Once I did that I thought it was pretty good. I liked it. [laughs]
D’oh! That's stupid. [laughs] “I liked it, so you will too!”
Hey, I'm William, here at Northern Brewer, and today we're back with another
exciting Grainfather G40 video. Today we tried out a kettle sour in it. It's one of my favorite
styles. We all love sour beers. And, kettle sours tend to take a little bit of time. After the mash,
you have to keep them warm, 85-95F, in that range for up to, it can take up to three days;
generally less than a day though. So, we all thought that the G40 might be a good candidate
to try that out in just because it's got that built-in temperature control. So, you can just
kind of “set it and forget it” was the theory behind it.”
If this is your first time seeing the Grainfather G40 all-in-one brew system on our YouTube channel,
please check out our other Grainfather G40 content. It includes a video of us unboxing it,
and then also our very first brew day -- where also we learned a few other tricks about it.
Both of those will be linked in the video description below. Otherwise, let's get into kettle souring a beer!
To really test it we wanted to do a 10-gallon batch. We went with our Duck Duck Gose kit.
And since we were already experimenting, we figured why not experiment a little bit
more and do a split batch, and do a couple new twists on that kit. So, we did a mango
chile gose. For that one we used our crystallized mango powder
and then some assorted peppers out of my garden from earlier in the season.
And then the other one is one that I like to call a Pop Gose the Weasel. We all love beer puns,
and that one uses Cryo Pop hops, which is hard to say, and then also Lutra yeast,
which is actually named after Lutra which is in the weasel family. So hence, Pop Gose the Weasel.
To be clear, this isn't going to be a video on kettle souring. This is
a video on using the G40 to kettle sour.
We have another video that does cover how to kettle sour from start to finish, with
all the ins and outs, and in-depth explanation. See that link in the video description.
Alright, for this the first thing was entering the recipe into the app. I was hopeful that – I
figured there would be some hiccups along the way. It doesn't have a built-in kettle sour setting,
so you had to work with the app a little bit. But, it went very smoothly. There are two limitations
that we'll come up on and had to do some slight workarounds, but they were easy and not a big
deal at all. The first thing is entering in the app, standard like anything else you enter into
there. You start off with the ingredients, do that per normal. Then, when it gets to the mash step,
that's where it gets a little bit trickier with it again because they don't have that built-in kettle
sour intelligence or step. You enter it in – you do your first mash step and then for mash out I
did what I call a “mash out/short boil.” And, I named that in the recipe, so that when the
app shows my next step it reminds me what I'm doing since it's kind of an awkward process.
Once you get that first mash step entered, the next one is going to be that short boil/mash
out that I call. That one is where the first limitation came up in the software.
The max temperature you can put in for a mash step is 203F, which I don't know why you can go to 203F
(like why that's their cut-off), but that was the cut-off there. Which was fine because I know that
you can override that temperature on the control panel on the G40 once it gets to that setting.
One of the other limitations that I found has to do with the sparge reminder.
The app tells you to get your sparge water heating roughly a half-hour before it's time to boil.
Since I was working around the app and I was actually doing that short boil for the kettle
sour I needed my sparge water ready before the app would tell me. So, just remember you'll need
to set a reminder for that sparge water on your phone or any place else really, or post-it note,
just because the one limitation really is that it won't tell you that. No big deal.
I forgot and then I forgot to heat my sparge water, so then I missed the step and it went
to the next step. But, then I learned that you could actually go back a step, which was actually
really cool. I didn't know that. So, I was able to go back a step, pause it, and get caught back up
with the sparge water. For me, fooling around with something, it’s actually a really neat experience
to learn that the system has your back in a sense and it can help you fix some stuff like that.
I think it was just about the time that I realized I didn't heat up my sparge water that
one of my brewery supervisors decided to pay a visit and let me know that I wasn't doing it quite
right. Plus, she was really just mad because she likes to knock over my grain bucket after I'm done
milling and eat all the grains if I'm turning my back, so I think she was just there for a snack.
Since I was already playing with a lot of stuff in the recipe,
I decided to try sparging slightly different than what most people would probably recommend. Any
time I'm using electric – especially an all-in-one like these – I like to
circulate the wort as it's heating up to a boil. I think it just gives you a better
heat distribution. So, for the sparge, once I got all the sparge water collected, it's
still dripping through the basket. But, since I have a nice Brew In A Bag pulley system, I use
that to actually hoist that up out of the G40 and I was able to put in the recirculating arm then,
and start recirculating it. Not needed, just something I wanted to try and geek out on.
Just more fun on a brew day because that's ultimately what it's about.
Once that's entered I did 10 minutes for the short boil and that's just to,
again, it's part of the kettle souring process. You just want to make sure that
that wort is sterile and that when you go to add the lactobacillus to do the kettle souring
that it's only that lactobacillus in the kettle doing it, and none of the bugs or bacteria that
might have fallen in there, or had been in the grain or LME or whatever you're using.
It's an important step just to do that quick sanitation of the wort.
After that 10-minute boil you're going to need to chill it down
to the kettle souring temp. Unlike traditional brews, when you're cooling it down you'd be
cooling it down into your fermenter, you'd be going through the counterflow chiller into a
fermenter. For this one you can go through that counterflow chiller back into that same
kettle to cool. Chill time can take longer just because you're putting that wort back in there,
so just be aware that might take longer than normal. If you had an immersion chiller,
I might recommend doing that; it might be a little bit quicker in this situation.
Once that hits 95F, I removed the chiller from it. I actually got the recirculating arm back, I
sanitized that, put that back in, so that anytime I wanted to I could use that pump
to rotate it and stir it and just keep it moving. It's nice to have when you're heating
it up for kettle sours just keep that wort moving, keep a nice even heat distribution.
Once that's down to lactobacillus pitching temperature, again 85-95F. I think that’s the
best range. All the manufacturers have different ranges. I think if you can keep it closer to that
90-95F, that's going to get you that really quick kettle sour. At this point, before pitching the
lactobacillus, you could use lactic acid or phosphoric acid to help lower the pH below
4.5. That's just going to help you get a cleaner ferment, a nicer, quicker lactobacillus ferment.
So, once it's pre-acidified, go ahead and add the lactobacillus.
I just gave it a light swirl to kind of stir it up, makes me feel good,
not needed. The other thing you could do is then CO2 purge that headspace and put the lid on.
I didn't worry about the CO2 purge. Days that I'm being anal I do it.
The other thing is with that G40 lid, I put that on and I put a little piece of electrical
tape – there's a hole over it, so I just put a little piece of electrical tape over that to not
let any heat go out through that or any unwanted bugs that fly in through there or whatnot.
The next one is entering in the kettle sour duration. What I was most interested in is
can I set the G40 for multiple days. I wasn't sure if that was possible. It is! You can. It
uses minutes, so you have to convert hours to minutes – no big deal. Well, it started off with
20 hours, which is 1,200 minutes, I believe. In my experience, 20 hours has been plenty, especially
if you're doing the wort pre-acidification; that just helps get a cleaner ferment,
better head on your pours later on. I think it also gives the lactobacillus a little bit of
head start, just less heavy lifting for them. And, a starter always helps. I will point out I did not
do a starter for this one, with the lactobacillus, because Omega came up with the new larger pitch
sizes, and I wanted to see how those would do without a starter. And, they were fantastic.
So, once that was all sealed up and nice, I went back to letting it run for quite a few
hours before I went to bed that night. I wanted to see how the control box was going to handle
doing the kettle sour, maintaining that lower temperature. I just wanted to watch that and see
how it was going to behave over the course of time that I watched it. It ramped up the temp;
there's a little power meter on the control box – zero to a 100 percent – and it can show you the
percentage. It stayed zero to three percent for the full time; it'd cycle up sometimes
if it needed to heat it up a little bit more or would just kill it if it was at 95 and let it go.
That worked well for up until bedtime. In my experience, larger batches like this tend not
to drop temperature too much, so I chose not to let the control box run all night long. I didn't
want to learn any other new shortcomings the hard way. I did
wrap it with a sweatshirt to give a little bit more insulation and called it a night.
I got up the next day. I don't remember how much it dropped, but it was still above 80.
At which point, I turned it back on. It instantly started ramping up the temp. The nice thing
is that I had that recirculating arm in there, so as soon as I saw that it needed to come up
that much I turned the pump on. Because it won't turn the pump on at that point, I turned the pump
on just to keep that swirling. A trick I learned a while ago when I first started doing kettle sours
with gas burners is you can just juice it and stir it and get a little bit more heat in there;
it doesn't doesn't hurt the lacto at all. So, I worked that way and it worked well on the G40.
Started checking the pH in the morning because it can go pretty quick. It did take, I think,
19 hours for this one to hit a pH that was good enough for me. For a finished kettle sour pH, what
I'm looking for during that kettle souring phase is anywhere between 3.0 to 3.4. I’ve found that
right in the middle at 3.2 is kind of my preferred pH level, so I try to find it and hit it at that
spot. This one went a little bit quicker and went a little bit lower than that, which is fine.
Once that pH hit, it was time to do the boil.
At that point it's pretty much a standard brew day like any other boil. You bring it up to boil,
you add your first hops or any other ingredients so for a gose. Pretty straightforward brew day
at that point. Once it's boiling, a couple ounces of hops at the beginning of the boil,
and then some coriander towards the end and that's kind of it. Pretty straightforward brew day.
Once the boil was all complete, I hooked the chiller back up,
normal transfer that into two of the fermenters,
and then I did a little bit more experimenting. We took our nice, light, crisp, fruity – I find gose
quite refreshing actually, a little bit of salt just brings you back wanting more. So, we decided
to take that and make a fun little dry hop version because who doesn't like dry hopping stuff.
And then also a mango chile one. I'm a big fan of spicy, salty, fruity candies. I thought this
would be a great style to try. I've tried a few times in the past and they turn out pretty well.
The first one actually wrapped up fermentation a little bit quicker –
just because I didn't have to dry pepper it and keep monitoring it – and was the Pop
Goes the Weasel. I thought that's going to be fun because of the new Lutra kveik, it is very clean,
works well in high temperatures, so why not use it in the winter time when my house is cold. [laughs]
Super clean, just wanted to kind of let the salt and the fruitiness and the hops shine through. I
also used the new Cryo Pop hops, a new hop blend in cryo hops that are supposed to give you just a
ton of tropical fruit, passionfruit, just a fruit bomb in your face all over the place. I've done
other versions of dry hop gose using Cryo Hops, and they all turn out great. I really recommend
trying playing with it if you haven't done that. It did showcase how clean Lutra can be. Actually,
I did notice that there was some fruit flavor missing in there that is actually yeast-driven,
and so that kind of threw me at first. But, it was a fun experiment, still a great-drinking beer.
For this one, the mango
chile, this is the one I was most excited for just because the other one was kind of a known
outcome. This one I was pretty excited for because I'm going to try out one of our newer ingredients,
some of the crystallized mango powder that we have. The crystallized powders are great
for working with fruit – super easy to use, no mess, and the best part is that you can
dose them at packaging (bottling or kegging) and do it to flavor, which I would recommend.
For peppers, I went with some habanadas that I grew this past summer. Those are peppers that
have a habanero taste but no heat flavor. I cut those up, removed the seeds just because I didn't
want to deal with the seeds in the beer later; I wasn't worried about heat because they're not hot.
Put those in a small Mason jar and covered with enough vodka just to make sure there were no bugs
or anything on there. Made a little tincture in a sense. With that I'd recommend doing that
overnight, but I'm impatient, so I only did it for a couple hours and dumped the whole thing in.
It worked pretty well. It took longer than I expected for the pepper flavor to infuse.
I just didn't have that many peppers I think is really the issue.
Then for heat I decided to use one of my homegrown scorpion peppers.
As I dropped it in I joked, saying that I'll probably take this out tomorrow.
And the next day, I tasted it and I had to take it out. [laughs] I threw it in there loose,
so I had to go find a pair of kitchen tongs and sterilize those and fish them out – you can see
that in one of the photos. It worked. It was kind of fun too. I don't you know fire brewing
sometimes you come to weird crossroads and just have to figure it out it worked well.
Transferred both of those over to kegs and got them carbonated up.
It’s nice to see that they're all the same color. There were no real differences between
them. They both have kind of that underlying gose characteristic. The fruitiness in the mango chile
one is really fruity. That crystallized powder – a little goes a long way, especially in a lighter
beer like this I think. Then you just kind of get a nice little chile heat at the back end. I
actually had to up the salt level in this just a little bit. I don't know if it was the chile
or the mango or the combination of both, but I just wasn't really getting that little bit of
salt quality in the background that just kind of makes you want more. So I had to up that.
I have probably brewed more gose than any other beer,
quite a lot. It was super fun to do it on a new piece of equipment, try some new things,
try some new spins on it. It's a fun recipe to play with especially with additives like this;
it's a great base beer for anything like that. I had a lot of fun trying out the G40.
I don't think I probably would have learned that it can go back a step
without trying to do some crazy stuff. With the kettle sour
it worked great. I definitely look forward to trying more kettle sours in the G40, for sure.
For all things Grainfather including new accessories, new equipment,
and the beer kit Duck Duck Gose, check out northernbrewer.com.