Philly sour and fruit adjuncts

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K.O.brew

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Good evening,

Long story short, i am trying to come up with a fake kriek (read: sour cherry sour) recipe, using the minuscule brewing knowledge i possess, and some help from more knowledgeable people would be greatly appreciated.

My two main questions are:

  • the general usage of philly sour, drawbacks or pitfalls one may encounter with the yeast, does it bottle condition properly, dos it need any special treatment?
  • the sour cherry addition. How much should be added and when, during lactic acid production, fermentation or after the beer is done?
this is the recipe i have come up with, any guidance/critique is appreciated.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1392856/kriek-but-lazy
 
I have not used that yeast. If it is a sour yeast, everything you make in your equipment is probably going to be a sour afterwards unless cleaned, really, really well. The breweries run separate lines for those things.
With that grain bill, I might try (actually, I did) a Saison. Mine was blueberry, and you do get some of the tannins off of the fruit if you ferment it. I do not know if cherries are like blueberries with respect to where the temperatures need to be prior to adding. Blueberries are funny. There is a compromise between gelatin and sanitation.
I will defer to others, but that much sugar AND the sugar from cherries might be a bit much in a normal beer. Maybe it works in a sour, I don't know.
What are you going to do with the pits? They leave them in for a Lambic, but that takes years.
A Belgian Saison with cherries, Pilsner, and Wheat sounds good though.
 
The yeast manufacturer states that normal cleaning/sanitizing is ok, as the specific strain is pretty weak and other Saccharomyces will overtake it.

As for the pits, i plan on removing them before the addition.

When you mention the sugar, are you thinking about it fermenting and going overboard on alcohol or not fermenting and making the beer too sweet? Not that a sweet and sour cherry beer sounds bad, but the kriek i tried that made me want to make something along those lines was not sweet at all.
 
I'm not a big sour person, and I probably need to be educated. In a normal beer, you would probably only use that much sugar in a Trappist or Belgian Blonde where you really wanted to dry out the beer and push up the alcohol. If that is standard in a sour, so be it. I can learn right along with you. Taking the pits out is going to be an absolute, time consuming bitch. I didn't realize what a pain in the ass it was going to be to puree blueberries in the consistancy that I wanted for a beer. I ended up screwing around with my strike water calculations and adding the puree to spring water and adding them with the water in the whirlpool.
 
In my (limited) experience with fruits, the earlier you introduce the fruit, the less fruit you taste. The last couple of minutes in the boil is the earliest I'd suggest, but, as I stated, take that with a grain of salt. On the other hand, "dry hopping" might be OK or a bit late, and sanitation becomes an issue. (But, I guess it can't go sour...).

Surely in the recipe database there are some similar recipes, hunt a couple down and see if you can figure it out?

Sorry for the minimal help.
 
I have used that yeast and your normal cleaning and sanitizing routine takes care of everything. I would also split the cherry infusion. Some late in the boil and then the remainder post fermentation.
 
Sandy Feet said:
... In a normal beer, you would probably only use that much sugar in a Trappist or Belgian Blonde where you really wanted to dry out the beer and push up the alcohol. ...
Click to expand...

I noticed the sugar content too. I'm also not an expert but the in my experience adding fruit kinda dries stuff out anyway.

Another option is to do a kettle sour and then ferment with a yeast you know well.

Happy brewing!
 
I pitched Philly Sour this afternoon for a Tangerine sour.
 
I've done the one batch with Philly sour. It was ok. Fermentation was noticeably slower than other yeast. Gave a light to medium sourness and the mouthfeel was pretty big.

As Philly sour is a relatively slow yeast it's actually safer than normal brewing yeast. If you don't manage to kill it during your cleaning and sanitising, the standard brewer's yeast will probably outcompete it and it won't get enough sugar to change the taste. That said sour microbes are no harder or easier to kill than normal brewers yeast. So if your equipment is in good shape and you've got a decent cleaning and sanitisation process it shouldn't matter.

If you do have a problem with equipment, cleaning or sanitising you may not notice it with standard yeast. It probably won't change the taste of your beer enough, but you will notice it with sour microbes or diastaticus yeast.
 
Trialben said:
Just listening to this bru lab podcast on kettle souring.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4qznDkFKr76PTYTNuD73UE?si=UL0IyFgxTfWyMGoYMmwWJw
If your unsure on souring this is a great resource.
That Jordan dude on there is the Guru on souring when it comes to homebrewing.

Some amazing unconventional brewing wisdom in there.
Click to expand...

Was super interesting how those guys worry more about hoppy beers ruining their sours than the other way round. Also their thing of "pre-souring" was something I'd never though of before.
 
LukasT said:
Was super interesting how those guys worry more about hoppy beers ruining their sours than the other way round. Also their thing of "pre-souring" was something I'd never though of before.
Click to expand...
Mate quick souring in 2 hours they know their stuff!
Also you see they've kept their Sour Culture going for 9 years serially repitching brewing sour beers on freshly cleaned kit every Monday so no hop contact.

Also they push it over to the boil kettle and through the heat exchanger via Co2 seeing o2 is detrimental to lacto oh and hops.

I've never brewed no kettle sour but after listening to this brulab episode I'm keen to see if a gluten free sour fruited at the back end (packaging) with some summer fruits would go:)
 
Last edited:
Trialben said:
Mate quick souring in 2 hours they know their stuff!
Also you see they've kept their Sour Culture going for 9 years serially repitching brewing sour beers on freshly cleaned kit every Monday so no hop contact.

Also they push it over to the boil kettle and through the heat exchanger via Co2 seeing o2 is detrimental to lacto oh and hops.

I've never brewed no kettle sour but after listening to this brulab episode I'm keen to see if a gluten free sour fruited at the back end (packaging) with some summer fruits would go:)
Click to expand...

Yeah, one of their best podcasts I've heard I reckon. I love how generous a lot of pro-brewers are with their knowledge!
 
LukasT said:
Yeah, one of their best podcasts I've heard I reckon. I love how generous a lot of pro-brewers are with their knowledge!
Click to expand...
Amen I'm not sure if I mentioned it but they were also pre souring their wort prior to adding the LAB a few critical steps it seems from an outsider looking in having never brewed a sour yet.
 
K.O.brew said:
Good evening,

Long story short, i am trying to come up with a fake kriek (read: sour cherry sour) recipe, using the minuscule brewing knowledge i possess, and some help from more knowledgeable people would be greatly appreciated.

My two main questions are:

  • the general usage of philly sour, drawbacks or pitfalls one may encounter with the yeast, does it bottle condition properly, dos it need any special treatment?
  • the sour cherry addition. How much should be added and when, during lactic acid production, fermentation or after the beer is done?
this is the recipe i have come up with, any guidance/critique is appreciated.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1392856/kriek-but-lazy
Click to expand...


I keep a sour on draft all the time. I have all but one of my sours have been fruited and have used Wild Brew Sour Pitch and finished with Voss or whatever kviek yeasties I had at that time.

My most recent batch was done with Philly Sour.

I personally prefer the Sour Pitch brews.

-slow fermentation-
Philly was slow to the point where i pitched extra voss on it about half way through to speed it up. Sour pitch is slow because you loose temp on it. My chiller can be used to heat it up but even then I can only get the tank up to about 95F.

-Knockout temp-
Sour Pitch I generally knock out at 102-103F. Philly is much lower.

-Flavor-
I prefer the flavor from the sour pitch and Voss. The recipes are all the same(my standard sour base ill edit this post with a link to the recipe).

-pH-
Both get down to 3.2-3.6 eventually.

-Cleanup-
Both clean very easily IMO. Sour pitch cant tolerate over 8IBUs and is overall very fragile. The tank that had Philly in it is crashing with a double batch of lager right now with no noticable off flavors. I did my standard cleaning cycle: Hot rinse w/180 until tank is hot, Spin 180 caustic for 30 mins, Hot rinse with 180, cool down with street water, spin with Nitric/Phos acid for 30 mins, Rinse, Spin sani 15 mins open and 15 mins closed, push out remaining sani through assembled product line with CO2.

-Fruit-
I buy Aseptic Fruit puree from country Malt. I would look at using aseptic fruit puree if at all possible. things like citrus juice are fine from the grocery store as long as they dont have preservatives and a bunch of added sugar. I guess you could make your own by basically grinding up fruit(after removing all woody material: pits, seeds, stems, etc) and using ball jars to basically preserve it. I would not use straight prepped fruit as it is covered in bacteria. you have to remember that the fruit will reduce your ABV. I dont ferment the fruit out as I want the juicy fresh flavors so i add the fruit after it has been crashed during carbonation to stir the fruit up. I always try to let the beer sit for a few days to settle out the fruit before i keg it.

Sour Cherries are awesome, but they can taste a little off to some people.

This is my sour base.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1383335
 
Last edited:
Bigbre04 said:
I keep a sour on draft all the time. I have all but one of my sours have been fruited and have used Wild Brew Sour Pitch and finished with Voss or whatever kviek yeasties I had at that time.

My most recent batch was done with Philly Sour.

I personally prefer the Sour Pitch brews.

-slow fermentation-
Philly was slow to the point where i pitched extra voss on it about half way through to speed it up. Sour pitch is slow because you loose temp on it. My chiller can be used to heat it up but even then I can only get the tank up to about 95F.

-Knockout temp-
Sour Pitch I generally knock out at 102-103F. Philly is much lower.

-Flavor-
I prefer the flavor from the sour pitch and Voss. The recipes are all the same(my standard sour base ill edit this post with a link to the recipe).

-pH-
Both get down to 3.2-3.6 eventually.

-Cleanup-
Both clean very easily IMO. Sour pitch cant tolerate over 8IBUs and is overall very fragile. The tank that had Philly in it is crashing with a double batch of lager right now with no noticable off flavors. I did my standard cleaning cycle: Hot rinse w/180 until tank is hot, Spin 180 caustic for 30 mins, Hot rinse with 180, cool down with street water, spin with Nitric/Phos acid for 30 mins, Rinse, Spin sani 15 mins open and 15 mins closed, push out remaining sani through assembled product line with CO2.


-Fruit-
I buy Aseptic Fruit puree from country Malt. I would look at using aseptic fruit puree if at all possible. things like citrus juice are fine from the grocery store as long as they dont have preservatives and a bunch of added sugar. I guess you could make your own by basically grinding up fruit(after removing all woody material: pits, seeds, stems, etc) and using ball jars to basically preserve it. I would not use straight prepped fruit as it is covered in bacteria. you have to remember that the fruit will reduce your ABV. I dont ferment the fruit out as I want the juicy fresh flavors so i add the fruit after it has been crashed during carbonation to stir the fruit up. I always try to let the beer sit for a few days to settle out the fruit before i keg it.

Sour Cherries are awesome, but they can taste a little off to some people.

This is my sour base.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/embed/1383335
Click to expand...

oops i replied to myself instead of editing...
 
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