Citrus Gose

This beer was created as a joint effort between one of my beer buddies, Drei, and myself. The idea was Drei's and meant to take a beer style that lends itself to being a great thirst quencher for the Florida heat, as well as carrying a local theme. So the base style was decided to be a Gose, which is a historic German sour wheat beer spiced with coriander and salt. The local aspect came from the addition of locally sourced citrus. Then after recalling a blog post from David Crane of Bitter Barley where he used sea water for a San Diego Gose it seemed like a great fit for us. So conceptually Drei choose the style and was in charge of sourcing citrus and local Tampa Bay sea water, as well as being an eager assistant and first time brewer. My portion was to create the recipe to fit the style and make the beer come to life.

The brewday went really smooth. Took the day off, sent the wife and kid off to work and daycare. Drei showed up a touch early so we got right to it. Set up, grain tasting, milling, mashing, it all went great. Once we got the boil going it was time to settle on the final ratio of fruit. This was all done on the fly and not very scientifically. I know we zested one grapefruit, two limes, added a whole lime cut in half as well as a Myers lemon. The kumquats were cut in half and probably about two cups of fruit. These were all added at the 10 minute mark and the coriander was added at 5 minutes. The decision making for the fruit was aided by a fantastic beer that Drei brought to share. It was a Lost Abbey Duck Duck Gooze batch 2. This beer far exceeded my expectations the pure essence of lemon hit me square in the nose! Couldn't get enough, so ultimately that's why we added a lemon to this Gose. So beer does help with good decision making! 

Some of the harder parts of wild brewing can be getting your wild bacteria and bugs to do what you want. This is the only thing that I can tell so far that I failed on in this beer, however I did buy some insurance. That being said I was originally going to harvest lactobacillus off of some grain in a weak wort. This is something I've done successfully several times in the past. But seeing as I had someone else involved and taking a day out of their busy work schedule I decided to buy a back up of Wyeast lactobacillus. I'm glad I did since the starter with grain ended up with a non friendly bug in there and had to be thrownout. The Wyeast starter was smelling and looking good. So when it was time to pitch the lacto into the wort the Wyeast was the clear winner. We also choose to add the bottle dregs of a couple of my Berliner Weisses. The Berliner is one I've previously cultured lacto from grain and there's a touch of Brettanomyces in there as well. 

I'm really looking forward to this beer. It should have a nice mild lactic tartness with a mild salinity similar to a sport drink and a huge citrus aroma and taste. After being in the fermenter for a day the bacteria seem happy and is kicking off a wonderful citrus aroma. After a couple days I will start taste testing for tartness then will transfer from the heat of the garage to the fermentation chamber with German Ale yeast. 

Recipe:
Assistant Brewer: Drei

Style: Gose

OG: 1.050

Target FG: 1.006

IBU's: 5

SRM: 4.9

6 pounds Wheat Malt 

4 pounds Pilsner Malt

8 ounces Aciduated Malt

8 ounces Melanoiden Malt

Rice Hulls

60 minutes .40 ounces Hallertaer Mitt

10 minutes zest of 1 grapefruit

10 minutes zest of 2 limes

10 minutes 1 whole lime cut in half

10 minutes 1 whole Myers lemon cut in half

10 minutes 2 cups kumquats cut in half

5 minutes 13 grams coriander 

Full Boil 750ml Tampa Bay sea water

Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus 

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

    

Third place Fruit Beer Catagory 20A Hogtown Brew Off