Extremely Fast Sour?

[reverendj1]

Okay, I had a happy accident with one of my last batches. I was making a Game of Thrones inspired gruit, based on a 13-14th century recipe I found online. Prior to boil, this was by far my most unsanitized batch, including using fresh snowfall for water and filtering through tree branches. My goal was to be authentic both in process and recipe. You can read my detailed brew notes here.

Now instead of cooling with a wort chiller, I placed my kettle in the snow, and left it open overnight. I was hoping to pick up a few wild yeasties. The next morning, I got a little worried, so I reboiled it for 10 minutes, then cooled it in the snow (with the cover on), put it in the fermenter and pitched my yeast. At any rate, yesterday was the day this finally came up to drink, and it was way sour. It is delicious, don't get me wrong, but it has the sourness of a full-blown sour. Which is pretty funny because I was telling my co-brewer just hours before trying it that we need to make our first sour.

I always thought that the lacto takes a while (as in months) to make a sour, so do you think the less than 24 hours it was left to the elements would have been enough time to sour it, or do you think I must have picked up an infection in the fermenter?

 

[inflictor-of-grimness]

How long did you ferment? I've never read about anyone picking up sourness that quickly without growing lacto in a hot environment. Maybe the snow somehow already had a ton of lacto on it. This sounds bizarre and awesome.

 

[Snisup]

Subbed for GoT reference.

 

[reverendj1]

Okay, cool, so I'm not crazy. I fermented for 1 month before bottling, give or take a couple days. Then three weeks in bottles. Like I said, it's been a happy accident. Not at all what I had planned, but it tastes great. The thing is the snow would have been double-boiled, but only for ~10 minutes each time. The other strange thing is I made an ordinary ale with the second runnings, and that isn't sour at all. Or at least I don't remember it being sour. Definitely not the full on sour that the strong ale is. I'll have to drink another one of those tonight to see if there are any hints of sour to it.

 

[reverendj1]

Subbed for GoT reference.

If you want to follow my current recipe/procedure, just look at my brew notes in my previous post. I also made a backstory for the beer, that I have in the notes. I'm definitely going to try this again next winter, as this really didn't turn out the way I thought it would (either the ordinary or the strong). Things I would change for next time would be to let the batch cool for longer before adding grains, steep some pine boughs, only boil the oak cubes once and/or use more, roast more grains at a higher temp, and maybe second guess my leaving the kettle open overnight. I make a lot of (what I think to be) good beer, and I like to do these fun experiments sometimes with a buffer of good beers before and after.

 

[lowtones84]

I actually had a similar thing happen with a gruit that I made, but I never even left it outside uncovered (although you boiled again after that). I had actually made two gruits before that came out clean and not sour at all.

This last one, however, I found a ton of yarrow in a field and I "dry-herbed" with the yarrow and some sage from my garden. I also used over a pound of very raw, unfiltered honey and didn't heat it at all. Contrary to what everybody seems to think (but like your experience) after 3 weeks in the carboy and another three in bottles, it was -very- sour. Almost a year later it's really getting nice

So I'm wondering as well what kind of bugs can sour stuff this fast.

 

[reverendj1]

Based on just our two experiences, I would guess maybe hops slow down lacto? I dunno. I have no real experience with purposefully getting lacto. Another strange thing, when I made my chicha, I also left it out uncovered, (same location, different season/weather though) but only for a few hours while cooling. That didn't get sour at all from it. Or at least I don't think it did. I remember it being very sweet.

 

[malweth]

Based on just our two experiences, I would guess maybe hops slow down lacto? I dunno. I have no real experience with purposefully getting lacto. Another strange thing, when I made my chicha, I also left it out uncovered, (same location, different season/weather though) but only for a few hours while cooling. That didn't get sour at all from it. Or at least I don't think it did. I remember it being very sweet.

There are no hops in a sour wort Berliner. That's not to say the hops will slow lacto - just that the timing of lacto getting wort sour seems fairly well worked over.

 

[reverendj1]

There are no hops in a sour wort Berliner. That's not to say the hops will slow lacto - just that the timing of lacto getting wort sour seems fairly well worked over.

Well there goes that hypothesis. Like I said, I haven't really studied much on sours, except drinking them. I must just have some sort of super lacto strain in my area.

 

[Ostomo517]

There are no hops in a sour wort Berliner. That's not to say the hops will slow lacto - just that the timing of lacto getting wort sour seems fairly well worked over.

Hops do slow lacto from what I understand that's one of the reasons for the low IBUs in Berliners

 

[lowtones84]

Hops are supposed to inhibit lacto, yeah, but it still seems awful fast to me. I also had mine in a glass carboy and never saw anything funky goin' on, though it was only in there for 3 or 4 weeks.

 

[Calder]

Based on just our two experiences, I would guess maybe hops slow down lacto? I dunno. I have no real experience with purposefully getting lacto.

Hops will inhibit growth of lactobacillus. Different strains of lacto have different levels of resistance to it. Some Lacto cannot stand any hops at all.

Lacto can be done in 24 hours. There are 3 phases to Lacto. The first is the lag stage, which can be from a few hours to a few days. During this time the lacto gets used to the medium. The second stage is the growth stage where it multiplies and creates the lactic acid. This is basically an exponential growth stage and can double it's population in as little as 20 minutes. Doubling just a few times and it is done. Generally I assume that once it starts to sour, it is done in about 24 hours. The third stage is dormancy - it's done.

 

[reverendj1]

Well I'm drinking the beer made from the second runnings right now. It was exposed to the exact same conditions at the exact same time and I might be picking up just the tiniest bit of sourness. I'm not entirely sure though, as I've never had a commercial gruit before, so my tongue may be playing tricks on me with the lack of hops and over analyzing it.

 

[smokinghole]

Only real way to know is through some microbiology. With a lack of hops you most certainly could have picked up lacto. Certain strains and certain species are more vigorous than others, and the same goes for etOH and hop tolerance. I have been flirting with L. plantarum in wort this week and it soured from 5.5pH to 2.98pH in less than 7 days. That was unhopped wort. I will play with hopped wort this week, and do daily pH monitoring to see how fast it sours.

Last year I had a dubbel with 35ibus and 8%abv sour in less than three months from brew to drinking. It is only at about 3.8pH though in comparison to my ambit yeast fermented saison at 3.0pH.

So it can happen quick and I think with out hops it can happen even more quickly. Another factor to consider is a bacterium other than lacto. But as I said the only real way to tell is through one micro work.

 

[reverendj1]

This is bizarre. I had another one after another week, and it was less sour. It was still pretty sour, but definitely less than when I first had one. Everything I've read says sourness doesn't go away. Hmmm. I wonder if it's my mind/tongue playing tricks on me, since I was expecting it to be sour this time.

 

[lowtones84]

I don't think sourness goes away, but my experience has been that the edges can get softer with certain brews. Perhaps just more time for flavors to blend or whatever, I really don't know.

 

[ardyexfor]

Or maybe the infection is in your bottling. Some worse than others?

 

[reverendj1]

I don't think sourness goes away, but my experience has been that the edges can get softer with certain brews. Perhaps just more time for flavors to blend or whatever, I really don't know.

Ah, so what you are saying is it was at 100 actual RSU (ReverendJ1 Sourness Units), and although it tastes like it is now 75 RSU, that is only perceived RSU? It is still at 100 RSU and the flavors melding made it seem less. That makes sense.

Or maybe the infection is in your bottling. Some worse than others?

I wouldn't think so. My cleaning/sanitization process was the same as every other time I've bottled. I've never had an issue, and it was in every bottle so far (~8).

 

[lowtones84]

Ah, so what you are saying is it was at 100 actual RSU (ReverendJ1 Sourness Units), and although it tastes like it is now 75 RSU, that is only perceived RSU? It is still at 100 RSU and the flavors melding made it seem less. That makes sense.

Precisely