Hi guys, I'm planning to brew one of the BYO Gose recipes and I was a little unclear on the mash technique listed there. It calls for acidulated malt, and goes as follows: "Mill the acidulated malt and keep separate from the rest of the grains. Hold the mash temperature for approximately 60 minutes or until the conversion is complete. Add the acidulated malt to the mash for an additional 45 minutes. Try to keep the temperature as close to original mash temperature as possible using an available heat source. Anything between 144–149 °F (62–65 °C) will work." I have a cooler mash tun and I'm just confused on how to bump up the temp when I add in the acid malt. It might be as simple as adding more hot water to achieve a higher temp but I wanted to ask to be sure. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
I'm not familiar with thoses goses. but I guess what you are doing is using enough acidulated to create sourness but you have other fermentables that you need to mash and you don't want to mess up the pH? Sounds a little tricky. With a cooler, you can use the principle of a decoction mash to maintain temp, or you could add more water, as you said. By the former, I mean pull a thin part of the mash so that you have enough liquid that you could add your acidulated too and maintain about the right water to grain ratio. Heat the liquid to an appropriate strike temp, add the grain, stir to equilibrate, and add back to main mash. Seems like a bit of a pain, but could do what you need.
Honestly, I would skip the Acid Malt, mash for the intended OG you want for the beer, and use tips in this thread started by one of BA's finest to obtain the level of acidity you are looking for. The addition of acid malt, if it drops the pH too low, could not convert and leave starches in the beer for other bacteria and yeast as a source to infect your beer.
Gotta say thanks for this post since I'm about to brew a gose myself (posted about it last week) and want to get other's takes on this as well. I'm going to try out the same BYO recipe and I think I'll use the decoction method, draining a little bit of wort as the 60min mark approaches, bringing it to a boil and using that for the acidulated malt infusion. My mash tun retains heat fairly well so I don't think I'll need to drain too much wort to bring the mash back to temp.
This has worked well for me in the past, but do what you will as far as the acidulated malt is concerned. 4.0 lbs. German Pilsner malt 4.0 lbs. White Wheat malt 4 oz Acidulated Malt (for mash pH correction) Separate 8 oz Acidulated Malt (added during 156° °F step-up to acidify sour mash - post sugar conversion) Separate 8 oz uncrushed pilsner malt for wort inoculation Mash @ 150 °F for 60 min Step up to 156 °F for 10 min Mashout at 168 °F for 10 min Add 8 oz uncrushed pilsner malt once wort gets below 120F
If you use a multi-step mash calculator it will tell you how much boiling water to add to the mash to bring the temp up at the given 'step ups'
I'm not entirely sure what those instructions are trying to accomplish other than squeezing as much tartness from the acid malt by maintaining that temp. Just a guess. I've had good results from a hybrid method sour mashing/spontaneous lacto growth for a Berliner Weisse that should get you the lacto sour base for a gose. Keeps wort on the grain bed rather than running it off then souring it. (Learned from blog by Anarchylane.com but just Googled it and site full of spam, so...) Slight riff on Lukass' post above. Generally use whatever grain bill you have, but as prior posts, keep aside not only about 10% acid malt but also a couple handfuls of the crushed base grain mix. Mash in as normal per schedule. At mashout (usu 60 min) sprinkle in the acid malt to reduce the pH to lacto-friendly levels. Let the mash drop temp to about 115-120 degrees. I also have a cooler mash tun so I use sani-sprayed Cling Wrap over the top for faster temperature drop as compared to keeping your mash tun lid on. Once to 115-120, the sweet spot for lacto growth, take the couple handfuls of reserved crushed grain and sprinkle on top of mash. The grain has natural lacto on it, so it acts as an inoculation. Put the lid back on the mash tun to maintain that temp as best as possible. I use a space blanket, sleeping bag, wool blanket to help the cooler keep temp, but RDWHAHB if you drop to around 100. Leave it for anywhere from 18-48 hours, depending on the total growth and sourness you want. Vorlauf, sparge, boil, cool, pitch as normal.* (I assume salination for a gose at boil.) An important note is the temp and other bugs at souring. Excess oxygen leads to butyric acid (vomit smell/taste) creation which theoretically could be reduced by a blanket of CO2 on top before you close it off, but never tried it. Ideally there's no excess CO2 creation if you've cultivated the right anaerobic lacto. There's lots out there on hetero- vs homofermentative lacto strains if you really want to geek out. *With the pitch, many recipes call for primary fermentation with a neutral yeast but I've had fun pitching odd strains, mixed cultures, brett strains, adding fruits, spices, etc. to tweak kettle soured beers. Good luck, report back!
Thank you guys for all the suggestions. I was hoping to brew this one without Lacto/wild bacteria for sanitation/equipment purposes. That's my only hangup on truly souring with the Lacto, as I understand that's the true way to go. I had heard good feedback on this particular recipe and figured on using a good deal of acidulated malt to gain the sourness required. Is that a bad idea?
I've brewed the BYO recipe many times with good results. I even medaled a couple times with it before gose became more mainstream (and more sour). Now when I enter this recipe the judges all say that it's not sour enough. Never had an issue with unconverted starches and/or infections resulting from a low Ph. Really most of the mash will have been converted by the time you add the acid malt, so your just trying to squeak out a few extra sugars from the acid malt itself. You don't really get sourness from acid malt though. The most you can hope for is a tartness. The beer itself has a nice wheat-like character, with a fruity pebble-like note from the coriander and a tart, briny finish. It's a very balanced recipe and quite tasty, IMO.
