Another sour mash brew.

I was a bit disappointed with my last sour mash experiment because it didn't really seem to taste all that sour. This time around I soured a larger portion of the mash, 50%, and allowed it two full days rather than just over night to sour. This will also mark my second all Brett beer, and I am going to be aging this on some fruit and oak as well (inspired by Avery's Dépuceleuse). More on that later...
7 lbs German Pils
1 lb white wheat
10 lb frozen raspberries to be added to secondary fermenter
1 oz Hallertau pellet @ 90 min
.5 oz Crystal leaf @ 15 min
1/4 tsp Irish moss @ 15 min
.5 oz Crystal leaf @ 0 min
Wyeast 5151
Theoretical OG- 1.057 (accounting for the sugar and carbs from the fruit)
Actual OG- 1.042 (grain only)
Intermediate- 1.007
5/24/10- Made a starter for the yeast with some DME and a hop pellet or two. It took about a day and a half before I got any visible fermentation. Mashed 4 lbs of the grain with 1 gallon water at 148. Started this when I got up and it was down in the 130's after several hours. Added a handful of grain to introduce lactobacillus, covered with plastic wrap, and added my aquarium heater to keep the mix somewhat warm over the next two days.
5/26/10- Sour mash smells pretty sour and gross for sure. Skimmed off a little mold. Mashed the remaining 4 lbs of grain at 148 for 90 min. Sparged with 5 gallons of 170 degree water. Ran out of propane with 20 min left in the boil and had to transfer to my stove and two pots. Ended up working ok, though it took a little more time. I boiled an ounce of heavy toast oak cubes in 5 changes of water and have them soaking in a cup of zinfandel. I will add both to the secondary fermenter along with the berries.
Sour mash smells like dead people.
Boiling oak cubes (time to clean the stove too!).
Oak cubes in a cup of wine, pictured in the background. I never buy/drink wine and ironically I only bought it to make beer this time. I chose this one because the price was right (15-20) and the tasting notes specified raspberry and blackberry flavors.
Yeast starter. This worked alot better than my last all brett beer without a starter. It took two days for the starter to get going, but I had active fermentation by the next morning in my 5 gal batch.
Hop additions weighed out.
Sparging...
Original gravity, which was temperature corrected to 1.042. This sample did taste fairly tart, which is exactly what I was going for!
6/7/10- After a 2 week primary fermentation, moved to the secondary today, along with 10 lbs of frozen raspberries, 1 oz of heavy toast French oak cubes, and a cup of the zinfandel pictured above. I did not use the wine that the cubes had been soaking in. It tasted way too oaky and astringent and tannic. I kept it for future oak cube soaks or I could use a bit to add more oak to this beer if needed. It tastes pretty tart and somewhat fruity from the yeast. It'll probably be a month or more before it gets bottled.
10lbs of raspberries in a 6 gal better bottle.
Racking from primary to secondary.
Intermediate gravity.
The beer has already taken on a nice pink/red color.
Floating berries and oak cubes.
6/16/10- I finally remembered to get a wine thief and took a little sample of this today. The color has gone to a deep red. The nose is very wine like, actually smelling very similar to tart concord grape. Lambic like flavor profile, very tart upfront, finish of brettanomyces, fruit, hay. Not nearly as complex as a Lambic of course.
I have been thinking I will bottle this four ways- 1. as is uncarbonated. 2. as is carbonated. 3. blended with a red wine uncarbonated. 4. blended with a red wine carbonated. Though I am not entirely sure on all of that yet.
9/21/10- Finally amassed enough cap-able champagne bottles and bottled this. That magic number was 24 bottles. I primed with 12 oz of sugar to get 5 volumes of carbonation and reyeasted with some of the washed brett c from this batch. It tastes very lambic like but no where near as complex of course. A good amount of the raspberry seemed to make it through to the bottles despite some attempts at filtration. Oh well. Most of that will sink to the bottom.