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NZ Sour Wheat - This is the start of my brewday on Sunday, but its still Wednesday!
I have just mashed 2.45kg of Pale malt in my old mini-mash Tun, 66c for 60mins, then added about 2-3L of cold water to bring the temp down to 49c with another 1kg of pale malt added to the mash to add some Lactobacillus to the Mash. I have put my little mash tun into my FV fridge set at 46c and i hope to keep the temperature above 35c as it says here http://beerandwinejournal.com/fossil-co ... xperiment/ I did as it states and I covered the mash with cling film and topped it off with a blanket of co2.

The Sour Mash:


My Main Mash is to be on Sunday and I'll update this more then.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt - 40%
Wheat Malt - 25%
Wheat Malt, Dark (Weyermann) - 25%
Carapils (Weyermann) - 5%
Melanoidin (Weyermann) - 5%

Hops:
NZ Hallertau Aroma Whole 8.2 % 60 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 20 grams 20%
NZ Hallertau Aroma Whole 8.2 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 30 grams 20%
NZ Hallertau Aroma Whole 8.2 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 1.1 oz 30 grams 30%
Pacific Jade Whole 15.1 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 1.1 oz 30 grams 30%

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 22 EBU
Colour: 15 EBC
Mash: 75mins @ 69c
Boil: at least 75mins
Yeast: NBS Weiss, I assume this is Munich Wheat yeast.

I'm expecting a fair few spec-changes, I'm thinking of my combined Run-off / sparge to be no more than 30L, I may get more, I may boil down, I will no doubt have a gravity change which will also effect the bitterness....

**Sunday**
To start off with I prepared my malts while the HLT was heating:

Then Checked the Sour Mash, it was 33c in the center and smelled like the waste malt skip at work:

The top of the mash, even though it was covered in Cling-film had changed to a darker shade than the rest of the mash underneath:

I added about 3.8L of boiling water to the Sour mash and gave it a good stir before running off about 7L into the choper, these are the weirdest first runnings I've ever had:

The copper was pretty full with about 32L, I liquored back 3L as the boil progressed checking with my Refractometer:

I did a 10min & Flamout (90c Steep) additions, I'm hoping the Pacific Jade will give some Orange notes which i think will compliment the Wheat Beer yeast:

I liquored back 3L to 1048, 2 points above my original predicted OG:

AG#104 - NZ Sour Wheat, 1053.5 considering a liquorback but maybe not all the way to 1046. by pdtnc, on Flickr

I tasted the Sour wort after it had 15mins of boiling, it was very sour, I boiled it down to 5L with the hope of driving off some of the smell...! Things calmed down after todays mash was run to the copper with the wort ending up with just a subtle tang behind the malt sweetness, I'm told the sour will increase as the wort ferments and the sugars are used up.
Yeast was rehydrated and pitched at 20c in 30L.

All done a while back, finished off a Guinepig hutch too!

Wow, that is an unusual brew! Those runnings look like beaten egg yolk!

congrat's, you made Warnink's Advocaat !

quite odd, I just hope it taste alright!

Looks really interesting. Do you know what the total acidity is? They say that 0.5- 0.7 % as tartaric acid is ideal for cider but with more malt sweetness I guess it could be more for beer?
Anyone got any experience on this?
Wilf

I have no experience what so ever with this style of beer, its a full-on experiment!
Its fermenting nicely too

well this seems to have finished at 1018, it seems a little high but the yeast was an unknown quantity, I've given it a rouse and will check tomorrow.
Even if it really has finished its actually going to temper the sourness and make it a more balanced beer.

Bottled today - Primed about 24L with 165g White Sugar, its got a permanent haze and tastes like cheap orange juice, though the balance of sweet to sour is quite good, hopefully it will carbonate up well and give it a crispness.

Taster time... Yeasty Clove on the nose, quite light sparkling body on the pallet with a tang like fresh squeezed oranges. I'm hungry and this is making my belly rumble, bitterness is subtle and quite chalky but its hard to detect as the sourness and prickly carbonation cross the tongue first, with a few more mouthfuls the body feels to have a slick quality like a good Belgian Wit.

sounds like a good one matey! I'm getting a heating tube for my fridge next month so will have the capacity to do a sour mash soon!

Do it

enjoying a pint of this now fella! Lovely beer. Your right about the orange juiciness of the sourness! The hops blend well into it! Very refreshing! Cheers

LB

Cheers, its going down well here too... even Tony at work was raving about it when he tried it!