My favorite beers are those that are described as wild / sour. Recently, I was reading about about an American style of beer, the Kentucky Common, which is a sour brown ale. Once I read that it was sour and old-timey (popular pre-prohibition) I knew I needed to brew it. This need to brew the KY Common was amplified recently when I sampled some (unsour) American browns, a style I never appreciated before. To elicit the sourness for this beer I decided to employ a sour mash. Basically lactobacillus and other micro-critters are just chilling on the grain. and the usual mash and boil technique does not favor their survival. However, given the right conditions you too can grow your own pot of mold.
Sour Mash:
I made some wort from 1.5 lbs of grain. I let the mash sit covered over night, sparged in the morning and then threw in 3 oz of uncrushed malt. Since then I've been keeping it at about 90F. These photos (w and w/o flash) are of about 50 hours into the souring. I think this whitish mat sitting atop of the wort is Lactobacillus culture/colony?. At about only 8 hours in it didn't smell so good. Now, while stronger, it also smells better (familiar) and more like a Berliner Weisse I brewed with a pure lactobacillus culture.
I haven't quite decided how long to freak the funk. I am also unsure if I should throw out the whitish mat, or throw it in with the rest of the unsoured mash on brew day.
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