ECY01 Sours

Grist was
50% Malted White Wheat
40% Floor Malted Pils
10% Flaked Wheat
And acid malt as needed(<8oz)

~8ibus of tettnanger

Mashed at 158* @60 min, but here is where I got weird(I guess because I was born a contrarian). I held back half of the flaked wheat until the boil. While the boil was just starting I pulled some wort and mixed it with the rest of the flaked wheat in a separate container. Let that mixture gel-up and get all starchy adding more hot wort as needed. I then strained the starchy liquid back into the boil. (took ~15 min).

Carbed it low on purpose shooting for around 1 volume of C02 to match the style guidelines for a Straight Unblended Lambic. I was not worried about the yeast being dead. In fact, when I topped off the fermentor with fresh wort (after bottling 2.5 gals) a krausen kicked up in ~24 hrs.

I don't have a kegging setup, but I can say that I have had plenty of good sours on tap(if they were forced or naturally carbed I can't say). However, the best sours I've had were out of the bottle, and I will also say that Firestone's Barrelworks beers are FAR better out of the bottle than on tap.

 

Yeah, I know you know what you're doing, I was just providing a little anecdotal evidence. It was the only time I've been able to try a sour both ways. I've had Cantillon Classic Gueuze on tap at Zwanze, but I think those bladders they have for draft are primed, not sure. @RashyGrillCook I've been to Cantillon and tasted the 1 year lambic, I thought it was pretty undrinkable, but very interesting in that it gives you an idea of the building blocks of a gueuze. The barrel room there smells just like it tasted, like rotting horse innards. The ultimate funk!

 

Rotting horse innards? yum. Right now mine(@just over a year) tastes mostly of citrus and lemon. The difference could be the open inoculation versus specific isolated strains being pitched.