Solera

I’ve always been intrigued by sours and their production.  It seems so crazy to me to have the patience to leave a beer for years, not knowing how it is going to turn out.  I like speeding up sours a little bit but I also understanding the need for time in order to let the bugs do their work.  That’s why when I heard of the solera concept I was hooked.  Doing this, you are making a batch of sour beer (in my case, 5 gallons) and periodically taking a portion of finished beer from it and refilling with fresh wort for the bugs to eat away and sour even more.  In theory, there is always going to be beer left from the original batch in your carboy.  As I did in my previous Sour Brown, I can get a good tasting sour beer in ~6 months by souring the mash and pitching active dregs.  So using this Solera method, I can get sour beer in about 6 months and then every few months after that.  To me, this is a no brainer and I can forsee taking a gallon or so out every few months, fruiting it and having a pretty steady stream of sour beer on hand.

I designed this recipe to have lots of complex fermentables for the bugs to eat and to be a little lighter, but I think I messed up and it is a little too dark.  I’ll fix that by adding ligher beers for the initial refills.

Solera

5 gallons

4 lb Pilsner

3.5 lb 2 Row

1 lb Munich

1 lb Vienna

1 lb Wheat

0.25 oz Chinook (60 min)

US-04

Mashed high at 156F for 60 minutes.  Soured beer using a handful of grain for 3 days, boiled using hops and pitched US-05 to ferment at ambient for initial fermentation then adding dregs from homebrew sour and commercial bottles.

OG:1.053

FG:1.013

IBU: 11

ABV: 5.3%

7/21/2014: Mashed in at 156F for 60 mins.  Sparged out and collected 6.2 gallons wort.  Let cool to 120F, pitched a handful of grain, put saran wrap over and let sit from 90-110F for 3 days.
7/24/2014: Pitched US-05 at 66F.
7/28/2014: Bumped up to 68F.