Golden Sour & Black Gold (Golden Sour w/ Black Currant Juice)

These recipes come to us from longtime Chop & Brew fans and Patreon supporters Brooks and Ellie Edman. Both beers have won multiple awards at local competitions in Pennsylvania, and Black Gold won first place at the Philadelphia regional of the National Homebrew Competition in 2017. Be sure to see their detailed notes on brewing and fermentation below. See Chip, Dawson and DonO sample the beers and give their tasting notes in this Chop & Brew video.

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1.074 OG

1.001 FG

9.56% ABV

4.8 SRM

5 Gallon Batch

70% efficiency

Brew Date: 12/13/15

Bottling Date: Golden Sour – 9/3/16, Black Gold – 10/14/16

Grist

• 10lbs Briess 2-Row
• 3lbs Briess White Wheat Malt
• 1.5lbs Malted Oats
• 1lb Flaked Oats

Mash Profile

• Mash at 158f for 60 minutes
• Raise temp to 170F for 10 minute mashout
• Fly Sparge with 170F water 

Hops

None!

Yeast

• East Coast Yeast ECY20 Bug County (It was actually pitched directly on to a 2nd generation yeast cake in the carboy)

Boil

• Steeped 1/2 lb flaked oats while bringing wort up to boil.
• Yeast Nutrient and Whirlfloc at 10 mins

Fermentation

• Brewed on 12/13/15 and left in Primary until 9/3/16.
• Bottled 2.5 gal and transferred the other 2.5 gal to secondary with 32 oz Black Currant Juice on 9/3/16.
• Bottled Black Currant version on 10/14/16.

Notes

The high mash temp and steeping oats are sort of a faux-turbid mash** without the pain of a real turbid mash. Leaves lots of starch and long chain sugars for the bugs to get funky with after primary fermentation.

First time experimenting with just fruit juice in a sour. I think it turned out well and is much easier to work with than whole fruit/puree but does lack some complexity. Higher yield is also nice as well as not having to deal with absorption and racking issues.

Golden Sour base has done well in competition as Gueze. Won a Bronze in a local comp recently and scored well at NHC.

This is an ongoing sour base beer in its 3rd generation/re-pitch along with a Sour Brown base beer in it’s 4th gen that is VERY inspired by Dawson’s big chart of sour beer he did in the BTV sour episode.

** Calling it faux-turbid mash is kind of a terrible way to explain it. Really it’s like steeping grains in an extract batch just with a different purpose. After I mash out and lauter, I put the flaked oats in a muslin bag and steep them as I bring the wort up to a boil. The idea being that it leaves a bunch of unconverted starch in the wort, similar to boiling the first pull of wort on a turbid mash. Combine that with the high mash temp to leave lots of long chain sugars and starch for the bugs to munch on during the long fermentation process. I think I originally got the technique from Michael Tonsmeire’s blog but it is also outlined, with some other turbid mash alternatives, at the Milk the Funk website.