Farmhouse Sour Ale

[Feldmann]

9.5 lbs Bohemian Pilsner
1 lbs Flaked Wheat
1 lbs Munich
0.5 lbs Crystal 40L

5 g Czech Saaz (3.6%)

The Yeast Bay Farmhouse Sour Ale

Mash @ 152F for 60 minutes

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I just brewed this today after I was inspired from reading American Sour Beers and I was excited to try the Yeast Bay's Farmhouse Sour Ale blend. I found there wasn't a lot of information regarding the strain so I originally posted on my club's forum and /r/Homebrewing where I got some advice from Nick.

Nick from The Yeast Bay here. My recommendations for this blend would be to keep the IBU low (1-2 IBU), ferment in the low 70's and slowly raise to ~75-80 F after a couple days of active fermentation. Most people that keep the IBU low seem to get good sourness within a few months. All of the pro brewers who use it seem to get nice sourness development, though many of them have run a fair amount of trials varying things like the malt bill, fermentation temperature profiles, etc. There is some anecdotal evidence as well that I've heard from pro brewers that a very small portion of Crystal Malt (60L) helps the sourness develop nicely in these style beers.

Regarding the temperature for lacto, some do like it high. We have 2 strains in here, delbrueckii and brevis. The delbrueckii might like it a little higher, but the optimal temperature for brevis is actually around 86 F. It will definitely do well though in the mid-high 70's, it will just take a little longer to get sourness developing. I would definitely recommend against going into the mid-high 80's with this. We haven't used the strains of yeast in the blend at those temperatures, and you could get some not so great flavors.

People actually like the yeast blend so much and the young beer before it sours, we'll soon be offering just the Saccharomyces portion of the Farmhouse Sour Ale as a new blend, Saison Blend II.

And I also took some insight from this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=520790&page=4

Really looking forward to this, I'll do my best to remember to come back and post progress.

 

[mesooohoppy]

Being a rookie, I should probably hold off on trying to brew a sour. Although, I've got three, one gallon fermentors that are begging for some beer.

Will try this weekend. It also gives me an excuse to buy some sours!

 

[Pappers_]

Looks interesting, thanks for sharing it! I moved this from our recipe database to our recipe subforum. The recipe database is for "tried and true" recipes, while the recipe/ingredients subform is the best place to post recipes that you are still trying out.

Good luck on the sour and let us know its pogress!

 

[Feldmann]

Being a rookie, I should probably hold off on trying to brew a sour. Although, I've got three, one gallon fermentors that are begging for some beer.

Will try this weekend. It also gives me an excuse to buy some sours!

I say just dive in head first. I was a little intimidated with the whole sour world at first but the best way to learn is from doing. And from the long aging time, the sooner you start the sooner you can start tasting!

I started doing sours with a couple of guys from my homebrew club that had a lot of experience, this was my first sour all by myself.

 

[mesooohoppy]

I say just dive in head first. I was a little intimidated with the whole sour world at first but the best way to learn is from doing. And from the long aging time, the sooner you start the sooner you can start tasting!

I agree and this was my 'justification' for getting started on sours.

Here is 24 hours after pitching:
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/369/19639439504_8146dba335_b.jpg

I just added some bottle dregs (almost all from Almanac). Here is a shot of it before adding to the fermentor:
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/435/20245521210_3094829490_b.jpg

I kid you not, less than 5 minutes after adding the dregs, the blow off started bubbling again. I have never been so excited to wait so long.

 

[Feldmann]

I didn't add any bottle dreggs to this recipe just because I wanted to see what it could do on its own.

However I made a Flanders red last week that blew up while I was away on vacation. This recipe hasn't had a super active fermentation but I think I need to get a dedicated sour blow off...

 

[Feldmann]

I decided to rack it into secondary today. I'm not really doing this with any of my other sours, but because this blend is only sacc and lacto, theres no brett to eat the dead yeast so I was worried about autolysis. Its been about two and a half weeks and its down to 1.014. First taste test is pretty damn good, theres a good sour level but it doesn't overtake the saison yeast. I could probably bottle this right now, but I'm going to give it some more time.

 

[Spartan300man]

what are some of the commercially available bottled beers that your are trying to match, or that showcase this type of style?

 

[Feldmann]

I'm in a relatively rural area of Canada so my selection of commercial beer is very limited but I would be vary curious to see some that been using this strain as nick stated.

 

[mesooohoppy]

A little shy of 3 months, I cracked it open for the first time since adding the dregs approx 2 weeks of pitching the yeast. It's already pretty sour, and has a spicy kick to it. Going to let it do its thing for another couple of months before I crack it open again. Not sure if it's the brett that is contributing to the spicey kick..?

 

[Feldmann]

Its now been about nine months since I first brewed this and I'm just starting to see the fruit of my labour. From start to finish it was in primary for about two and a half weeks, secondary for about five months and has been in bottles right now for a little over two months. The bottles took a very long time to carbonate and reached a level I was happy with about 2 weeks ago.

I recorded tasting notes along the way and nothing really dramatically changed. Its definitely more on the tart and sour side but the saison yeast is there and adds some really nice depth. There is a bit of funk but its very subtle and it takes a few sips to become noticeable.

I'm very pleased with how this beer turned out and I'm looking to keep it on a constant rotation at my house. Given that I'm sure it would have been just as good had I bottled it 2-3 months sooner, this is a nice faster turn around sour beer that still has some of the depth that a lot of kettlesours and other "quick"sour beers lack.

 

[mesooohoppy]

I believe I brewed this recipe august 1, 2015 and bottled around new years. not nearly long enough aging (this was my first sour).

with that said, I cracked one 2 to 3 days ago and was pleasantly surprised how well it is progressing. I think I am going to wait another 6 months before cracking another. when I opened a bottle a couple of months ago, it was ridiculously thick and had the mouthfeel of syrup. what I cracked a couple of days ago had aged very nicely, the thick syrup-y has seemed to mellow out. super sour! (almost too sour)

I will probably brew this again in a 5 gallon batch and wait longer, atleast 8 months prior to bottling. I wont pitch as many dregs either (seems like I pitched a lot the first time, 4 different dregs). I will do primary with sacch and pitch bugs after primary is done, the first batch I did Roeselare and pitched dregs 2-3 days later

I should brew this in a month when the temps raise a bit, IIRC these wild yeasties/bugs like the hotter temps, correct?

 

[Feldmann]

Lacto is usually done very quickly, within the first few days max and the saccro acts like a typical ale yeast. I believe most of your experiences are from the dregs, what did you pitch?

 

[mesooohoppy]

Lacto is usually done very quickly, within the first few days max and the saccro acts like a typical ale yeast. I believe most of your experiences are from the dregs, what did you pitch?

I pitched 3 different dregs from almanac sours, and 1 from some Belgian sour (had a monk on it I believe).

if I do this again, I will let primary do its thing while the bugs are chewing on a small starter.