mirthfuldragon
Well-Known Member
I jumped in on the 2018 12 Beers of Christmas exchange, and I ended up with a crabapple lambic from Randy Mosher's "Radical Brewing". I saw a copy of the base recipe - 44.5% pilsner, 44.5% wheat malt, 11% munich - straightforward enough. I plan to get it started in the next couple of week or two now that the weather isn't horrible and I can brew outside. My plan is a 12 gallon, batch, split it three ways for primary fermentation (2, 5, and 5) , then consolidate the smaller to a pair of 6.5 gallon carboys after primary. I was going to pitch Wyeast 3278 Lambic blend, and then add sour dregs to one of them and see how they develop. I figure I will rack on to crabapples an/or cranberries ~6-8 weeks before bottling, and use champagne yeast to carbonate.
Now comes the part where I fall down the rabbit hole. I'm halfway through American Sours Beers and have been through Milk the Funk forums and wiki. I understand the concept behind turbid mashing, but it is not something I want to try the first time out, so that leaves torrified wheat, flaked wheat, and white and red wheat malt as my options. I have used flaked wheat and white wheat before. I use a BIAB so rice hulls should not be an issue. I figure on mashing high, 156-158, to keep plenty of dextrins for the brett to chew on.
I am also worried about it finishing in time to rack to fruit and then bottle before Christmas - so I have eight months. I have access to Jolly Pumpkin dregs, which are supposedly very aggressive - JP turns their sours around rather quickly.
I thought I had some questions in there, but I guess it really comes down to, am I on the right track here?
For yeast/bugs, I will have to order 3278. My LHBS only has Roselare and Omega's brett blends. Personally, I do not like intense sourness - I had a sour from Une Annee at Christmas and it was just so incredibly sour that I really don't have words for it. I finished a short pour, and was eventually able to get to some of the complexity, but it was just way too sour. If I had a choice, I would lean it towards brett complexity with a pleasant sourness.
For hopping, I was able to get some seriously aged hops from my LHBS, so I was thinking 2-3oz of those against a ~12g batch. Thanks!
Now comes the part where I fall down the rabbit hole. I'm halfway through American Sours Beers and have been through Milk the Funk forums and wiki. I understand the concept behind turbid mashing, but it is not something I want to try the first time out, so that leaves torrified wheat, flaked wheat, and white and red wheat malt as my options. I have used flaked wheat and white wheat before. I use a BIAB so rice hulls should not be an issue. I figure on mashing high, 156-158, to keep plenty of dextrins for the brett to chew on.
I am also worried about it finishing in time to rack to fruit and then bottle before Christmas - so I have eight months. I have access to Jolly Pumpkin dregs, which are supposedly very aggressive - JP turns their sours around rather quickly.
I thought I had some questions in there, but I guess it really comes down to, am I on the right track here?
For yeast/bugs, I will have to order 3278. My LHBS only has Roselare and Omega's brett blends. Personally, I do not like intense sourness - I had a sour from Une Annee at Christmas and it was just so incredibly sour that I really don't have words for it. I finished a short pour, and was eventually able to get to some of the complexity, but it was just way too sour. If I had a choice, I would lean it towards brett complexity with a pleasant sourness.
For hopping, I was able to get some seriously aged hops from my LHBS, so I was thinking 2-3oz of those against a ~12g batch. Thanks!