beer as it ferments.   Do not use your standard pH meter.   Remember the first post, treat everything in sour beer like a potential contaminate.  You never use a pH meter for sour, then clean it and reuse it for standard beer.  Why?  Because it could infect your beer.  Will it infect your beer?   Probably not, but it could.  So just don't mix the two.  Treat everything in sour brewing this way.   Everything except stainless steel equipment.  Your thermometers, your spoons can be cleaned adequately to be used across all batches.  Everything that is used in sour / funky beer production is marked with a permanent magic marker.  Everything, including the air lock.  

I generally have 1 batch of funky beer going at all times.  I even use a Mr. Beer Little Brown Keg, for small batch sours (I seal the lid). When the beer is ready to be bottled, I know it is time to make more.   I often just pitch right on top of the yeast cake.   Yes, the yeast mutates and changes faster than pure ale strains.  That is part of the fun.  The second batch will taste different than the first batch.  

In general I do not recommend kegging funky beers at home.  If you choose to keg, use the same tubing and keg every single time.  Kettle sour, mash sour, and wort sour beers that are boiled before fermentation can be kegged like any other beer.   But really,  why would you keg a sour beer at home.  Bottle it up. Age some of it, revisit it later.  Maybe even years later.  That is part of the fun.  

Funkadelic Mastery; Getting into Sour and Funky Beers... A new feature on Counterbrew.

There are few experiences as a beer
drinker that compare to a well made
oak aged sour beer.

Ok, first off, the title is kinda silly.  You can never really master sour and funky beers.  That is kind of the point of funky and sour beers.  They are a bit wild, and when you make a sour beer, or a funky beer you are there to serve the needs of the yeast / beer.  Think of yourself as a shepherd when you are making these beers.   Keep the flock in the pasture,  keep the flock from grazing other pastures, and give the flock what it needs to flourish.  So mastery, is kind of the wrong term.   Do not attempt to approach them with the same techniques and practices you use when brewing clean ales and lagers.

This is a radically different approach than clean ale or lager brewing.  It also produces radically different results.  And believe it or not, it actually takes more cleaning and sanitation than regular brewing.   Yes, I said it, more, not less.   I know you have all heard that before, but I want to stress the truth of it here and now.   When you deal with sour beers you need to treat them like contaminates. You need to be extra, extra careful with washing your hands, your brew gear, your brewery etc.   Even across the internet,  I hear some of you out there groaning.  Some of you experienced sour guys are rolling your eyes audibly.   Yes, I know it is just yeast and bacteria.  Yes, I know that standard sanitation practices will most likely prevent infection of future clean beers.   But remember this blog targets new and intermediate brewers.  Most of whom are still refining their cleaning and sanitation processes.   So yes, treat sour and funky beer like a contaminate.   Clean and sanitize everything the beer comes in contact with, and use separate racking and bottling gear when making a sour.

Michael Tonsmeire, a great champion of sour beers.

But don't let this scare you off.  I am going to give you four approaches to sour beer that produce great results and which, when used the way I describe,  will prevent infection of your brew gear.   1. Bottle Dregs additions (the easy way to make a sour) 2. Sour Wort procedure 3. Sour mash procedure 4. Mixed yeast (or bacteria) fermentation.   And really, other than capturing your own yeast or open fermentation, which we will do in a later post,  those are the only ways to make sour or funky beer.  We will not be getting into traditional Lambics, or traditional Gueuze.  We will not be learning about turbid mashing techniques.  If you love sours, and want to learn about those techniques I strongly suggest "American Sour Beers"  by Michael Tonsmeire.  It is, in my opinion, the definitive book on sour beers. Michaels website it the hang out spot for us sour beer nerds. Themadfermentationist.com .  If you've never brewed a sour, the website may be a little overwhelming at first. But you'll catch on. And feel free to ask questions. Michael actually answers them.

Blending beer is a blast!

We will eventually be getting into blending sours, and funky beers with other beers to make unique and amazing new creations.   We will be getting into fruit, and the role they play in sour beers.  So this isn't a series as much as it is a new feature.   We will also make a cheaters sour fruit beer.  Something I sometimes do to decrease the time from kettle to glass.   Every sour beer will be bottled.  Not kegged!  Bottle conditioning is important to sours, and part of the fun.   

I have told you all, for the duration of this blog that I do some more advanced brewing, Some sours, some wine blended and wine fermented beers,  some fruit sours, and some oak aged sours.  Now, I'll pull back the curtain and let you all in on how I make these mini masterpieces.   But,  and this is important, we will not be trying to clone the great sour beers you love.   I have found cloning a sour beer is like herding cats.  Frustrating, and a general waste of time.    So one philosophy I embrace about sours, is  to be inspired by a brew, but to never try to clone it exactly.

Here are the general guidelines we will follow.

1. Sour / Funky brewing is about having fun and experiencing new and different flavors.
1. If the extra time and effort are worth it to you, this will be a blast.  if they are not, well then... maybe you shouldn't brew sours.
2. A batch can take 6 months to a year to be ready to bottle
1. It may not peak in the bottle until 6 months to a year later.
2. Sour / Funky beers require extra cleaning
1. Before you brew or handle
2. But especially after you brew or handle the beer.
3. Sour / Funky beers require additional equipment.  
1. I'm sorry but there is no way around this.   You will need at a minimum a separate bottling wand and tubing.  
2. Ill show you how to set up a sour system for minimal expense.
4. Sour / Funky brewing makes you a better brewer of regular beers.
5. Sour / Funky brewing is a great tool to have in your brewing tool box.
1. I ruined a Centennial Blonde with too high of mash temperatures last year.  Remember? I tried Amylase enzyme, and other methods to get the beer to drop beneath 1.014.  To no avail.
2. So I transferred to my sour bucket, and  for a couple of weeks, every time I drank a Boulevard Love Child, I poured in the dregs.   The end result is an amazing golden Brettanomyces beer, that I call "vivid interlude".  

I use 1 bucket for making sours. I bottle
straight from the bucket.

In the next episode we will talk about setting up for sour.  It is easier and more affordable than you may think. All you really need is a dedicated bucket with a spigot, a dedicated wine theif, and a dedicated bottling wand.   We will also talk about the 3 main sour cultures,  Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus.  We will get into our first 2 methods.  1. Bottle Dregs, and 2. Sour Wort.  And I will give you some recipe guidelines for brewing sours.  

Important Note on Safety. Here at counterbrew we do not advocate true wild fermentation. I know it is all the rage now but there are some potentially dangerous pathogens that can make you sick that just love to hang around beer. They don't generally end up in your finished beer, the acidity and alcohol kill them. But they can get on your hands and gear when you are brewing and make you sick. We believe in pitching pure cultures of the yeast or bacteria that you want in your beer. Even if you harvest the yeast yourself, you should take the time to purify the culture. We will get into that in our series on yeast wrangling, in the future (late summer and fall).

Thats all for now Beer Nerds!

Prost!