Summer Passionfruit Gose...

[sifty]

Reading the Christmas beer ideas thread inspired me to attempt a tart, summery brew for our southern hemisphere holiday. I'm intrigued by the salty, coriander infused kettle soured Gose style, even though I don't like sours as a rule (or coriander). I'm even adding some fruit after seeing the Homebrew Challenge Gose video where they evidently enjoyed the passionfruit flavour and aroma, so essentially I'm making a beer for other people as a technical exercise.

Generally Gose recipes are around 50:50 wheat/pilsner but I'm not a massive wheat fan so tweaked it towards the pils side. Also added oat hulls to prevent a stuck mash (for some reason we cannot get rice hulls in NZ) and I'm using Lactobacillus plantarum for the souring process. The amount of salt and coriander also has huge variation between recipes, I ended up using 28g of salt after comparing recipes and tasting a sample of 1.25g in 1 litre of water, it wasn't noticably salty but had a tang to it that was similar to gatorade type sports rehydration drinks. Most recipes call for one of the noble hops, but I had some galaxy available and they are supposed to impart a passionfruit flavour so went with those, with a reduced boil time to allow for the increased AA%...

 

[sifty]

Recipe: [23 litre batch]

Equipment: 25 litre Brewzilla 3.1.1
4.9% ABV (1.048 - 1.011)
6.5 EBC, 8 IBU

2600g Gladfield Pilsner (3.7 EBC)
1800g Gladfield Wheat (4.2 EBC)
150g Gladfield Sour Grapes (acidulated malt) (6 EBC)
110g Oat hulls

20.4 litres mash water, 10.12 litres sparge water

7g Galaxy hops (20 mins)

Other:
5mls Lactic acid
28g Himalayan sea salt
18g Coriander seeds
3g Lactobacillus Plantarum
1500g Passionfruit pulp

Water was adjusted to a balanced profile (my source water is damn near RO spec)

Yeast: White labs liquid WLP029 German Ale (x2)

Process:
Mash: 60 mins at 66 degs pils/wheat only, then add acidulated malt last 15 mins, and adjust pH to 4.5. Boil 10 mins to sanitise.
Chill: to 35 degs, pitch lactobacillus, purge and seal, leave 24-48 hrs to sour.
Boil: 60 mins, add hops at 20 mins, salt and coriander at 15 mins, yeast nutrients and whirlfloc as per normal.
Chill: to 20 degs, aerate, pitch yeast, start fermentation.
Add: fruit pulp when fermentation nearly complete
Bottle: when fermentation complete, carbonate to over 3.0 CO2

Hopefully I'll end up with a golden, slightly hazy beer, that is tart, fruity, and moderately sour and well carbonated, perfect for a hot summer day's refreshing tipple...

 

[sifty]

Brewday:
nice day for it, although still getting frosts so slightly chilly. Gave the Brewzilla a good clean as it's been sitting a couple of months, pumping hot PBW solution through the system and rinsing well, came out sparkling clean.

While the water was heating I added the brew salts and measured out and milled grains, keeping the sour grapes separate as it is added later in the process.

 

[sifty]

Was an uneventful mash, numbers looked good and temp controlled well (checked at output of pump, middle of mash and on the BZ display).

I was taking pH measurements throughout but only have strips (4.0-7.0) so this was as good as I could do. The pH changed after adding the acidulated malt however so they do work. Was aiming for final pH of 4.5, I added the lactic acid at the end so as to not affect the mash...

Wort cleared up towards the end of the mash and had no issues with getting stuck, sparge was trouble free, quite rapid.
Had an issue with first chill however, when I turned the tap on I heard an ominous splashing sound and saw water spraying into the rapidly chilling wort via a leaking hose fitting. As I was going to leave this for a day or two at 35 degs thought it best to bring back to the boil to ensure sterilisation. Second chill went much better with new (brass) fitting and it chilled to 35 degs pretty rapidly (ground water is 12 degs atm).

 

[sifty]

Pitched 3g of Lactobacillus into the 35 deg wort and wrapped the kettle in clingfilm sprayed with starsan, leaving a gap and purging with CO2 before sealing completely, adding the lid and wrapping the whole thing, then set temp to maintain the 35 degs for a day or two.

Sample looked a good colour and SG was 1.042, about right for having had a short boil...

And with not much to clean up I relaxed,, didn't worry and had a home brew...

 

[sifty]

Tested just over 24hrs later and was surprised how tart it was to the taste. Looked at some research and with this bacteria at this temp it is normal to be pretty much done in 24hrs, and does not change much with extra time, so I started the boil a day earlier than expected. (pH strips showed less than 4.0, and was aiming for 3.5). It was pleasantly sour, like a tart lemon drink rather than a pucker bomb, which is about what I was aiming for...

Unwrapped everything and while bringing to boil temp I weighed the hops and ground the coriander and salt. I'd read that Indian coriander with oblong seeds had a more lemony aroma/flavour so bought a packet of seeds at the local Indian spice shop. Look like little rugby balls and had a nice lemony smell when cracking them with the mortar & pestle...

Brought up to second boil and added everything as per schedule. Chill went much better this time, I'd bought some new brass hose fittings as the previous plastic one had melted on the output side and deformed enough for water to spray into the kettle.

 

[sifty]

Chilled nicely, aerated with a paddle on the drill and added 2 packets of liquid yeast...

Probably overkill but with the low pH and bottle conditioning I wasn't sure how the yeast would go, so erred on the side of caution, even though it was an expensive option.

Into the fermenation fridge, around 7:30pm, with an iSpindel. OG was 1.049, one point over target...

And was bubbling away nicely early the next morning...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Looking forward to trying it. Would be good to compare this with a Philly sour attempt.

Re the chiller, I found my hosepipe fitted onto the tube directly just pushed on it was very tight.
Then a jubilee clip.

 

[sifty]

8am next morning was bubbling away merrily and on day 2 it had progressed to around 60% attenuation so I got the passionfruit out of the freezer to defrost while I was at work...

That evening fermentation had progressed to over 80% and the pulp had melted, so I put the bags in another brew fridge at 20 degs to warm up while I sanitised a hop bag and clip.
Then poured temp matched pulp into the bag (was more liquid than I imagined, so prob only catching seeds), added the Brewzilla conical overflow cone as a weight, tied off with dental floss and put lid back on with the submerged bag suspended...

Began bubbling again almost immediately, and a day later fermentation seemed complete.

So all done pretty much, in 4 days. I'll leave it a few days to clean up, then cold crash and bottle. It looks very yellow and cloudy at the moment, and smells pretty good. Be interesting to see how appearance changes over the next few days, and how things turn out.

(Tasted a bit of the passionfruit from the used bags afterwards, was surprisingly tart, guess that's good there's no sugar added)...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Glad to see it's not Pams fruit as there's been a recall on some of it. They recommend heating all frozen fruit.
Surely yeast and acid kills all!

 

[sifty]

I'm hoping so.
Went in at around 4.7% and pH less than 4. Lots of conflicting advice on adding fruit, consensus was frozen was ok as it's often consumed uncooked, and heating to pasteurizing temp can affect flavour and aroma...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I'm hoping so.
Went in at around 4.7% and pH less than 4. Lots of conflicting advice on adding fruit, consensus was frozen was ok as it's often consumed uncooked, and heating to pasteurizing temp can affect flavour and aroma...

Yes If you go yellow it'll either be liver failure from the homebrew or hepatitis from the fruit.
I'm probably going tinned/ containered for the cherries in a Kriek boon I'm going to make.

 

[sifty]

Bottled this yesterday as I had the day off. Could have left it fermenting a little longer but fermentation had flatlined for some time so I cold crashed early to suit my schedule (dropped to 5 degs initially then down to 3)...

Bottled just shy of 23 litres, mostly in 500mls with a couple of PETs and several larger 745ml bottles. FG came in at 1.011 so ABV of around 5.4% with bottle conditioning added.

Targeted relatively high carbonation level of 3 .2 CO2, so added 235g of dextrose dissolved in 2 cups boiled water. Currently all in temp controlled fridge at 20 degs.

Taste wise very promising. Surprisingly pronounced passionfruit aroma that complements the tart, lemony flavours. Look fwd to trying this in a couple of weeks...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Looks good did you check the pH before bottling?

 

[sifty]

Best I can do is say it's probably less than 4.0. Looking at pH meters now...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I've got two don't use them a s much as I should. Cheap but work well, remember storage medium as well as calibration medium.
Paper strips great for checking the starsan.

 

[sifty]

Yeah not sure how much I'd need one with normal brews, so still weighing up cost/benefit. Never considered testing starsan, good tip, ta.

And just remembered tonight I'd used the stainless overflow cone as a weight with the passionfruit. Successfully dug it out of the compost...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

String on those kind of things is a good idea so that you attach it to your fermenter.

 

[sifty]

Bunged some labels on over the weekend...

Got 30 x 500ml bottles and 10 x 750ml done. Only tried one so far, when it was 7 days into bottle fermentation. Pretty good, sour and salt levels just where I wanted them, and great passionfruit aroma. I'll add a pic of a poured one next sunny day as it's been another week and hopefully carbonation is complete. Pretty happy with how it turned out...

 

[sifty]

Cracked one tonight after work. Very pleased with it. Extremely refreshing, well carbonated and all flavours in balance. Will become a regular summer beer to offer visitors I feel, especially to those who 'don't like beer'...

Already got one admirer. This is Jim the Wiltshire ram. He's not a bad joker, but a massive sex pest, will mount anything...