Sour Disposition Pale Ale – Krepples Brew Log

I had planned a sour brew, but was unable to source GoodBelly after mashing in, so now we have a pale ale. 🙂

Heat 7 gallons of softened Dover City water to 157°. (The extra salt in the water would be fine for a sour, no clue how it will impact this brew.)

Gently dough in grains until all grain is covered by water.

Mash grains at 151° for 1.5 hours. (Ran all over looking for Goodbelly, so I got a nice long mash.)

Remove “grain bag” and allow grains to drain. (Temp dropped to 141° over the hour and a half.)

Bring wort to a boil.

Add 1 oz Cluster hops and continue for 45 minutes.

Add 1 oz Willamette hops and continue boil for another 10 minutes.

Add 1 oz Willamette hops and continue boil for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat source and drop wort temperature to 68° and take OG reading.

Sufficiently aerate and transfer to primary fermenter.

Pitch yeast into fermenter.

Allow beer 2~3 weeks in the primary to adequately ferment and cleanup any diacetyl produced during fermentation.

Bottle and wait another 2 weeks…

Enjoy!

2018-05-06 – Brew Day
- Adjusted mash pH to 4.91 with 3/4 tsp Citric Acid. (It was going to be a sour, I wasn’t that concerned.)
- Dropped temp to 72° and pitched the yeast.
- Placed the carboy in the fermentation chamber at 64°.
18 hours, fermentation chamber is 65° and there are no signs of yeast activity. While this isn’t completely unexpected when using BRY-97, I did add 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient and 2 tsp of gypsum to aid in yeast health. Both were boiled in 1.5 cups of water prior to adding to the carboy.
25 hours, small krausen has formed.
32 hours, full, moving krausen with a stream of bubbles in the airlock.
4 days, krausen is no longer actively moving and bubbles have slowed in the airlock.
6 days, krausen has dropped out.
9 days, reduced temperature to 40°.
11 days, took FG reading at 1.013, fined with gelatin and reduced fermentation chamber temperature to 35°.