Hey everyone
I want to star brewing Kettle sours. If anyone has the know how and best practices for Chaos down would you be into brewing with me or at least at the same time as me? I’ll buy the ingredients and put the beer on the keezer, I’d also just need to borrow legging equipment for that to happen. I only bottle.
Get at me.
Hey Eric, I have some experience doing this, so I can brew with you and walk you through the ingredients as well.
There are basically 2 keys to doing this.
1) You have to have sacrificial equipment and bacteria. I know Omega is moving offices now so their lacto blend might be hard to come by, but I believe Wyeast also makes a lacto blend, and the Good Belly pro-biotic you can find at the grocery store also works. You are generally lookiing for Lactobacillus Plantarum.
2) We shoudl schedule 2 days to do this. The first day to kettle sour in your new sacrificial fermenter, and the second day 3-4 days later so we can do the boil and ferment (in a regular fermenter)
The thing with bottling is if you do a kettle sour and boil, you can safely bottle with no repurcussions.
Hey Eric,
I do a lot of Kettle Sours and Barrel Aged Sours. I usually brew Monday - Wednesdays. Let me know if you'd like to meetup.
--james
Also,, you don't need any sacrificial equipment if you keep it in the kettle. There is a smaller, 8-10 gallon kettle around somewhere (I think it's still around somewhere, underneath one of the stations) that I use when I do it. Makes it a lot easier, IMO.
But, if you can't, you can cool down to ~90 degrees and still put it in glass (which you can resantize effectively after introducing bacteria) without issue.
I’d be interested in joining and splitting a batch if possible. I’ve wanted to make a kettle sour for a while but never brave enough to try. I would be able to get my hands on the Lacto if so.
I'm brewing a beer on Wednesday evening after work if any of you sour initiates want to join me.
The whole process will take only about 2 hours, maybe 2.5 at the most. Also plan to come back to the clubhouse on either Saturday or Sunday to do the second part of the process.
Cheers.
I’m available Wednesday after work I won’t be able to make it to the brew house until around 7. And I’m free Sunday if that works for you?
Ok that works for me.
Were you able to get your hands on a bacteria pitch?
Yea I can get some Lacto how many homebrew packs will we need? Should I bring anything else grain, carboy anything?
Well I’m glad my post could facilitate something. Boolish I can brew Monday’s any time, Tuesday’s after work, Saturdays until 4pm and Sunday mornings.
Bianca, if you are making 5 gallon batch, I've found 1 pack to be sufficient. You will need carboy airlock and grain (I normally go with just 50% 2 row and 50% malted wheat).
Keep in mind that this carboy will be your "sour" carboy.
I would offer to lend you my contaminated carboys but they are both currently occupied.
Do you know if we have that grain available for purchase at the club? I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to brew and grow before they close.
We definitely have 2 row and I'm pretty sure we have wheat at the clubhouse.
Worst comes to worst, you can kettle sour with just 2 row and then add in wheat DME afterwards.
Just another friendly reminder that there's no worry with "contamination" if you're using a glass carboy.