Dry Hopped Kettle Sour Recipe Critique

I am about to do my first kettle sour this Friday as well, actually. Mine is a bit lower ABV though. 1.032 -> 1.005 (expected 3.5% ABV). Doing a mix of Pilsner and White Wheat (60/40) as the grist. Hopping to only 4 IBU with Belma (5min addition of .25oz) and will be adding a few pounds of raspberries once near FG. I am using a carton of mango goodbelly as my source of lacto. Supposedly will sour quickly in about 24hrs to 3.3-3.5 or so.

I would think you are over-hopping the beer and would clash a bit, most kettle sours have been few low IBU that I've seen, single digit. Even if adding 3oz of hops at 180F or less, you will still get bitterness (as does dry hopping). But perhaps others have done heavy hopping with kettle sours and would better offer up some advise. I would be curious as well, it just seems excessive to me for the style.

 

Yes, a Berliner! Actually going for a beer much like Destihl's Lynbrook... My girlfriend and I really enjoy that, so hoping to try and recreate something close (or better). Will be quite sour, so hoping to get on the lower end of the pH spectrum.

Good luck on yours!

 

To preface what I say, I am not a hophead and I cannot appreciate hop character as much as most other beer drinkers on this site. So take my advice with a grain of salt.

That said, for me this would be too much hop character in a sour beer. I brewed a tart saison a while ago, which I dry-hopped with, if I remember correctly, 3 ounces of Mandarina Bavaria hops. There were no hot-side hops whatsoever, since it wasn't a kettle sour (I pitched lacto and then about a day later the saison yeast).

The result was far too skewed toward hop character for me. Partly it's that I got a kind of grassy, vegetal note from the hops. But also, the hops just overwhelmed the beer. After I let the bottles sit for several months, the hop character faded a bit and I ended up finding the beer quite enjoyable. In fact at this point I rate it a success. But if I were going to brew it again, I would use maybe one ounce of hops instead of three.

 

I think what you have looks pretty good. IBUs seem reasonable, but definitely wouldn't go any higher. You could move some of your whirlpool hops to a 2nd dry hop maybe? I've been thinking of doing something similar one of these days, and was thinking right along your lines though. I've done several kettle sours (Berliner and Gose), but never built up a starter of L. brevis. I've only used Goodbelly or just some uncrushed grains. FWIW I think hops and sour go together nicely. Remember to make a healthy starter for you yeast though, you'll need it for that acidic environment. Good luck!

 

Question - Why acidulated malt? Redundant I think.

I'd also agree with most who've posted that the bitterness is a little high, I'd keep it in the 10-12 range myself.

 

Don't trust Tinseth. If you're wort is over 170F you'll be getting bitterness - and, this is the hardest part for me, you can't really be sure of what that bitterness is!

 

I would add zero hops to the wort, only dry hop before packaging. Plantarum can't handle IBU's.

 

What’s the point of the 10 min boil, pre brevis?

 

Side question (not to derail the thread...). I read that Lacto may not like the use of campden to treat water chlorine/chlorimates. Anybody have issue in doing so? Adding the typical 1/4 tablet per 5 gallon or so prior to the mash and such?

 

I'm glad you asked, because I was just planning out a gose, and I was thinking of using a Campden tablet (or a portion of one) to treat my water. I am eager to hear people's thoughts. For what it's worth, Mike Tonsmeire once had trouble with Campden tablets, which seemed to delay the beginning of fermentation. But that was with yeast, not lacto. He's used them since without reporting any fermentation-related problems (but again, we are talking about yeast, not lacto).

My other comment would be that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is also very good at removing chlorine and chloramines, and so far as I know it has no inhibitory effect on lacto bugs. So the safe thing to do would be to use that instead of Campden tablets.

 

If you're going for a hoppy kettle sour, then I'd do as you planned. IBUs can be masked by pH, so if you shoot for 25-30 IBU, i think the sour/hop balance will play nicely.

Campden will definitely inhibit lacto growth. I've had problems with this in the past - used the normal amount of campden to treat my tap water, and the sour wort took a lot longer than expected (I used the goodbelly method). Took around 72 hours and the wort never reached the pH that I was hoping.

Ever since then, I've bought natural spring water when kettle souring, and haven't had any issues!

 

Never had issues with a sacch and/or brett fermentation when using campden in the correct dosage. Lacto growth will be slowed, though

 

@Lukass

Here's a thought... Could I just treat the water post souring? Before bringing it up to a boil for the 60 min.

That way no interference with the lacto and can still treat the water. In theory it sounds plausible?

 

I've never tried that before, but in theory I think that would work fine considering the lacto has already done its thing. Keep us posted!

 

He's souring before adding hops so he should be OK. He's also using L. brevis and not L. plantarum, just for accuracy's sake.