Brew Day - Golden Blonde Sour Ale

Last weekend I made a lacto sour starter and pitched it into some fresh wort made from pretty typical Belgian Blonde mash.  I let the wort sour for 48 hours and this is what awaited me when I got home for brew day.

I drained the mash tun that was keeping the mash as warm as possible.  It drains from the bottom so most of the remains from the lacto fermentation are left behind. After it was drained into the boil kettle all hell broke out.

A huge thick foam from the soured wort built up as the temperature raised towards 212.  It was like the thick ocean foam that you see on the beach after a bad storm.  I had to keep skimming that off.  This foam trapped a lot of heat and once the air hit the wort I had an instant boil over.  I dont think I lost too much but it was still not fun to deal with.

After I got it under control it boiled for 30 minutes before the first hop addition.  After the hops were added it was a mountain of green hoppy foam.  I was constantly watching it and adjusting the temprature.  After 20 minutes I finally hit the right temperature that I could let it rip through the final 40 minutes of the boil. 

At flame out I added just a bit of aroma hops and set it aside to cool some before chilling it with my immersion chiller.  Call it my "coolship".  Otherwise known as my basement sink.

Once the wort cooled to 72 degrees it was time to pitch all the yeast.

I split this batch into 3 different batches. 

Batch 1 - 100% Brett Lambicus Strongest of the Brett in regards to the earthy and barnyard flavors

Batch 2 - Wyeast Belgian Wheat
Description in some reviews say it creates a tart wheat beer with some nice fruit flavors.  Sounds pretty good for this test right?

Batch 3 - Roeselare.
The traditional Wyeast pack for mixed fermentation.

About 18 hours after I pitched the yeast here is the updates:

Batch 1 - little signs of fermentation but not much going on yet.
Batch 2 - a good size krausen.  Just no airlock activity yet.
Batch 3 - full steam ahead. Airlock firing away.

We will see in 5 weeks how the Belgian Wheat one tastes, followed by the 100% Brett L. at 7 weeks.  And then 2 months later the mixed fermentation will be tasted.

The mixed fermentation batch has 1.8 gallons.  I will split the .8 gallons into two growlers and add some fruit - Raisings and Peaches to see how those tatse.  Hope to just get one  750ml bottles of those ones.  I will age those on fruit two weeks longer than the regular Batch 3.

Next up - bottle the French Saison and the Chimay Blue clone I have in secondary storage.

Until next time...