Hi guys.
I hope to learn from all of you, so could you summarize your main points,
and work to find the essential truth we all can grow from?
If the Rx isn't traditional, so be it.
Admit it and lets judge the result on taste, not historical precedence.
But I think it is important to know about differences.
I would like to know more about the difference between "Tart" and "Sour"... From usage, it would seem that tart simply means a low level of sourness.
Isn't it just a difference of degree?
Sort of like white - grey - black?
If there is a definitive objective description of the difference...
that would be good to know!
Anyway,
I think it would be helpful if you (or someone) could sum up the main points, points of conention, whatever and perhaps send each other some samples to get your point across.
That would be fun, no?.
Sorry for butting in, but this is unpleasent!
It seems to me that the only important things here are :
1. How to make good beer,
2. Accurate understanding of both modern & historical methods and
3. Friendly comradery.
Hey, thanks for butting in, this is a good idea.
- My understanding is that a gose 100+ years ago was designed to fit a salty water profile and was likely at least partially spontaneously fermented and probably contained both lactobacillus and pediococcus, similar to a lambic, and hops were probably used mainly to maintain proper bacteria:yeast activity. It was sour by nature, and undoubtedly darker than it is now and probably a little smoky due to how malting worked. Those recipes seem to have all but disappeared, and more modern versions coming out of Germany using pilsner malt almost died out too. They were/are quite clean with a moderate amount of lactic sourness. The flavor profile is lightly sour, lightly salty, light and spritzy.
Homebrewers re-popularized the style in the past 10 years or so. There's 3 ways that people have been souring gose:
- Traditional - Lactobacillus in primary, sometimes for ~24h before the primary yeast is pitched to give it a head start
- Mash - Sour mash/kettle, with either lacto from grains or from a lab/yogurt/probiotic
- Acid - Adding lactic acid directly via acid malt and/or 88% lactic acid
All three of the methods work just fine.
- Primary is probably the optimal way, but you run the risk of the lactobacillus not souring your beer at all and it can take a while, and also if you don't pre-sour your wort with a bit of acid then it will eat head-forming proteins. This is presumably how they're made in Germany, with a yeast/bacteria blend that's reused from batch to batch.
- Sour mash/kettle for 2-5 days works well, but the risks there are that you grow bugs that you don't want, the flavor profile may not be as clean particularly if you let oxygen in during the souring, it's hard to get the exact right amount of acidity you want, and your yeast has to contest with high acidity which can be stressful - the benefit is that it's fast and less of a time commitment. Most American breweries are doing this (not all though).
- Adding acid is the fastest, simplest way. Its benefit is that you have total control over the amount of acidity because you can add more at bottling, this allows you to adjust to water with any buffering capacity. It's the fastest and there's no bacteria introduced so if you're scared of infecting your equipment it's appealing. The drawback is that the acid profile will probably be a bit less complex and using far too much lactic acid can lend a bit of a buttery character (which is why I suggest using acid malt too if you know you need to add a ton of acidity). Another risk appears to be that someone will come into your recipe thread flailing about like happened here.
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- The recipe posted here is a quick, easy gose designed after what you can find in Germany. Mildly tart, pretty light on the salt - but it's super easy to add more acid and salt at bottling/in the keg if you want to. It's extremely reproducible and very easy to make. I personally don't see much of a benefit to using actual lacto particularly
in this style, I've tried all 3 and really like the consistency with this method and don't miss any of the other characteristics. I don't want to have to make two batches and blend to get the proper result for a simple 5 gallon summer sipper, and this recipe comes out great. I sour mash all my berliner weisses because I'm shooting for the "florida weisse" style a la Cigar City, and I get a very consistent result. I use all three methods for different beers, and I think they're all great.
- A lot of people have been sour mashing and just letting the pH drop until it slows down, typically 3.3-3.5 pH, which I consider too sour for a gose. Most of what I've seen coming out of American breweries are like this. It's debatable how sour they're 'supposed' to be, but my recipe is modeled after the handful of German examples I've had which are supposed to be the beers that define the style. This debate has come up multiple times recently in various places, and I think it's because of the "Americanizing" of the style making people think that a gose is supposed to be really sour and really salty. I think that those versions taste great as well, but that's not what this recipe is going for.
- I have no idea what he's talking about with this 'tart vs sour' thing, pretty much everyone views them as a continuum of the same thing when it comes to beer. This whole thread happened to hit right after a tough football game on a Sunday so I was probably a bit more on edge than I would have liked when I responded, but IMO it still doesn't excuse the whirling dervish, fragmented, non-conversational, broken-logic aggressive approach to offering criticism that this guy came in here with.
In summary - there's many ways to skin a cat, and the OUTCOME is what matters. I imagine that people have come across this thread and decided to sour mash, that's great just go make some gose.