First Sour Questions and Ideas

[neumann]

I'm getting ready to brew my first sour and I am intrigued by the kettle sour process because it means I don't have to have as much dedicated plastics. The problem I have is keeping the wort at an appropriate temperature for during the souring process. Here is my plan:
Mash as normal (I've got my eye on this recipe: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2015/07/apricots-lactobacillus-and-hops.html but without the fruit)
Boil for 15 minutes to kill undesirable bacteria and chill to 100F.
Run that sweet wort into a spare fermenter (that will designated sour only from here forward) and pitch my bugs.
Put it in my chest freezer (just to keep it out of sight) with a brew belt set to 100F and give it 24-48 hours to sour. Given the current heat, I don't expect that brew belt to work too hard.
Once the appropriate sourness has been reached, run that into my boil kettle and boil for 30 minutes to kill the bugs, maybe add a half oz of hops, chill and pitch an ale yeast (US-05, probably).
Does this sound like a viable process?
Basically the only deviation from the standard kettle sour process is the transferring to the fermenter for souring and back out to the kettle for boiling. I've got several fermenters so I can designate one as sour only but I don't want to have separate dispensing lines for sours. If I'm careful about the transfer I should be able to minimize any aeration (and boiling should drive off what ever I pick up). As a bonus, using the fermenter means I can have an airlock and lower the possibility of undesirable bugs getting in the wort during the souring process.

 

[stickyfinger]

I'm getting ready to brew my first sour and I am intrigued by the kettle sour process because it means I don't have to have as much dedicated plastics. The problem I have is keeping the wort at an appropriate temperature for during the souring process. Here is my plan:
Mash as normal (I've got my eye on this recipe: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2015/07/apricots-lactobacillus-and-hops.html but without the fruit)
Boil for 15 minutes to kill undesirable bacteria and chill to 100F.
Run that sweet wort into a spare fermenter (that will designated sour only from here forward) and pitch my bugs.
Put it in my chest freezer (just to keep it out of sight) with a brew belt set to 100F and give it 24-48 hours to sour. Given the current heat, I don't expect that brew belt to work too hard.
Once the appropriate sourness has been reached, run that into my boil kettle and boil for 30 minutes to kill the bugs, maybe add a half oz of hops, chill and pitch an ale yeast (US-05, probably).
Does this sound like a viable process?
Basically the only deviation from the standard kettle sour process is the transferring to the fermenter for souring and back out to the kettle for boiling. I've got several fermenters so I can designate one as sour only but I don't want to have separate dispensing lines for sours. If I'm careful about the transfer I should be able to minimize any aeration (and boiling should drive off what ever I pick up). As a bonus, using the fermenter means I can have an airlock and lower the possibility of undesirable bugs getting in the wort during the souring process.

sounds reasonable. make sure to use more us-05 than you usually do. i've heard from several that it takes more yeast when you pitch them into a soured wort. If you get some OYL-605, you can just sour it in the 60s apparently. I still used it at 95F, but it is supposed to work fine at like 68F.

 

[redllama]

Why would you not just put the brew belt on your kettle? I've even used a space heater pointed at a keggle to keep my temp "up" after dropping to ~100; IIRC it was roughly 85* the next day and I was at my desired pH in around 18 hours

 

[neumann]

Why would you not just put the brew belt on your kettle? I've even used a space heater pointed at a keggle to keep my temp "up" after dropping to ~100; IIRC it was roughly 85* the next day and I was at my desired pH in around 18 hours

Couple of reasons:

1. I don't know if my keggle will fit in my chest freezer
2. I don't want to lift the weight of the keggle if I can avoid it
3. I am a little wary of leaving the sweet wort open to the air

 

[Morrey]

I leave my inoculated wort right in the brew kettle with the lid on. In this SC heat, no worries about cool nights. YMMY.

If you have some questions about the process, I have a couple of word docs that may give you a tip or three. If interested, shoot me your email via PM.

 

[crane]

I'm getting ready to brew my first sour and I am intrigued by the kettle sour process because it means I don't have to have as much dedicated plastics. The problem I have is keeping the wort at an appropriate temperature for during the souring process. Here is my plan:
Mash as normal (I've got my eye on this recipe: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2015/07/apricots-lactobacillus-and-hops.html but without the fruit)
Boil for 15 minutes to kill undesirable bacteria and chill to 100F.
Run that sweet wort into a spare fermenter (that will designated sour only from here forward) and pitch my bugs.
Put it in my chest freezer (just to keep it out of sight) with a brew belt set to 100F and give it 24-48 hours to sour. Given the current heat, I don't expect that brew belt to work too hard.
Once the appropriate sourness has been reached, run that into my boil kettle and boil for 30 minutes to kill the bugs, maybe add a half oz of hops, chill and pitch an ale yeast (US-05, probably).
Does this sound like a viable process?
Basically the only deviation from the standard kettle sour process is the transferring to the fermenter for souring and back out to the kettle for boiling. I've got several fermenters so I can designate one as sour only but I don't want to have separate dispensing lines for sours. If I'm careful about the transfer I should be able to minimize any aeration (and boiling should drive off what ever I pick up). As a bonus, using the fermenter means I can have an airlock and lower the possibility of undesirable bugs getting in the wort during the souring process.

I pretty much use this same process except that I don't boil as long. For the first boil I turn off the boil kettle as soon as it comes to a boil. By the time you get to a full rolling boil everything will be dead. For the second boil I only go for 15 min.

I also do this in a carboy or Corny keg as I feel it's a lot easier to keep oxygen out of these vessels as opposed to my boil kettle.