kanzimonson
Well-Known Member
I own a bakery and for a long time Ive wanted to use my sourdough culture in beer making. This experiment was a long time in the making, but about a year ago there was an article in Zymurgy about the Kentucky Common style. This finally gave me the push and the extra dose of information I needed to try something.
In short, the Kentucky Common is a low ABV, lightly sourmashed brown ale. The idea of the style is what would distillers in Kentucky have made for a drinking beer on the side? So it would probably have some grains other than barley like rye or corn, would be light and sessionable, and would have a refreshing tartness.
The beer I made probably would better be described as a hybrid of this style and Northern English Brown. Heres the complete grain bill, though it has a complicated production:
8# Maris Otter
2.11# red wheat malt
.59# English crystal 45
.36# Pale Chocolate
.08# carafa special 2
.71# acidulated malt
Day 1
We feed our sourdough culture everyday and let it sour for 24 hours. On Day 1 I built up .5# of culture for the experiment.
Day 2
My intention was to use the sourdough culture to sour 35% of the total grist. On Day 2 I took 3.91# of Maris Otter and mashed it at 150-154 until converted. I then added the .71# of acidulated malt. This amount was chosen based on information in the article, with the intention of lowering the pH to a level that lactobacillus can tolerate while being inhospitable to other organisms. I dont have a pH meter so youll have to temper results with the fact that Im flying blind.
I let the mash rest with the acidulated malt for another 10 minutes to convert the new starch, while hoping that there were still some active enzymes that werent too affected by the pH drop. I then transferred the mash to a plastic bucket and cooled it to about 123F and added the sourdough culture, which was at peak activity and looking and smelling typical.
I used my CO2 tank to partially purge the headspace in the bucket and closed the lid. The whole bucket went into a large beverage cooler, into which I poured a few quarts of boiling water. I purged a little more of the air in the cooler itself, and then lidded it up. All this CO2 treatment was more information from the article about encouraging lactobacillus growth and not other organisms.
Day 4
I began the rest of the brew about 40 hours after the souring procedure. I mashed in the rest of the grist (the non-soured stuff) like normal. Then I opened the sourmash and was greeted with a delicious and familiar tang. It smelled just like I expect our sourdough culture to smell tart upfront, pungent and a slighty funkiness. I poured it into a separate pot and decocted it, boiling for about 10 minutes. The main mash had been going for about 30 min at this point, and iodine indicated that conversion was complete, so I dumped the decoction in. This raised the mash to about 162. I dont typically mash out so I just began sparging at this point.
From here on it was a typical brew session. I targeted 20 IBUs, the OG was 1.050, and I pitched a proper sized starter of 1968 London ESB at 62F.
Fermentation
Fermentation occurred around 65-68F, and as it slowed down I ramped up to 70-72F. I dont normally do this, but since this was an experiment I took a gravity reading at this point (around 4 days into fermentation). The beer was slowing down but the gravity was only around 1.024. I had some concerns that the 1968 yeast would get lazy in the low pH environment and that seemed to be the case.
I got a fresh harvest of French Saison from a friend, made a .5L starter, put it on a stirplate until visibly active (about 12hours), and pitched it into the brown. Activity picked back up and the beer finished fermenting in a few more days. FG was 1.012
Conditioning proceeded as normal, kegged up, etc.
And now for the tasting notes. Honestly, Im not impressed. I hate that all this work came to this conclusion, but thats the truth. It has a lot of very positive things about it the malt is amazing, very bready and toasty, with these refined crystal malt flavors. Not so much candy as a light, rich caramel/toffee. Good esters from the English yeast. The light tartness is excellent, and I think I achieved the idea of the refreshing, lightly soured brown ale, but the thing I dont like is this vegetal background. Its faint but noticeable, and very offensive. Its all the vegetal descriptors I can think of: overcooked cabbage, canned corn sorta, or like the innards of a bunch of zucchinis that have been boiled for hours.
None of this is super offensive, but I cant help to think of it with every sip. Have you ever made a beer you were happy with, and then you notice that it might have a touch of diacetyl, and then its all you can think of to the point that the beer is ruined? Thats what this is like. I brewed this about six months ago, and its just been hanging around. It has improved some, but the displeasing characteristics are still there. Im pretty close to dumping it, but maybe Ill bottle up a few and taste it down the road.
So lessons learned: the brown ale rules, make that again. Use a pure culture of lacto if you want to sourmash. And keep the sourdough in the dough, not the beer. It also makes me pretty skeptical of people using grain to sourmash but maybe this is a testament to the diversity and vitality of the organisms in my sourdough culture. That about wraps it up!
In short, the Kentucky Common is a low ABV, lightly sourmashed brown ale. The idea of the style is what would distillers in Kentucky have made for a drinking beer on the side? So it would probably have some grains other than barley like rye or corn, would be light and sessionable, and would have a refreshing tartness.
The beer I made probably would better be described as a hybrid of this style and Northern English Brown. Heres the complete grain bill, though it has a complicated production:
8# Maris Otter
2.11# red wheat malt
.59# English crystal 45
.36# Pale Chocolate
.08# carafa special 2
.71# acidulated malt
Day 1
We feed our sourdough culture everyday and let it sour for 24 hours. On Day 1 I built up .5# of culture for the experiment.
Day 2
My intention was to use the sourdough culture to sour 35% of the total grist. On Day 2 I took 3.91# of Maris Otter and mashed it at 150-154 until converted. I then added the .71# of acidulated malt. This amount was chosen based on information in the article, with the intention of lowering the pH to a level that lactobacillus can tolerate while being inhospitable to other organisms. I dont have a pH meter so youll have to temper results with the fact that Im flying blind.
I let the mash rest with the acidulated malt for another 10 minutes to convert the new starch, while hoping that there were still some active enzymes that werent too affected by the pH drop. I then transferred the mash to a plastic bucket and cooled it to about 123F and added the sourdough culture, which was at peak activity and looking and smelling typical.
I used my CO2 tank to partially purge the headspace in the bucket and closed the lid. The whole bucket went into a large beverage cooler, into which I poured a few quarts of boiling water. I purged a little more of the air in the cooler itself, and then lidded it up. All this CO2 treatment was more information from the article about encouraging lactobacillus growth and not other organisms.
Day 4
I began the rest of the brew about 40 hours after the souring procedure. I mashed in the rest of the grist (the non-soured stuff) like normal. Then I opened the sourmash and was greeted with a delicious and familiar tang. It smelled just like I expect our sourdough culture to smell tart upfront, pungent and a slighty funkiness. I poured it into a separate pot and decocted it, boiling for about 10 minutes. The main mash had been going for about 30 min at this point, and iodine indicated that conversion was complete, so I dumped the decoction in. This raised the mash to about 162. I dont typically mash out so I just began sparging at this point.
From here on it was a typical brew session. I targeted 20 IBUs, the OG was 1.050, and I pitched a proper sized starter of 1968 London ESB at 62F.
Fermentation
Fermentation occurred around 65-68F, and as it slowed down I ramped up to 70-72F. I dont normally do this, but since this was an experiment I took a gravity reading at this point (around 4 days into fermentation). The beer was slowing down but the gravity was only around 1.024. I had some concerns that the 1968 yeast would get lazy in the low pH environment and that seemed to be the case.
I got a fresh harvest of French Saison from a friend, made a .5L starter, put it on a stirplate until visibly active (about 12hours), and pitched it into the brown. Activity picked back up and the beer finished fermenting in a few more days. FG was 1.012
Conditioning proceeded as normal, kegged up, etc.
And now for the tasting notes. Honestly, Im not impressed. I hate that all this work came to this conclusion, but thats the truth. It has a lot of very positive things about it the malt is amazing, very bready and toasty, with these refined crystal malt flavors. Not so much candy as a light, rich caramel/toffee. Good esters from the English yeast. The light tartness is excellent, and I think I achieved the idea of the refreshing, lightly soured brown ale, but the thing I dont like is this vegetal background. Its faint but noticeable, and very offensive. Its all the vegetal descriptors I can think of: overcooked cabbage, canned corn sorta, or like the innards of a bunch of zucchinis that have been boiled for hours.
None of this is super offensive, but I cant help to think of it with every sip. Have you ever made a beer you were happy with, and then you notice that it might have a touch of diacetyl, and then its all you can think of to the point that the beer is ruined? Thats what this is like. I brewed this about six months ago, and its just been hanging around. It has improved some, but the displeasing characteristics are still there. Im pretty close to dumping it, but maybe Ill bottle up a few and taste it down the road.
So lessons learned: the brown ale rules, make that again. Use a pure culture of lacto if you want to sourmash. And keep the sourdough in the dough, not the beer. It also makes me pretty skeptical of people using grain to sourmash but maybe this is a testament to the diversity and vitality of the organisms in my sourdough culture. That about wraps it up!
