AG#104 – NZ Sour Wheat

Posted by: pdtnc on: September 22, 2013

• In: Brewing
• 2 Comments

NZ Sour Wheat – This is the start of my brewday on Sunday, but its still Wednesday!
I have just mashed 2.45kg of Pale malt in my old mini-mash Tun, 66°c for 60mins, then added about 2-3L of cold water to bring the temp down to 49°c with another 1kg of pale malt added to the mash to add some Lactobacillus to the Mash. I have put my little mash tun into my FV fridge set at 46°c and i hope to keep the temperature above 35°c as it says here http://beerandwinejournal.com/fossil-cove-sour-mash-experiment/ I did as it states and I covered the mash with cling-film and topped it off with a blanket of co2.

The Sour Mash:

My Main Mash is to be on Sunday and I’ll update this more then.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 40%
Wheat Malt – 25%
Wheat Malt, Dark (Weyermann) – 25%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Melanoidin (Weyermann) – 5%

Hops:
NZ Hallertau Aroma – 8.2 %  @ 60 mins – 20g
NZ Hallertau Aroma – 8.2 %  @10 mins – 30g
NZ Hallertau Aroma – 8.2 %  @0 mins – 30g
Pacific Jade – 15.1 % @ 0 mins –  30g

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 22 EBU
Colour: 15 EBC
Mash: 75mins @ 69°c
Boil: at least 75mins
Yeast: NBS Weiss, I assume this is Munich Wheat yeast.
Copper Finings: Protafloc @ 10mins left to boil

I’m expecting a fair few spec-changes, I’m thinking of my combined Run-off / sparge to be no more than 30L, I may get more, I may boil down, I will no doubt have a gravity change which will also effect the bitterness….

**Sunday**
To start off with I prepared my malts while the HLT was heating:

Then Checked the Sour Mash, it was 33°c in the center and smelled like the waste malt skip at work, I’m pretty pleased it managed to stay at 33c as @lugsy51 tells me that should be alright:

The top of the mash, even though it was covered in Cling-film had changed to a darker shade than the rest of the mash underneath:

I added about 3.8L boiling water to the Sour mash and gave it a good stir before running off about 7L into the copper, these are the weirdest first runnings I’ve ever had, the photo below shows them as clear as they were going to get:

The copper was pretty full after the main mash was sparged with about 32L in total, I liquored back 3L as the boil progressed checking with my Refractometer:

I did a 10min & Flamout (90°c Steep) additions, I’m hoping the Pacific Jade will give some Orange notes which i think will compliment the Wheat beer yeast:

I liquored back 3L to 1048, 2 points above my original predicted OG:

I tasted the Sour wort after it had 15mins of boiling, it was very sour (like so sour I went to spit in the sink!), I boiled it down to 5L with the hope of driving off some of the smell…! Things calmed down after today’s main mash was run to the copper with the wort ending up with just a subtle tang behind the malt sweetness at the end of boil, I’m told the sour will increase as the wort ferments and the sugars are used up.
Yeast was rehydrated and pitched into 30L at 20°c.

Things went very smoothly even with extended boil times running off the small sour mash worked well while the main mash was having its mash rest then the rest of the brewday was as per usual with just a slight lingering smell of the sour mash in the house, I was expecting worse! 🙂
Fingers crossed on this one as its all new to me!

*24th Sep ’13 – Gravity at 1019 and tastes pretty ok, a cider-like bite/tang.

*27th Sep ’13 – Gravity at 1018 and looks to have finished, have given it a rouse and will check again tomorrow, at this rate the beer will be really balanced against the lactic sourness.

*28th Sep ’13 – FG seems steady and I’ve just dry hopped this with 22g Motueka I had in the freezer.

*Bottled 5th Sep ’13 – Primed about 24L with 165g White Sugar, its got a permanent haze and tastes like cheap orange juice, though the balance of sweet to sour is quite good, hopefully it will carbonate up well and give it a crispness. With its starting and finishing gravities this beer is actually 3.9% ABV.

*16th Oct ’13 – Taster time… Yeasty Clove on the nose, quite light sparkling body on the pallet with a tang like fresh squeezed oranges. I’m hungry and this is making my belly rumble, bitterness is subtle and quite chalky but its hard to detect as the sourness and prickly carbonation cross the tongue first, with a few more mouthfuls the body feels to have a slick quality like a good Belgian Wit.

Tags: all grain, brewday, Brewing, Carapils, dark wheat malt, full mash, garage brewer, homebrew, homebrewing, hops, lager malt, Mash Tun, Melanoidin, melanoidin malt, NZ, NZ Hallertau Aroma, Pacific Jade, pale malt, something sour this way comes, sour, sour mash, sparge, weiss, wheat malt, wheat yeast, yeast