Raspberry Sour - All Grain Recipe

Foreword

This one has been on our to-brew list for some time now, so it's finally time we had a go at our first sour beer.

We'll be using Philly Sour yeast which provides an easy and convenient way of souring the beer without needing to introduce other strains like Brettanomyces which can cause infections in subsequent batches if not cleaned/sanitized adequately.

We plan on using frozen supermarket raspberries, and won't be doing any other preparation on them aside from (obviously) letting them defrost. They will be added around 24-48 hours after fermentation begins to help drive the acid production of the yeast (read more about this in our Philly Sour Yeast Overview post).

For the grain bill, we have mostly pilsner malt, along with smaller amounts of malted wheat, malted oats and some gladiator (dextrin) malt.

Small amounts of Hallertau Tradition will be added at 30 and 5 minutes to give some underlying bitterness and a subtle hop character.

For the water profile, we're going to use the Mild Ale Profile from Brewfather, which has relatively low levels of all key minerals, but a slightly elevated chloride to sulfate ratio to reduce bitterness and promote mouthfeel.

Vitals

Batch Volume: 22L 
Boil Time: 30 minutes
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%

Original Gravity: 1.047 (with raspberries), 1.044 (without raspberries)
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU (Tinseth): 7
BU/GU: 0.15
Colour: 6.3 EBC
Expected ABV: 4.6%

Mash

Temperature: 65°C - 60 minutes
Mash Out: 75°C - 10 minutes

Fermentables

3.5kg - Gladfield Pilsner Malt
0.5kg - Gladfield Wheat Malt
0.2kg - Gladfield Big-O Malted Oats
0.1kg - Gladfield Gladiator Malt

2.5kg - Frozen Raspberries (added around 24-48 hours after fermentation begins)

Hops

30 mins - Hallertau Tradition - 6 IBU
5 mins - Hallertau Tradition - 1 IBU

Yeast

Lallemand Philly Sour (2 packets - dry)

Fermentation

23°C - 14 days

Carbonation

2.4 CO2-vol

Water Profile 

Brewfather "Mild Ale Profile"

Ca2+ (Calcium): 29
Mg2+ (Magnesium): 4
Na+ (Sodium): 29
Cl- (Chloride): 65
SO42- (Sulfate): 40
HCO3- (Bicarbonate): 37

Want to see how it turned out? Check out the links below for the Brew Day and Review/Tasting articles.

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