How to brew sour beer?
- May 11, 2021
- 86
- tiantai
With the development of craft beer all over the world, the taste of sour beer is gradually accepted by more and more people. Here we would briefly clarify the difference between traditional sour beer brewing and current popular sour beer brewing method.
The traditional method for making sour beer mainly take place in beer fermentation stage. Firstly to brew some wort, and then ferment with mixture of traditional brewing yeast and some living bacteria, that would make the beer slowly sour. The bacteria will produce lactic acid, which gives beer a unique sour taste. With this method, it would take several months or more before beer is fermented and maturated well. But the beer would be with some off flavour as well, so extra precipitation process is needed for a period of time before drinking.
The current popular method for making sour beer mainly take place in boil kettle,which is called kettle sour. You can prepare the wort just as you would for traditional beer fermentation, and then pitch only bacteria (usually Lactobacillus or Micrococcus) to start the souring process. Once the required acidity and pH are reached, the wort could be boiled to kill all of the remaining bacteria.
At this point you can either continue fermenting by pitching fresh yeast, or blend the soured wort with fresh wort from another batch to ferment a blended beer. The beer will typically ferment and finish quite quickly if the pH is not too low, giving you a nice clean sour beer in a matter of weeks instead of taking many months. If you are making a very sour beer, I do recommend monitoring the pH as it can drop during fermentation. I like to keep the pH above 3.0 at a minimum, as fermentation can be slowed or even halted below that level.
Edited by Laura
Sales Manager
Tiantai Beer Equipment
Email: [email protected]
The traditional method for making sour beer mainly take place in beer fermentation stage. Firstly to brew some wort, and then ferment with mixture of traditional brewing yeast and some living bacteria, that would make the beer slowly sour. The bacteria will produce lactic acid, which gives beer a unique sour taste. With this method, it would take several months or more before beer is fermented and maturated well. But the beer would be with some off flavour as well, so extra precipitation process is needed for a period of time before drinking.
The current popular method for making sour beer mainly take place in boil kettle,which is called kettle sour. You can prepare the wort just as you would for traditional beer fermentation, and then pitch only bacteria (usually Lactobacillus or Micrococcus) to start the souring process. Once the required acidity and pH are reached, the wort could be boiled to kill all of the remaining bacteria.
At this point you can either continue fermenting by pitching fresh yeast, or blend the soured wort with fresh wort from another batch to ferment a blended beer. The beer will typically ferment and finish quite quickly if the pH is not too low, giving you a nice clean sour beer in a matter of weeks instead of taking many months. If you are making a very sour beer, I do recommend monitoring the pH as it can drop during fermentation. I like to keep the pH above 3.0 at a minimum, as fermentation can be slowed or even halted below that level.
Thanks to BeerSmith for providing the basis of this article.
Edited by Laura
Sales Manager
Tiantai Beer Equipment
Email: [email protected]
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