Soured Herb, Spice, and Vegetable Beer

(In progress)

Sour Herb, Spice and Vegetable beer is mixed fermentation, sour or brett beer with the addition of spices, herbs or vegetables. These beers, along with Soured Fruit Beers would fall into the 2015 BJCP style of 28C - Wild Specialty Beer. Here we will discuss the use of spices, herbs and vegetables in sour beers and give recommendations based off of those brewed by MTFers and commercial brewers.

Spices

For spices, generally fresher is better. Whole spices maintain their freshness better than pre-crushed spices, and it is recommended to use the freshest spices you can get and to crush them fresh right before using them rather than to use pre-crushed spices. On a home scale this can be easily accomplished with a mortar and pestle. Commercial producers may find that blenders or coffee grinders are better for larger spice quantities. Smell you spices before using them. If they seem stale or muted, it might be a good idea to look for fresher spices.

Some types of spices, such and flowers or citrus zest, may not need to be crushed before use. These spices can be found fresh as well as dried, and fresh spices will generally have stronger or more complex aromatics. For zesting your own citrus fresh, both a zester or a vegetable peeler will work to remove the zest. Using a vegetable peeler may give more complexity, and peelers give more manageable pieces of peel.

When and how to add

Spices are commonly added between flameout on the hot side and secondary on the cold side. In order to preserve the aromatic properties of spices, they are generally better added later in the brewing process. They can also be added by preparing tinctures and dosing the beer or by soaking the spices in hot water in a sealed mason jar and then adding the mixture. Both of these methods can help to limit the possibility of microbe pickup from adding spices on the cold side.

Methods of extraction 

Decoction – A decoction is made of roots, leaves, and berries. simmer these tougher plant parts for 20-40 minutes or more in order to extract their constituents. This higher heat and longer deration gentle boil, helps to extract bittering compounds. The benefits of doing this as a tea extract vs simply adding to the boil is added control and to prevent over bittering/ overpowering flavors

Alcohol extraction: Tincture – Pure alcohol best extracts essential oils, resins, alkaloids, glycosides, organic acids, chlorophyll, acrid and bitter constituents, and castor oil, but not minerals, gums, or mucilage. A tincture is an alcohol extract of a plant, made using varying alcohol percentages. Some say to always use 50% alcohol (vodka) in order to get equal parts water and alcohol, and some say to always use 98% alcohol . Others tailor the alcohol percentage to the herb and its particular constituents. Tinctures are generally a very concentrated and convenient form to take an herb, and they have a long shelf life. Another benefit of a tincture is that you have a high control over the dosage. Normal dosages of tinctures are between 10 and 90 drops. 20% alcohol is the minimum requirement for shelf-stability..

• not viable if trying to measure or maintain a certain ABV

Barley wine or wine extraction – . Wine can also be used as a extraction tool using as a method of preserving herbs. White wines are more often used traditionally due to the high tannin content of red wine, which may interfere with alkaloid rich herbs. This also applies to adapting wine extraction to imperial or high gravity beer samples, such as using a barleywine to steep high volumes of herbs and then adding this back to larger batches weeks later. The blending of a small amount of white wine to wheat beers is also a great way to impart flavors in a traditional method.

• This method is also not recommended if you are needing to maintain a strict ABV

Cold pressing- Cold pressing is similar to a French press in mechanics, but using gentle colder water for extraction. 2-24 hours maceration of solids is often needed for this method. Cold extraction allows for retention of volatile compounds that would be lost by extraction methods involving heat, especially if used as analogous to dry hopping where the pressed extraction is added after or near the end of fermentation so that volatile compounds are not lost during fermentation.

• make sure to use sterile water

Herbs

Herbs can be used fresh or dried.

When and how to add

The same basic consideration for spices apply to herbs. Herbs are typically added between the end of the boil and secondary fermentation/aging.

Dandelions

The following is provided by James Sites :

1. Since you want to use the petals only (or maybe not), you want to pick your flowers away from anywhere that sprays and you want to pick them around noon or so, when the flowers are fully open. Ingo Janssen adds: pick the dandelions when they are young and the flower is about to open. You can then pick the petals in one go, just tear away the green leaves around them and you're left with a nice compact set of petals.
2. After you pick your flowers you're going to want to depetal them as soon as possible because they will eventually close, making it a more difficult process. If you get a little green with the petals, don't worry about it, as long as most of what you have is the yellow.
3. The optimum ratio for dandelion wine is 100 grams of petals per 2 quarts of water. In my last beer I used 760 grams (25.7 oz.) for approximately 5 gallons of water, so about 3/4ths of that amount, with good results. For reference, that amount took me about 2 hours to pick and about 7 hours to depetal. It's an intensive process. Get ready for your fingertips to be dark brown.
4. Since you can freeze the petals, you can do this in stages until you have enough to make the tea for your beer.
5. After you have gathered enough petals, you want to soak them in hot water for 2 days to make the tea. I just put them into a mashtun and pour boiling water over them and close the mashtun. Stir the petals at least twice a day.
6. After the two days, separate the petals from the water (another reason a mashtun is useful) and use it however you want. If you're an extract brewer, you can add extract directly to the water and brew the rest of your beer normally. If you're brewing all grain, I'd use the dandelion tea as sparge water.

See also:

• Matt Humbard's dandelion saison with Brettanomyces.

Elderflowers

The following is provided by Raf Soef of Bokkereyder :

• Pick the elderflowers in the early morning, they're at their best then. After a day of sitting in the sun, part of the aroma has evaporated, and it recovers at night.
• If you hold the flowers upside down, tap it, and the yellow powder falls out, they're at their prime to be picked.
• One night maceration will do. No matter how well you cut off the branches, there will still be a whole bunch left. One night maceration extracts the noble aroma of the flowers and not the green/peppery aroma of the branches (or at least to a lesser extent).
• If you chill your beer before the maceration, to get an actual 'cold' maceration, the extraction is even more pure.
• Barrel age the elderflower lambic for another half year, it will make it way more balanced.
• Respect the nature of your beer and the nature of the flower and you'll be happy.

Coffee

Generally, cold brewed coffee is used or "dry beaning" is used where cold brewed coffee or whole coffee beans are added to the beer shortly before packaging. Cold brewed coffee can be added incrementally to taste. If "dry beaning", 12-48 hours are recommended to fully extract the coffee from the beans. There are many differing opinions on what types of varieties and roasts to use; the best advice is to test several coffees and choose the one that best fits the beer. The best drinking coffee may not be the best coffee to use in a sour beer, and different coffees might be better suited for different beers . See this MTF discussion.

Vegetables

Some suggestions on using hot peppers: The spice is in the seeds. Removing the seeds will shift the balance toward flavor and away from spice. Some suggest removing the seeds, and others say they like the qualities of the seeds but are careful to control contact time.

When and how to add

Many vegetables, such as squashes/gourds and root vegetables contain starches which you may wish to convert to fermentable sugars by including the vegetables in the mash.

General Usage Suggestions

(in progress) This table gives some suggestions based off of what has worked for MTFers and commercial breweries. It is not a completely exhaustive list, and you are encouraged to add your experiences and experiment outside of this list. Before using anything, be sure that it is safe to use and does not pose a health risk. Parts of some plants which have other parts commonly used for spices as well as plants similar to those used as spices can be toxic (e.g. Rhubarb leaves, parts of elderberry plants, some varieties of juniper).

-If foraging Always be 100% sure of what you are picking, take someone with you with experience, take pictures of what you pick.There is a saying there are old mycologist and bold mycologist but there are no old&bold mycologist.... be careful when foraging anything

-use fresh ingredients were possible

- use single spices until you know how they affect the beer and then blend accordingly for balance, you may be cheating yourself if you don't collect notes on the full range of any ingredient.

- look for balance when blending spices with teas and tinctures ex- wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella ) is rather tangy tart and blends well with nutmeg or star anise in darker ales , but maybe better with lemongrass or ginger in a lighter brew.

- One huge thing to consider when collecting and growing your own spices is that fresh living herbs can taste and give off drastically different flavors and concentrations then dried or dried/ crushed versions and can also be very different than powdered forms. I have found this to be especially true of more delicate and tender herbs such as lavender, lemon balm , dandelion, wood sorrel and fresh basil, versus thyme, rosemary, fennel and other more fiberous collections

• Do you have some input from your experiences brewing sour herb/spice/vegetable beers? Please add your thoughts in this MTF Facebook thread.
• As spices are typically used in small amounts, we've presented this table in units of g/l to avoid awkward decimal values. To help those who are metrically challenged, follow this link to convert to oz/gal.

Spice/Herb/Vegetable	Format	Amount	Added in	Contact Time	Commercial Examples
Basil	Fresh leaves	1.5 g/l	Secondary	1-2 weeks
Beats	Fresh and Funky	More is better	Anywhere hot side to aging and conditioning	More is better	Dock Street Ain't Nothing to Funk With
Beets					Jester King Hibernal Dichotomous 2015
Chocolate
Cilantro	Fresh leaves	>2.25g/l
Citrus zest
Coconut
Coffee	Whole beans	~11-12 g/l	Secondary	48 hours	All Systems Go by The Rare Barrel, Coffee Minotaur by Orpheus Brewing, Lunex by Black Project
Coriander	Whole, freshly crushed				Many examples of Gose
Cucumber	Fresh, skinned and sliced	<1/2 cucumber per gallon	secondary
Elderflowers	Whole, fresh		Secondary		Cantillon Mamouche
Ginger Root	Dried	~3.5 g/l (~52 minutes in)	Secondary	Minimal contact (TRB uses a Torpedo/hop rocket)	The Rare Barrel Sourtooth Tiger
Grains of Paradise	dried, crushed				Rare Barrel Grainsta's Paradise
Fenugreek	leaves	a bit less than 0.4 tbsp/gal
Hay			Mash		Jester King Repose
Hibiscus	Dried	2-8 g/l (boil)/2-4 g/l (secondary)	5-15 mins in Boil (longer time in boil for more tartness)		Bend Brewing Co. Ching Ching Berliner.
Honeysuckle	Fresh	1 gallon volume per 5 gallons of beer	secondary
Mushrooms					Upright White Truffle Gose; Jester King Snörkel
Oak	See Barrel Alternatives
Peppercorns, black	dried, crushed
Peppercorns, Pink	dried, crushed
Peppers, hot					Upright Fatali Four
Rhubarb	Fresh		secondary		Cantillon Zwanze 2012
Rosemary	Fresh Leaves	4-6" sprig per 5 gallons	End of boil to secondary
Spruce Tips	Fresh	10-12g/gallon	Secondary	3 days room temp, 3 days cold crash
Tea	Dried leaves	50-100 grams in 1 L water cold brewed 24-36 hours	Secondary
Thyme					Jester King Hibernal Dichotomous 2015
Vanilla	Whole pods				Rare Barrel Home Sour Home
Wakame (Seaweed)		~70 grams for 20 liters	secondary
Yarrow					Upright Flora

See Also

Additional Articles on MTF Wiki

• Soured Fruit Beer
• Cyanide in Plants
• Barrel

External Resources

• Phenol Explorer website for various foods.

References

Von Seitz Theoreticales Brewery. theoreticales.com