Heya, I made my first gose and, while the malt bill had a good amount of acidulated malt, it isn't overly sour. its kind of barely there and i wouldn't mind if it was a touch more noticeable. i was making my own mix of this: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/acid-blend.html I was going to use it on my mango w/brett beer, but thought, hey, why not put a bit into the gose and see how it works? Anyone have any thoughts for or against this?
Never used the stuff but acid malt doesn't really add much acidity. Although I've heard some people say that it does, I've never really noticed any even from 20% acid malt.
think i was close to 40% and it definitely has a slight sourness to it. i don't want to use pediococcus and, considering that the audience may be new at salty and sour beer, i want to keep the sourness light. but its too light as it is. but it most definitely has some sourness to it.
I don't think a gose is supposed to be that sour anyway, also I thought its sourness would have come from lacto, similar to a berlinerweiss
the tartness should be there. it shouldn't be lambic-style sour, but think of a drink that you want on a hot summer day. some salt, some sour.
That's not the kind of sour you want. You want lactic acid: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/lactic-acid-4-oz.html. For what it's worth, I made a Gose a few months ago and used about 2 oz of this stuff in a 3.5 gallon batch. Sourness was very subtle, but present, so be prepared to use a good bit of it if you decide to go this way. If I had it to do over, I would brew, pitch some lacto and let that do some work for a week or two, and then pitch euro ale or something similar.
The salt really should add mostly a slick feeling and fullness, but be extremely subtle. My favorite way to brew a gose is with an addition of cherries. The salt really emphasizes the fruity flavors A gose will be nicely tart though, just like a good b-weiss Ato - If I use acid (which I generally dont) I prefer to use citric by itself. Its a bit more fruity than the malic or tartaric and gives a smoother acid bite
ryane said that a gose should be tart, which to me implies lacto and not pedio, which is generally used for souring. If you're going to use pedio make sure you use brett to clean up the diacetyl that the pedio will produce.
I used lactic acid in a gose that worked out well - as well as a gose can be anyway. ;-) Add half of what you think you need (I used maybe an oz. total in 5 gals.), mix well, taste. Wait a few hours (or the next day), eat some food, drink some water, etc before you add more and taste again - as your palate will become used to the sourness and you could over dose the beer if you did it right away.
I like to use lacto, or JP dregs Liquid lactic acid comes off very metallic to me, the citric acid is much smoother, and malic is a bit too sharp
the claim is that the Northern Brewers' mix is balanced. the claim. using JP introduces brett. i don't have 3 months to wait.
