Finally had some time off this weekend. Naturally, I spent some of it working on my brews. The clean stout was done and ready to mix with the sour stout. Measuring and mixing everything together was a fun process - but a difficult one.
In my previous post I mentioned that the 1:1 ratio was still too strong and that a 2:1 ration was too clean. I knew I was going to be somewhere in between.
To make sure my previous tasting notes were accurate I did a 1:1 test first.
Wasn't as bracing as the first tasting. Weird. It was 100% a sour beer . No hint of stout flavors coming through though - this was just a calmer version of the very sour straight beer.
I then moved to the middle point with a 1.5:1 ration of clean to sour beer. This gives me 60% clean beer mixed with 40% sour. I was tasting the roast and toast flavors up from and then a sharp acidic bite at the end. First tasting the was multidimensional. Promising.
Next up was 1.75:1. This is roughly 63% clean. Essentially I was reducing the sourness by 3%. Amazing how quick the mix can change the beer because no there is no strong sourness. It has tartness but not sourness. It drinks like a thing stout that has a weird aftertaste. If you think about it, Guiness is said to have 3% sour beer. That little percent makes a pretty big difference in Guiness so it only makes sense that dropping down 3% makes this beer a much different beer. In the end, not what I am looking for. I want you to drink this and know that you are drinking an American Sour.
Final mix was a 1.25:1 or 55% clean vs 45% sour. This one had minimal stout flavor with a very sharp sour edge. Only slightly less acidic than the 1:1 ratio. This shows that the 5% less sour was very minimal in the over flavor compared to the 50-50 split. This probably has to do with my personal threshold for sourness. I assume once it gets to a certain point the sourness is so strong it just blows out the rest of the flavors to a point that you cant pick out as easily.
The straight sour stout that I am using for mixing is coming in at 3.3 on my pH strips. According the the American Sour Beers book my Michael Tonsmeire, sour beers can range from a pH of 3.0 - 3.9. A beer that has a 3.9 reading would be tart and and a beer at 3.0 would have bracing acidity. He goes on to suggest that beers below 3.0 are probably best used as mixing. I felt that my taster bottle was too sharp and too acidic to really enjoy. It was fun to try but I would have a hard time drinking and sharing 5 gallons of that straight. The final thing that he mentions is that the pH scale is logarithmic. Basically each point is equivalent to 10 times more or less acidity. So a beer that that is off by 2 points is twice as acidic.
Keep in mind lactic acid is going to be softer than acetic acid. So the readings are not the sole determining factor. I actually prefer sharp acetic bites to my sour beers. I love the Flanders Reds. I use plastic buckets which let in more oxygen which will contribute to the production of acetic acid. I will do a test on the mixed beer once I bottle on Tuesday to see what my pH strips say.
This first mixed batch comes in at roughly 3.75 gallons. I am going to do two gallons straight an the rest on some of the must we saved from the wine. This is a Pinot Blackberry. I will add a bit of oak cubes to replicate the barrel flavor that we will get from my third barrel once it is up and in production.
I will update later this week with a pH reading and how the final blend tasted going into the bottle. I hope that the three days mixed together will let the two flavors meld together a bit more and create a bit more rounded flavor.
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