Kettle Sour: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sour Beer

This blog was written by our member and frequent sour brewer, Ben Martin. Enjoy!

Are you a fan of sours, but don’t have the time and space to commit to 3 years? Afraid of infecting your clean brew house? Want to get out of the pale lager rut? Are you looking for a way to appease the hipster cult that lives next door? Well then this guide is for you! If not, keep reading you might learn something, maybe.

Disclaimer

This guide is simply a breakdown of the process I use to brew kettle sours on my system. I am by no means an expert. Your experiences may vary from mine. Words of warning, if you plan on attempting this, then you are making sour beer. This process limits your risk of infecting your brew house, but only if you practice good sanitation. Second, sour beer is more of an art than a science. Don’t be afraid to dump bad batches.

The Process

Goodbelly Probiotic Shot

Kettle souring is much like performing a normal brew day with a few added steps in the process. Equipment-wise, if you can brew a clean beer, you most likely have everything you need to brew a kettle sour. The one piece of equipment that is required/highly recommended is a pH meter. You will want to measure the drops in pH during the kettlesouring process.

Kettle souring begins like a normal brew day. Perform your mash as you normally would. Personally I brew BIAB (Brew In A Bag). I perform a 70 minute mash on an induction burner keeping my mash around 150°F. After the mash I squeeze my grain bag to free up as much wort as possible.

Pitching Goodbelly into wort.

The next step is the kettle souring step. During this step is the only chance to contaminate your brew house. Bring your wort to a brief boil to sanitize the wort and kill off any unwanted yeast or bacteria naturally present in the wort. After a brief boil chill the wort down to 100°F. Pre-acidify the wort to a pH between 4.2 -4.5. This will help prevent unwanted bacteria from growing in your wort and creating off-flavors. Pitch a pure lactobacillus culture and seal the kettle. Wait for the terminal or desired pH to be reached.

 

Anvil Brew Kettle with Ferment in a kettle gasket.

My kettle souring step looks like this; after the mash I bring my wort to a boil for 15 minutes. I then chill the wort to 110°F. I measure the pH and pre-acidify the wort to pH 4.2. During this step my temperature naturally falls to my target pitch temp of 100°F. Then I spray StarSan around the inside of the kettle and on the lid. I pitch a Goodbelly Probiotic Shot.

This contains a pure culture of lactobacillus planetarum. Then I seal up my Anvil kettle using the fermenter conversion kit. I let my kettle temperature free fall to room temperature over 3 days. By then my terminal pH, normally 3.6, has been reached.

Anvil Brew Kettle sealed for souring.

After you reach your terminal pH, it is time to resume your normal brew day. Bring the soured wort up to a boil, add hops according to your recipe, chill and pitch your yeast. This boil sterilizes the batch and kills the lactobacillus. This allows you to use your clean cold side equipment for the batch. Due to the low pH of the wort, yeast will experience acid shock. It is important to note that you need a large and healthy yeast starter to pitch.

Gose with blackberries and raspberries.

The rest of my process works as such; I bring my soured wort to a boil for 15 minutes. Add a small dose of hops to reach around 8 IBUs. Chill the wort to 72°F and pitch yeast. I normally chose Imperial A20 Citrus for all my kettle sours. I then let the fermentation ride. I do not have temperature controlled fermentation. If I plan to add fruits, I will typically add them towards the end of active formation on the 5th day from pitching yeast. The fruit will sit for a week before kegging. I normally target 1-2lb of fruit per gallon.

Dry hopped kettle sour with hop garnish.

 

As I stated, I am not an expert. There are plenty of people who know more about this than I do. Here are a few of the best sources for more information on kettle sours and sour beer in general.
Milk the Funk Wiki (This group also has a Facebook group, but if you ask a question the first thing they are going to say is read the wiki.)
The Sour Hour Podcast
The Mad Fermentationist Blog
Dr. Lambic Blog

Taxman Brewing – Circle City Zymurgy Wort Share

What a great day! Yesterday Circle City Zymurgy had the pleasure of joining Taxman Brewing in Bargersville for a wort share. We took the base wort for Exemption, Taxman’s Belgian Tripel, and made it our own. Altogether we had 12 homebrewers join in on the wort share in the parking lot of the brewery. In April, we will sample the different beers and choose the top six. The six winners get free tickets to Taxman’s Death and Taxes on April 21st and get to pour their beer there!

The base wort for Exemption was a great pick as it allowed us to make it into almost anything. We could choose to add extra grains, we chose our own hops, yeast, and other ingredients. A few of us chose to stick with a Belgian Tripel, some adding special/secret ingredients to make it different. We also have a black IPA, a milkshake IPA, maibock, and other styles in the making so you can really see the creativity we get from some of our homebrewers!

Most of us showed up a bit before 10:00 AM and we all had our beer into our fermenters and started cleaning up by around 2:00 PM. As you could imagine, we discussed what we were making, the Taxman beers we had throughout the day, and what we were going to do with our beer throughout the next few weeks.

Once everyone got their equipment stored away, Colin and David walked us through the brewery. We saw a room full of a ton of “clean” beers aging in different liquor and wine barrels and a room full of sour beers also aging in barrels. We went to another building where the grainmill, brew kettle, HLT, mash tun, brite tanks, and fermenters were stored. Colin allowed us to walk up the stairs and check out the main brewing area to look at the tanks and walked us by all of the huge fermenters.

After the tour, some of us finished up by going to the taproom and sampling some more Taxman beers and got some much needed food after our brew day! The Red Wine Barrel Aged Qualified and wilf-fermented Certified were definitely a big hit among the club. A lot of us had the Barnyard Burger which had a slice of pork belly and over-easy egg on top of the burger. Delicious!

Circle City Zymurgy wishes to thank Taxman brewing and all others involved in making this happen. We had a great time!

28795510_10105513181676728_6366739154433929658_n 28782941_10105513182170738_8409643520820178531_n 28685517_1611366668900975_8354916266045839629_n 28685376_10105513182055968_1699789548593814119_n 28661191_1611366632234312_3601633315804328894_n 28661023_1611366925567616_1791439243111612914_n 28660612_1611365712234404_3404371626440156475_n 28660565_1611366978900944_7610063903661938219_n 28577794_1611365665567742_4604058326119481125_n 28577681_10105513181212658_1024565494010674925_n 28577096_10105513181347388_8160243793066047084_n 28577096_10105513181347388_8160243793066047084_n (1) 28576984_1611366458900996_2261626989549318507_n 28576407_1611366585567650_9207683190430035992_n 28576252_1611365635567745_8680180888994404326_n 28575815_10105513181871338_413962081923637286_n 28575645_10105513182270538_6790627329028908612_n 28472230_1611366812234294_4169166761056349981_n 28472205_10105513182395288_164406391338882854_n 28472105_10105513181507068_4618671197025056082_n 28471920_1611366778900964_4056155444691900366_n 28471779_10204425594877196_4242022728448432407_n 28471731_1611365792234396_8788703623828428458_n 28471643_1611365992234376_9072271128636204603_n 28468682_1611366275567681_169544183393087111_n 28468156_1611366895567619_4329821839413840464_n 28468143_1611366395567669_5228542582740651560_n 28467826_1611366705567638_5953650289821105525_n 28379639_1611366185567690_1086339522641102575_n 28379545_1611366085567700_7057824709397429410_n
<
>

Indiana On Tap Tasting Society Recap – An Outpouring of Love

On Friday July 21, Circle City Zymurgy participated in the July gathering of the Indiana On Tap Tasting Society. The goal of these events is to showcase our state’s fine breweries and/or the beers available throughout the state by bringing something special and different to each event. In fact, no two monthly events are the same. The events are intimate–think more of a swanky party instead of a beer festival. What’s cool about this is attendees had plenty of opportunities to talk to the brewery staff and the brewers themselves. As a bonus, these tasting society events are also Indiana’s premier venue for trading rare and hard-to-find beers from all over the state and the nation.

CCZ members including myself, Nick Boling, Jonathan Marting, and Matt and Lauren Wolford had a great time pouring our beer and representing the club. Joining us were Rhinegeist Brewery from Cincinnati and Creatures of Habit from Anderson, IN. For this event, Indiana on Tap partnered with Bottom’s Up, which meant we got to serve our beer on their awesome draft system. Thank you to Bottom’s Up for providing pouring enjoyment for our crew! As the indoor temperature rose to meet that of the outside, the event space filled with throngs of thirsty beer geeks. Having the premier pouring space, most guests queued up in front of the Circle City Zymurgy booth. We started the night with a broad spectrum of brewing styles for the tasters; Russ Der Cogburn Lemon Shandy, A Southerner in London (A hazelnut praline English mild), Meeb’s Milk Stout and Grapefruit Baby Doll (An American pale ale enhanced with Amoretti Ruby Red Grapefruit artisanal flavoring). The CCZ line quickly became THE place to be with lines surpassing all other pouring stations for a majority of the night. As the night progressed so did our lineup of tasty malt beverages, such as Mr. Mild Mannered (English Mild), Juicy Lucy New England IPA, 124 Conch Street (Pineapple Wheat) and Tears of a Wookiee American pale ale). All told, the CCZ crew floated 8 kegs in less than 3 hours, while Rhinegeist and Creatures of Habit had a sufficient supply of brews on tap. The ambiance was a hip and cool with party tunes provided by DJ 3pm, beer flavored cupcakes by Tipsy Turvey of Anderson, handcrafted pirogi from The Pirogi Truck and craft hard sodas from Garden Party Botanicals.

Overall this was a very successful night of pouring for CCZ and the club members who participated. With this being a monthly event, there will be plenty of opportunities for other members of the club to participate, however, be prepared to meet the high expectations set by the inaugural crew and remember to bring PLENTY of beer!

[slideshow_deploy id=’1130′]

 

Thank you to CCZ member Rob Ecker for this recap. This blog post has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Brew-Ha-Ha 2017 in the Books!

The Phoenix Theatre’s 22nd annual Brew-Ha-Ha was this past Saturday. Every CCZ member who poured and attended had so much fun at Indiana’s oldest beer festival. We ended up floating four kegs and several bottles of sours during our special VIP-tapping (everyone seemed to love our sours). Even a malfunctioning Randall and a mid-festival rain shower couldn’t put a damper on our spirits. It’ll be interesting to see how the festival changes if and when they move it to the new site of the Phoenix theatre. But as long as it maintains its intimate size, quirkiness, and residential charm, it should remain one of the best beer festivals in the city.

[slideshow_deploy id=’1035′]

Wait For It… (Winterfest Recap)

‘Twas a blustery day in early February, when the Brewers of Indiana Guild chose to hold their 9th Annual Winterfest at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.  Who am I kidding?  It was FREAKING COLD, thus the aptly named Winterfest.  This year sported a selection of more than 100 Indiana micros and guest breweries from the Midwest, all pouring between two and six different styles to a sellout crowd of 6,000 thirsty Hoosiers and HooYaWannaBees!  I overheard various guests mention their travel from nearby Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, and even as far away as Honolulu, Hawaii!  I myself Uber’ed from the Residence Inn on the Canal in downtown Indy.  That in and of itself should have been a sign of foreboding as the driver and I neared the intersection of 38th and Fall Creek PARKway.  The parkway was a parking lot!  The fairground was a spectacle of Biblical proportion.  Like Pharaoh’s army chasing the Israelites through the desert, the swarm of humanity was exhausting.

Now, leave it to fairground management to schedule 5 of the largest events to hit Indy on the same bitterly cold Saturday in February, plus a minor-minor league Hockey game.  All told, there was the beer festival, a Lumberjack wood working gala, Boy Scout Memorabilia auction, The Great Train Show and the Purdue Ag Alumni Fish Fry!  I heard that there was also a D-List Porn Convention being held in the Barns, but I cannot confirm nor deny its existence.

Back to beer, or at least lines for beer.  With an advertised sellout crowd, the festival planners failed miserably to execute the ingress of all 6,000 attendees in a timely manner.  Many in attendance waited more than an hour to enter the West Pavilion to sample the carbonated concoctions from around the state.  Much like the Israelites in the desert, it was a long, long walk.  Except it was colder, much colder, and like the Israelites, the flock only had bread to eat.  Okay, they had leavened bread in the form of pretzels hung around their necks with assorted jerky’s and beef sticks.  Upon final entry into the pavilion, many of the adornments had already been consumed to fuel their warmth generating bellies while in queue.  Back to this later, let’s get to the beer.

Once inside the hall, this year’s layout of the event was much easier to navigate than in years past, where the brewers were spread between two buildings.  Having recently returned from GABF where the brewers are alphabetized by region, the haphazard positioning of Winterfest had no rhyme or reason.  Now, don’t get me wrong here thinking that everything about this event was negative, it was a lot of fun and I tasted some crazy good brews!  But let’s talk about the event from our perspective as homebrewers.

Setting up for the big event

As a homebrewer, I enjoyed the experience of watching guests taste the fruits of my hard labor and hours upon hours of cleaning and sanitizing everything in sight.  As a club, we were well represented by Tanner Andrew, Jarrod Otter, Nick Boling and myself.  We shared our booth space with Wes and Bryan from Great Fermentations and together we represented homebrewers in a bright and shining spotlight!  The first question after people tasted their beer for the first time was, “Where are you guys located?”  My standard response was “Garages, barns, dark basements and spare bedrooms in our mom’s house around Indianapolis.”  When people ask where they can get more of what you are offering, you must be doing something right!

From a style perspective, we poured a Milk Stout on nitro (Meeb’s Milk Stout by Nick Boling), a peppermint chocolate porter (Dark Mint Lord by Tanner Andrew and Jarrod Otter) and an East Coast IPA (Juicy Lucy by Robert Ecker).  All three offerings were well received and fulfilled the needs of the thirsty public.  Dark Mint Lord enticed those who kept swiping the leftover Andes mints in front of the table and asking, “Why the mints?”  Tanner and Jarrod ran their beer through a Randall that contained a butt load of Andes Mints!  What a brilliant idea and a perfect balance of the sweet chocolate mint flavor against the roasti-ness of the robust porter.  Nick’s milk stout stood up against any number of stout offerings from other breweries.  The creamy mouth-feel of the beer gas nestled among the residual lactose sweetness was tempered with just the right amount of acidic acrid roast we love in our dark beer.  In an effort to introduce the New England IPA craze to Indiana, I created a simple yet extremely flavorful and aromatic IPA that was full of haze and flavor.  Using flaked wheat and oats, as well as dry hopping during primary fermentation, and again four days later, this cloudy tang colored brew was loaded with Citra, El Dorado and Mosaic hops, but not the tongue turning bitterness that turn off many non-IPA drinkers.

Proudly supported by our CCZ brethren and sisters, adorned in their CCZ shirts, our club was loud and proud and could have poured much longer and pleased many, many more drinkers.

If you suffered through the long, long wait to get into the hall, the Brewers Guild has offered a gracious discount on upcoming events such as the Microbrewers Festival at Military Park or next year for Winterfest, where they pledge to have a more streamlined process in place to allow fest goers to enter in a more efficient and timely manner.

Until then, Cheers!

Rob Ecker, Winterfest 2017 Review

Rob’s emptied Juicy Lucy keg after a successful pouring with CCZ at Winterfest 2017

All American Homebrew Competition Results

The All American Homebrew Competition was held last Saturday in Cincinnati, and we are happy to report that three CCZ members came away with medals.

Brandon Meyer won a gold medal for his “Kentucky Breakfast Quad”.

Brady Smith won a bronze medal for his California Common, “Carrollton Common”.

And I won a bronze medal for my Schwarzbier, “Black is Beautiful”.

As our club grows and matures, I hope that we enter more and more competitions and earn more and more medals. I believe the sign of a great homebrew club is the willingness to participate and succeed in competitions. Check back periodically with the “Upcoming Competitions” portion of our site for more local and regional competitions,

Full results for the All American Homebrew Competition can be found here.

Cheers,

Steve Kent-Goldings