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English Old Ale and "sour worting".

Post #1 made 11 years ago
by Rick
The recipe being brewed is Old Treacle Mine from BCS, so I can't really post my file until we figure out how to discuss those recipes legally. We'll have to work around that.

I have this on deck to brew next week, and I've chosen to ferment with Nottingham as it is one of the options listed. I want to have an Erlenmeyer flask and stir plate before I get into liquid yeasts, so hopefully the Notty will produce good results.

I will add the optional 1oz of oak (probably French to keep it subtle) in secondary, and I do plan to reserve 2L of unhopped wort for the partial souring.

The past few days I've been searching and reading everything that I can about the sour worting process, just wanted to know if anyone here has experience with it.

So far as I can tell,

- choose vessel with low head space (I will use 2L growler).
- toss in a handful of unmilled(?) base grain, rack onto that to expose wort (unhopped?) to lacto and brett on the husk. Maybe purge with CO2?
- add airlock or foil
- Keep the temp high via heating pad wrapped around vessel, target is 110-120F for 48hrs?
- wait until it's nicely sour yet clean
- pasteurize at 170F
- add back to beer (I'm guessing in small increments to reach desired character)

1. I'm not sure what the OG will reduce to for the sour portion, so do I ferment before adding it back ... or just let the main batch take care of it?
2. This beer is 1.093 OG, unhopped wort will be lower obviously, but is this too high to be souring in the first place? If the effect is going to be masked by the high gravity I may not even bother.
3. Advice is VERY welcome, I really would like to do this properly .. even if dosing with pure lacto proves to be a better idea. I simply don't know enough about this, just going off Jamil's recommendation in the book for the general style. Whether it's feasible for this recipe, I have no clue.

*I do not want to enter this into a homebrew competition.
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Post #2 made 11 years ago
by mally
I have done a few sour mash experiments here.

Can be hit or miss whether you get sour, but it is definitely good fun to do!
I don't have BCS so obviously cannot comment on the recipe or the method.

Have you used nottingham before?
I don't want to put you off, but I have tried it once and am not sure whether I would use it again (just thought I would mention it).

If you are not using the yeast again then you could just mix in the soured portion (better if still active I guess).
Last edited by mally on 25 Sep 2014, 03:15, edited 1 time in total.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #3 made 11 years ago
by Rick
Excellent, very helpful link mally thanks! I'll essentially be doing a smaller variation of what you did, and won't bother boiling the reserved soured portion.

I'll definitely not be using the yeast again (being very high gravity, theoretically the yeast should be stressed). I don't plan to mix the soured portion until secondary though ... so that wouldn't be an issue anyway.

As for nottingham, nope .. I have never used it or sampled a beer fermented with it (knowingly).

I'm kinda stuck with dry yeast right now (house hunting still), and have enough S04 in stock to ferment everything separately if you think that would be a better option for this. It's not on the list of recommended yeast strains in BCS, not sure why.
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Post #4 made 11 years ago
by mally
I have never used S-04 either :scratch:

Could you use Nottingham in a small batch of something you are familiar with before this one, or are you tied to this brew now?
Like I said, I don't want to put you off Nottingham, but I used it on "Hashie's Speckled Hen" and it ended up tasting like a kit brew (so my dad drank all that)! The weird think was that he thought it was really nice, so I could only put it down to me being sensitive to the yeast?

You will have quite a few new things going on, that if it turns out excellent or really bad you wouldn't know where to attribute it (if that is worthwhile for you)?

When you say you
Rick wrote:won't bother boiling the reserved soured portion
, do you mean boiling before adding bugs, or boiling before adding to main batch? You wouldn't want to add unboiled soured wort to your main batch. (just checking here).
Last edited by mally on 25 Sep 2014, 15:38, edited 1 time in total.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #5 made 11 years ago
by Rick
I meant before adding to the main batch. Is pasteurizing at 170 not enough? All of the information I found suggested this step to kill the bugs, didn't see anything about boiling it, but I will do that if need be.

I just assumed it was small enough a batch to where DMS and such might not matter.
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Post #6 made 11 years ago
by mally
Yep, pasteurising should kill the bugs (I think that was what Louis Pasteur discovered) :lol:

I thought you were going to tip the "bug juice" straight into the main batch without any treatment.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #7 made 11 years ago
by Rick
mally wrote:Yep, pasteurising should kill the bugs (I think that was what Louis Pasteur discovered) :lol:

I thought you were going to tip the "bug juice" straight into the main batch without any treatment.

Naww, I made that pretty clear in the first post. :headhit:
Last edited by Rick on 25 Sep 2014, 20:15, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #8 made 11 years ago
by Rick
I've been reading up on Nottingham, and I can't say that I'm pleased with my findings (thanks mal!). I'm definitely committed to making this beer next week.

Wyeast1028 or WLP013 are the main recommendations, so I'll look into those now.

I wanted to wait until I got a nice setup for starters, but really I'd much rather do a simple starter with a yeast I have a greater chance of liking rather than relying on notty.
Last edited by Rick on 26 Sep 2014, 21:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #9 made 11 years ago
by mally
Good luck Rick,

I can't say I have any experience of those yeasts either, so keep the thread updated with any findings, if you can?
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #10 made 11 years ago
by Rick
Will do mally.

As for the Nottingham, my friend Josh indirectly works for Iron Hill Brewing, and he scored me some ingredients for a simple English ale. I will give the yeast a test run on that, eventually.
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Post #11 made 11 years ago
by Rick
More reading and more reading.

Now I'm leaning toward boiling the wort post souring. #1, mally mentioned it so I started paying closer attention. The pasteurizing method I've seen in forum posts, but boiling from mally and from The Mad Fermentationist in these posts ...

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... bruin.html
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... -sour.html

Boiling it is! Simply for no other reason that I see this method more often in my searches. Also, it seems to go an extra step to ensure bugs are killed with not much more effort. Win/win.

Also, I can't confirm this ... but Wyeast 1028 or WLP013 is said to be what Avery uses in their Old Jubilation Ale. It has popped up on a few occasions. Although, there is no consistency on their homebrew recipes page.

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... opic=753.0 (2nd post)
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2195" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... -ale-clone

From what I know of Avery, they are very generous with information when asked directly. I can only assume BYO contacted them.

General consensus seems to be that forum people like these two strains, so factoring in the admittedly loose connections I was able to make to one of my favorite breweries, I am sold enough to trust the BCS primary yeast recommendation.

Now, for fermenting the soured wort, I may use brett for that. Still kinda mulling that over. Brew day is set for this Friday, depending on weather ... so I have time yet.

Another thing I have not been very clear with, I will be taking the unhopped wort from about 5 minutes into the boil. Boil will be 90 minutes, and my only hop addition during the boil is at 60.
Last edited by Rick on 29 Sep 2014, 21:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #12 made 11 years ago
by Rick
Brew day went great on Friday!

Target was 1.093, ended up .75L low @ 1.097, so I diluted.

Soured portion is also going well. This morning I started noticing that creamed corn smell, so I'll have to give it a taste later today.

The main batch, I had to make a tough decision. I had to leave for the weekend, and pitching temperature was still about 10 degrees high at the point I had to leave. This was no-chill in the kettle over night. So this is a bit of a hail mary, pitched my starter @ 81F and hoping the fridge got the temperature down before the yeast did anything naughty.

Not happy about it, but in the end it's just beer ... and I had to be somewhere. I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best, and plan a bit better next time.
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Post #13 made 11 years ago
by Rick
Ha, just came home and my fermenter blew up. I only had 5G in a 6.5G bucket (with fermcap), and still. Not too much came out of the airlock, surprisingly. This prompted me to take a gravity reading, down to 1.032 already and still bubbling like mad after cleaning/putting it all back together.

Temp was right on 70F, so a bit hotter than I wanted (68F).

Tasting the hydro sample resolved any worry about pitching temperature, because it was amazing. Already has an oak quality to it, which is a desired ester characteristic of WLP013. I dunno, I can't think too much about the flavors so soon, but I'm not worried about the initial pitching temperature anymore. If anything went off, I'd surely taste it considering a bulk of the fermentation has taken place.

Update/Edit:

I also tasted the soured portion, wow ... it's actually sour. I know the creamed corn won't carry through to the final product, so I had to taste through it a bit. 3 days total. I wanted to push this step further to see how sour I could get it, but ...

I then decided to filter and boil it for 30 minutes, then was left with a fairly clean tasting sweet and sour wort after it chilled. I just dumped it all in! This will be my baseline for future batches.
Last edited by Rick on 07 Oct 2014, 05:56, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #14 made 11 years ago
by mally
Sounds like it is all coming together nicely!

If you want to get into sour beers in general (Rodenbach, Cantillon etc). You will have to start looking at Pediococcus & Lactobacillus fermenting (preferably with Brettanomyces too).
You have to be ready for the long haul with these though. They typically blend batches of 1, 2, and 3 year old brews.
I have an 18 month sour that I keep thinking I should bottle.

I have posted this before, but here is a pic from over a year ago showing the brett pellicle.
drie fonteinen 1.jpg
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Last edited by mally on 07 Oct 2014, 14:46, edited 1 time in total.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
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Post #15 made 11 years ago
by Rick
I'm super jealous, that looks amazing. I've been wanting to do a Flanders Red for some time now.

I don't want to chance any sour disasters, so I have that on the back burner until I move.
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Post #16 made 10 years ago
by mally
Well, just to update the pic above...

It seems to be growing a brain!! :argh:
nov 2014.jpg
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Last edited by mally on 05 Nov 2014, 18:18, edited 1 time in total.
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain

Post #18 made 10 years ago
by Rick
Cracked open my first one of these. Perfectly carbonated after 2 weeks, how 'bout that.

I'm pleased with this recipe, although it's such a huge beer that I really can't detect much of the souring. Treacle flavor really pops through the most, and the oak is very subtle just as planned.

Great brew, will make this my "go to" winter seasonal. Although, I do want to experiment this same process with a lighter variation (i.e. Theakston Old Peculier) quite soon.

I've been drinking many Old Ale's since brewing this. Avery Old Jubilation, Founders Curmudgeon, Old Peculier, North Coast Old Stock ('13). I've enjoyed all of those, but the Curmudgeon I felt was the best of the lot. I also have a bottle of this year's Bruery Sucre waiting for a special occasion.

Mine held up to the pro examples quite nicely, although it's a bit sweeter than I would like. 1.022 is the upper end of FG for the style, and mine finished at 1.026. Next time I'll be sure to swap out some of the base malt with some turbinado. Minor gripe I have, not even mad.
Last edited by Rick on 25 Nov 2014, 22:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #19 made 10 years ago
by Rick
As usual, I post the labels I make for my beers ...
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Post #20 made 10 years ago
by mally
Great label Rick.

Just up the ABV slightly and you will win at Fegleys next time for sure!
G B
I spent lots of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered
I've stopped drinking, but only when I'm asleep
I ONCE gave up women and alcohol - it was the worst 20 minutes of my life
    • SVA Brewer With Over 100 Brews From Great Britain

Post #21 made 10 years ago
by Rick
mally wrote:Great label Rick.

Just up the ABV slightly and you will win at Fegleys next time for sure!

:lol:

I have what will eventually be a 10%ABV imperial IPA in the fermenter right now, haha. Might as well perfect my nuclear option, just in case I decide to enter next year again.
Last edited by Rick on 26 Nov 2014, 22:50, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #23 made 10 years ago
by Rick
BDP wrote:Your labels are a real work of art, Rick. Thanks for sharing :salute: .

Cheers
Thanks BDP!

I'm working on the next label, and this previous one has proven difficult to follow up.
Last edited by Rick on 28 Nov 2014, 04:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #24 made 10 years ago
by Rick
mally, I used that Nottingham on a session IPA that was brewed along side the Imperial IPA. You're right, I hate the yeast .. heh. Glad you talked me out of it.

I fermented it pretty low in temp 16C/62F, and it's still pretty ester-y. It's drinkable and pleasant enough, somewhat clean, but not anywhere near US05. I don't look forward to drinking more of that. The esters remind me of stinky feet wrapped in bread, that's how I would put it ... but it's very faint. My friends like the beer, so that is all that matters.

The bready qualities I've gotten from S04 and WLP013 were very pleasing, this ... not so much.

Also, since you posted your sour in here ... I feel like it's a great place to mention. I picked up a book called "American Sour Beers", written by the guy who runs Mad Fermentationist blog. I expected a slim book with beginner level information in this price point, but it's quite extensive with many pages. I hope to have a sour of my own aging very soon!
Last edited by Rick on 19 Dec 2014, 21:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #25 made 10 years ago
by Rick
One thing, I wish US05 flocculated as well as Notty ... this stuff is painted to the bottom of my bottles.
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