Golden Sour with Chili Peppers
For a 6 Gallon Batch in the kettle
Beers 1 and 2
8 pounds Belgian Pilsner
4 Pounds Unmalted Soft winter white wheat.
Beer 3
8 Pounds German Pilsner
4 pounds torrified wheat
Turbid Mash
Year old Serebrianka
Trinidad Purfem Peppers
Oak Spiral soaked in Wine
East coast yeast bug county and bug farm
Wyeast De Bom sour blend
The Yeast Bay Melange Sour blend
This is my Golden Sour ale with chili peppers added to a secondary fermenter. The base beer is a blend of three different batches of sour ale the first two where lambic inspired beers with a turbid mash and a grist of 60 % belgian pilsner and 40 % unmalted soft white winter wheat. The hops used for these beers where a year old serebrianka hops which where 2.3 % alpha acid rated and by aging a year they where probably around 1.75 % alpha acid. Any Low Alpha acid hop will due as long as the IBU's are under 8 IBU. I boiled for 3 hours with the hops added at the first running of the beer. The first beer I used the East coast yeast blend bug county and the second beer I used bug farm from the same yeast provider. I aged these for a year. The third beer was brewed with an infusion mash at a 158 degree mash with a grist of 60 % German pilsner and 40 % torrified wheat. I boiled the wort for 90 minutes. the Hops I used where the same as the other two beers and I tried to achieve an IBU of under 8. I used two different yeast sources the first was Wyeast De Bom Sour blend and the second was the yeast Bays Melange Blend. I had aged this beer for 5 months. The blend was a third of each as the lambic's did not have much sourness and the third beer was pretty tart. I aged some oak spirals that I ordered from the barrel mill which where light toast French spirals and soaked them in chardonnay for 6 weeks. I removed the spiral from the wine and added it to the blend. The peppers I used in this beer where Trinidad perfume peppers which I had to grow my self because I was not able to find them any where. These peppers have no heat and are actually tart them selves so I found them to be fitting to the beer. I recommend 8 peppers per gallon as I used 10 and it was a little much. I bottle conditioned the beer after 4 weeks on the peppers and have tried 2 so far and both have an amazing pepper aroma and little pepper taste. The funk is there and noticeable but next time I will age the beer longer as the tartness was not where I expected to be. Note next time I will blend on the cool side to see what the beer will taste like as the beer warm will leave a higher perception of tartness. Also for quicker carbonation in the bottle I will add champagne yeast. The Sour beer does not have to be made with a complex turbid mash and can be a single batch of beer I just decided to blend the three as I liked components of all three at the time. Thats pretty much it if there are any questions feel free to ask.