Gose. Gonna try it...

I've done 20 gallons of Gose this summer already, cant drink enough of it. My recipe is a little off style, but I enjoy it a lot.

75% pils
15% flaked wheat
3% caramunich 1
7% acidulated

1.030 starting gravity

In ten gallons- 2 oz of strissel spalt at ten minutes, 7 grams of coriander, 14 grams salt, 14 grams tangerine zest at flame out.

Wyeast 2565 or 2575 to ferment.

 

Oh, and I spiked each keg to taste with more lactic acid.

 

you need some lacto, otherwise its not gonna be sour. No matter what weyermann says, acid malt doesnt not make a sour beer (at least in % that wont affect mash efficiency)

 

Supposedly the owner of GC Brewery is an expert on Gose; you could talk to him. I've never had one before myself.

 

It wont even really make a beer tart, realistically the only thing acid malt does is help to adjust mash pH a bit

 

That's why I spike the kegs with lactic acid. 3 week turn around from brew day to pouring it, and I would bet dollars to doughnuts that nobody could tell the difference between it and a lactic soured version. I don't feel like letting my dozen+ carboys get tied up with a 3% alcohol gose that I will drink by the quart.

 

I am sure your spiked Gose is wonderful, but I would take your bet, and say that if you were given a gose that was spiked and a gose that was soured with lacto, with both having the same finishing ph and same processes otherwise, you would absolutely be able to tell the difference side by side. Without a doubt. Whether or not that makes one better than the other is up to the individual tastes (super subjective of course), but there is a huge difference.

 

Authentic Gose is extremely sour - up there with the sourest Lambics.

 

I can very easily tell the difference between the two, lactic acid from the bottle is very one dimensional, has a slight metallic edge and a wisp of diacetyl. a lacto soured beer doesnt display those characteristics

 

Interesting. I'm not saying you're wrong, but where would lactic acid pick up diacetyl? Is it a byproduct of commercial lactic acid production?

 

If the brewer does their job right, I would doubt it. Use some acidulated malt to help give an earthy balance, plus the sub-threshold citrus zest to add some balance. Use a malt base that will finish dryer yet still maintain body, plus roll back the IBUs to accommodate for the lack of aging. In a blind taste test nobody would be the wiser, but I bet a lot of people think they could because egos are bigger than taste buds. I've done done tons of Goses and Berlinners the "correct" and spiked ways, never had somebody able to guess which was which.

Lambics/Wild Ales? yeah, thats a different ballgame.

 

What Ive learned over the years is that in brewing, just because I cannot taste something subtle rarely means others cannot. Im telling you that without a doubt I can tell the difference between a gose or bweiss brewed with lactic bacteria and one using commercial lactic acid. Even if they were the exact same acidity there are differences to the two beers that are quite noticeable.

 

You nailed it, its very very subtle but there. I think oldsock mentioned it to me once, so I went and tried a little taste test and its definitely there

 

What if you mashed most of your grain for 45 minutes or so, then added your big charge of saurmalt and upped the temp a bit for 15 minutes before sparging? Never tried this, just wondering what you think.

 

its still not gonna be a sour beer, gose is more sour than anything acid malt can provide

 

Ithaca Brewing uses acid malt for their sours, and people seem to want to stand in line for hours to not buy them.

 

I have a hybrid saison/belgian pale (because of yeast choice) I brew with this same technique. It uses 20% saurmalt and it is not sour at all, it has a refreshing crisp finish, verging on sour but that is it. It is by no means sour. In fact- I've given corked and caged bottles of this beer out for my sons birth announcement and only a few people out of almost a hundred even metioned anything like a lactic finish or a slight sour note.