Hello all, I am brewing a Leipzig styled watermelon gose this Sunday and my LHBS is out of acidulated malt. I've never messed around with water profiles before but I want to get the signature acidity of a gose. So my question is this: what is your target pH pre mash for a gose beer? Should I mash and then add lactic acid afterwards to get a certain pH? What should be my target be? They also happen to be down to only one packet of German ale yeast. Would a Belgian yeast be sufficient and do it's job?
A Gose's sourness comes from lactic acid produced by lactobacillus, either in a fermenter or a kettle. Acidulated malt and lactic acid are (mainly) for altering pH during the mash. I don't think you can make a credible sour just by adding acid to the mash. The mash enzymes would not like the severe pH drop. You could add lactic acid, after fermentation with a sacch strain, to approximate the flavor you'd get from souring with lactobacillus. I've never tried it that way (and AFAIK I've never tasted one made that way), and I've read varying opinions about how successful that is. Those who say it's not a great option say that the sour flavor is one dimensional, i.e. not as complex as using lactobacillus to sour the wort/beer.
So should I just pitch lactobacillus when I pitch the yeast instead? This is my first attempt at any kind of sour beer and I apologize for being ignorant about it.
You can sour with lacto in the kettle (before the boil) or you can sour with lacto in the fermenter. But in both cases, you'll need to use a sacch strain for the main fermentation. Do a search for "Bring me your Best Berliner" (or something like that) for a thread that goes into exhaustive details on all the possibilities. Also, I should have mentioned above... you can also sour in the mash tun, but you do that after conversion has been completed.
Here's the link... https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/berliner-time-bring-me-your-best.154633/
