Keith Ciani’s Sour Beers

12 CommentsRECIPES, , , , , , ,
Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinteresttumblrmail

As seen discussed and hung out with in Chop & Brew – Episode 25 “Meet the Brewer: Keith Ciani.”
Thanks to Keith for sharing his ingredients and ideas on these two sour beers.
Black Pussy scored a 42 at a recent homebrew competition.
And The Fur has just taken on a life of its own.
Treat ’em right and wax-dip ’em.
Chip

——————————-

All of the following is directly from Keith:

Here are two recipes. Yea a few are wonky with adding dregs from multiples sources…but I’ll make some notes:

The Fur
5 gallon batch.

7.5 lbs 2-Row
1 lb Pale Wheat
1/2 lb Vienna
1/2 lb Flaked Oats
1/4 lb CaraPils

Mashed 60 min at 151F

60 min boil.
1oz styrian goldings at 60 min

I used cultured up dregs from 4 bottles of russian river’s sanctification and used for primary ferm — which is supposed to be 100% brett (however, some say there’s a touch of pedio added at bottling, or that is mixed in with the house brett yeast). If you don’t want to culture up sanctification dregs — use white labs 644 brett brux trois (rumored to be the same yeast used in sanctification…as sanct claims to be 100% brett, at least it says fermented with 100% brett).

Was in primary fermenter for 4 months…then bottled (100% brett beers don’t need a ton of time to ferm out and be safe to bottle)

When a fan asked Keith about advice for priming bottles of sour beer that use Roeselare blend, Keith’s response:

“I have primed my share of 5 gallon batches – and basically just guess. However, I am always ok with less carb than more carb in a sour – given you don’t really know how it will progress in the bottle. I looked back at my notes and I’ve used a range of either 4oz, 4.5oz and even 5oz to prime. One batch using roeselare blend just says I used 2/3 C, and other 4oz. If anything these have mostly been on the low side of carbonation after 6 months to a year – even after a few years. I will say that a few stayed pretty low for a year or so but have recently (after 3 years) gotten really nice…and moderate/high carbonation – but nothing too high. A lot of my variation in the 4-5oz is also the result of vol being bottles (e.g., perhaps it was only 4.25 gallons after racked off of fruit, or over 5 gal with puree added) or FG. However, I will say the driest beer I did (saison with brett using white labs american farmhouse blend) got down to 1.004….I used 4.5oz of sugar and it is probably my highest carbed brett/sour (albeit it took a couple years to get there). It is incredibly dry…the 1.004 was probably an indication that it was going to eat through the priming sugar. Anyway…I would ALWAYS rather undercarb a bottled beer than have it be overcarbed (sour or otherwise) and possibly ruined. Moreover, sours tend to sit around for years — so using 3.5-4oz corn sugar to prime could be just fine. Hope that helps.”

And when asked if he ever add fresh yeast in a bottling situation, Keith said: “Nope. Never.”

Black Pussy (black sour with black currants)

Brew your house stout for the base beer
Ferment with Wyeast Roeselare Blend (I pitched onto a Roeselare cake and possibly added some house sour bugs I had on hand)
Ferment for about 6 weeks then add about 75 ounces of black currant puree (one of those large cans intended for wine, some homebrew shops have them)
Let sit for another 14 months before bottling

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinteresttumblrmail

12 Comments

  1. Pingback: Tasting Notes: ANGLOZILLA | Chop & Brew

  2. Pingback: Chop & Brew – Episode 25: Meet the Brewer – Keith Ciani | Chop & Brew

  3. Andrew Hill

    Was wondering if Keith had some advice for priming bottles of sour beer that use roeselare blend? There is next to no good advice/facts about priming sours out there – thanks

  4. keith c

    Hi Andrew…great question. I have primed my share of 5 gallon batches – and basically just guess. However, I am always ok with less carb than more carb in a sour – given you don’t really know how it will progress in the bottle. I looked back at my notes and I’ve used a range of either 4oz, 4.5oz and even 5oz to prime. One batch using roeselare blend just says I used 2/3 C, and other 4oz. If anything these have mostly been on the low side of carbonation after 6 months to a year – even after a few years. I will say that a few stayed pretty low for a year or so but have recently (after 3 years) gotten really nice…and moderate/high carbonation – but nothing too high. A lot of my variation in the 4-5oz is also the result of vol being bottles (e.g., perhaps it was only 4.25 gallons after racked off of fruit, or over 5 gal with puree added) or FG. However, I will say the driest beer I did (saison with brett using white labs american farmhouse blend) got down to 1.004….I used 4.5oz of sugar and it is probably my highest carbed brett/sour (albeit it took a couple years to get there). It is incredibly dry…the 1.004 was probably an indication that it was going to eat through the priming sugar. Anyway…I would ALWAYS rather undercarb a bottled beer than have it be overcarbed (sour or otherwise) and possibly ruined. Moreover, sours tend to sit around for years — so using 3.5-4oz corn sugar to prime could be just fine. Hope that helps…
    Keith C

  6. cgeorgeelproducto

    What sort of IBU’s should I target for The Fur. Going to pitch Brett Trois. Cheers

    • keith c

      I had ~13ibu for the fur…1oz of styrian goldings at 60 min. but i think anywhere in the 13-25 range is fine (i.e., 1 to 2oz of styrian goldings at 60).

Comments are closed.