Margarita Gose

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I make sure to keep US05 at about 68. 64-66 will produce green grape juice flavors. Has happened to me multiple times so I tend to go warm. 68 until Krausen starts to drop then raise to 71 or 72.
 
Beer is still fermenting away. I pitched rehydrated S-05 on Friday night, set the temp control to 68 F and had strong activity (not anywhere near what I normally see though) after 24 hr. Raised it to 70 F today just to make sure it finishes properly.

I wanted to add that I used a full 1 oz of both coriander (cracked using a garlic press, works great!) and pink himalayan sea salt. The same day, I added 6 oz of silver tequila to two mason jars, then added the zest of 4 limes to one and ~1.5 oz of medium toast american oak cubes to the other:

biro2c.jpg


Will strain and add directly to the keg once the beer is done.

I'm interested in the aromas that are expected from the wort (after kettle souring). I would say the easiest way to describe mine was "wet hay", not pungent or anything, but there is definitely a "breadiness" too. I feel like I can smell the salinity coming out of the airlock as well, lol.
 
isomerization said:
Beer is still fermenting away. I pitched rehydrated S-05 on Friday night, set the temp control to 68 F and had strong activity (not anywhere near what I normally see though) after 24 hr. Raised it to 70 F today just to make sure it finishes properly.

I wanted to add that I used a full 1 oz of both coriander (cracked using a garlic press, works great!) and pink himalayan sea salt. The same day, I added 6 oz of silver tequila to two mason jars, then added the zest of 4 limes to one and ~1.5 oz of medium toast american oak cubes to the other:

biro2c.jpg


Will strain and add directly to the keg once the beer is done.

I'm interested in the aromas that are expected from the wort (after kettle souring). I would say the easiest way to describe mine was "wet hay", not pungent or anything, but there is definitely a "breadiness" too. I feel like I can smell the salinity coming out of the airlock as well, lol.
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All is well I "sea".
 
Got impatient and skimmed off the S-05 lingering krausen, checked gravity (1.008) and decided to keg (3 days ago). Tasted it yesterday, very nice! Too tart for my family at Easter (lol) but it's right in my wheelhouse. Excited to see how it tastes after a week in the keg!
 
isomerization said:
Got impatient and skimmed off the S-05 lingering krausen, checked gravity (1.008) and decided to keg (3 days ago). Tasted it yesterday, very nice! Too tart for my family at Easter (lol) but it's right in my wheelhouse. Excited to see how it tastes after a week in the keg!
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Looks like you will have a private stash and hope nobody else develops a taste for this fine beer.

Funny story: My wife had one of her employees over. Young lady quickly announces she is not a beer drinker but is willing to taste a sample to be polite. Has a sample of Gose and says.....WOW, I LOVE this! Darn, I thought the keg was safe. Interesting a non-beer drinker would go for a Gose. She did say she was a nut for warheads, sweet tarts...etc.

After your additions when kegging, all flavors will meld and mellow in a week or two.
 
Aside from my mixed fermentation funky margarita sour, I think I'll be brewing this in the next two weeks. I need to have this gose drinkable (I bottle) by about mid June. Is that possible?
 
ShareBrewing said:
Aside from my mixed fermentation funky margarita sour, I think I'll be brewing this in the next two weeks. I need to have this gose drinkable (I bottle) by about mid June. Is that possible?
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Sure enough! 8 weeks is a gracious plenty, in fact 6 weeks should be fine. I'd suggest trying to have it moving thru the process by May 1 to ensure it has a few weeks to carb and bottle condition.
 
Was thinking about 3 days to kettle sour, give it 2 weeks in primary, and maybe another 2 weeks in secondary. That'll give about 3 weeks in the bottle. Need to have it ready for a vacation with a friend and their family.

Due to my brewing method (brew one beer, divide into many), this won't be your typical gose grist. I'll be brewing about 12 gal and splitting it into the gose and then a hefeweizen.

55% Pilsner
25% Wheat malt
15% Flaked Wheat
5% Vienna

If I plan on brewing this so soon, I'll probably need to start the tinctures of lime and wood tonight, but separately.
 
Morrey said:
Sure enough! 8 weeks is a gracious plenty, in fact 6 weeks should be fine. I'd suggest trying to have it moving thru the process by May 1 to ensure it has a few weeks to carb and bottle condition.
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Realistically, you should be able to bottle after 2 weeks. Two days to kettle sour and 12 days in primary. Bottle conditioning is basically a secondary. I've only had mine kegged for about a week, so I can't comment on how soon it falls off, but I've always been under the impression wheat beers are best young.
 
So you don't recommend a secondary on this? I really don't see the need to transfer it if fresh zest or juice (orange/lemon/lime) is being added. I've got a shandy sitting over a bunch of fresh lemon and orange juice and a whole bunch of fresh zest. I transferred it thinking the juice might wake the wee yeasties up, but I really didn't need to after I saw nothing happened. Once the krausen and yeast drop out (maybe a week or so) you could just add the juice, zest and/or tequila tincture(s)?

Speaking of zest and juice, a good margarita always has some triple sec or fine orange liqueur added. Do you think you could add a little orange zest (maybe 7g-14g or 1/4-1/2 oz) to this?
 
Yes, no need for secondary, I doubt there is much sugar in the zest. This recipe calls for 1 oz coriander, which should provide a nice citrus burst!
 
Really getting into tasting these now and they have developed wonderfully. They are going to be great for this weekend.

I used roughly 1/3C of oak cubes and half a cup of tequila soaking for a bout a week with the zest of two limes added a few days before bottling. Next time I would up the oak and tequila and probably keep the lime the same.

In the boil I went with .5oz coriander and 1oz salt. I ran out of coriander, but would definitely do the 1oz recommended next time.

This has been a great intro to brewing my first sour. Thanks for the recipe!!
 
Here is a pic of mine, 3 weeks in the keg (1 week primary) and it has cleared up from the little haze it had:

124jzw9.jpg


I agree with thedon986's comments above, the lime (4 zested) is spot on for me, but I'd like a bit more oak (used ~1.5 oz of med toast cubes for 7 day tincture in tequila) next time.
 
Finally got around to brewing this a week ago. My usual method is to brew 12-16 gal of wort with BIAB and then split it up into different beers. This time I went with a hefeweizen and the gose.

My efficiency hovers around 65%. Long story short, the new bag I got wasn't the right size so I just had to dough-in and MacGyver my system into working differently. Everything went well but my efficiency went up to 73% so my gose ended up at 1.058. Imperial gose has always seemed like a cool idea anyway and I like my margaritas strong!

I pitched about 3/4 of the full growler of OYL 605 culture I have going into about 4.5 gal of the wort. Life/work got busy and I couldn't boil off til 5 days or about 120 hours later. Tasted quite tart and had a good mealtimes behind it. Clean and no signs of alcohol present. I say that, because somehow the gravity dropped to 1.026... how could the Lacto do that? Has anyone else had the Lacto ferment out over 50% of their beer? I have heard of 100% Lacto fermented beers.

I took emergency measures before pitching the US-05 I added 2 pounds of Pilsner LME just to maybe prevent this from being a 2% beer... There were no signs of contamination by yeast. So I guess it would depend on if the Lacto is homofermentative or hetero-. So I could end up with a 4.0% beer or like an 8%+ beer.
 
ShareBrewing said:
Finally got around to brewing this a week ago. My usual method is to brew 12-16 gal of wort with BIAB and then split it up into different beers. This time I went with a hefeweizen and the gose.

My efficiency hovers around 65%. Long story short, the new bag I got wasn't the right size so I just had to dough-in and MacGyver my system into working differently. Everything went well but my efficiency went up to 73% so my gose ended up at 1.058. Imperial gose has always seemed like a cool idea anyway and I like my margaritas strong!

I pitched about 3/4 of the full growler of OYL 605 culture I have going into about 4.5 gal of the wort. Life/work got busy and I couldn't boil off til 5 days or about 120 hours later. Tasted quite tart and had a good mealtimes behind it. Clean and no signs of alcohol present. I say that, because somehow the gravity dropped to 1.026... how could the Lacto do that? Has anyone else had the Lacto ferment out over 50% of their beer? I have heard of 100% Lacto fermented beers.

I took emergency measures before pitching the US-05 I added 2 pounds of Pilsner LME just to maybe prevent this from being a 2% beer... There were no signs of contamination by yeast. So I guess it would depend on if the Lacto is homofermentative or hetero-. So I could end up with a 4.0% beer or like an 8%+ beer.
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I recently used OYL-605 for this recipe and didn't see an appreciable drop in gravity after 48 hr of souring. Did you boil your wort before pitching the Lacto? Likely had a wild yeast or heterofermentative Lacto strain get in there that did the damage. Either way, there should be alcohol produced I think.

Just did a bit more reading and homo Lacto make 2 lactate molecules per glucose while hetero Lacto make 1 lactate and 1 ethanol per glucose. This likely leads to the fast drop in SG with hetero strains. The homo Lacto drop the pH quickly with minimal sugar utilization, leading to stalled metabolism/growth, while the hetero Lacto take longer and chew up more sugar. Just my guess!
 
Just musing and wanted to share a cost and taste comparison between my Margarita Gose and Key Lime Pie Gose from Westbrook Brewery just outside of Charleston, SC.

I use a fair amount of wheat influence in mine so naturally it is a bit more hazy than Westbrook. As not to disclose this as a sure fire giveaway, I did a blind test with three tasters and samples were in non transparent color coded cups. I included two samples of my beer and one sample of Westbrook.

Results were that two of the tasters noted mine was more salty than Westbrook. Of course I was controlling the saltiness to make it a "salt rimmed" margarita. One taster said the Westbrook sample has less flavor than mine and she picked it as best overall since she didn't like sour beers too much anyway. This was my brother in laws GF so I was just grabbing available folks to test. Two tasters picked the Gose I made while one liked Westbrook best in the overall score.

Besides being difficult to find to purchase, Westbrook is $10.99 plus tax for a 4 pack. This makes their beer $.25 per ounce. Counting my ingredient expenses only, I am making my Gose for $.05 per ounce, but not counting for my labor or profits of course. Interesting heads up comparison.
 
Bottled this up yesterday and couldn't be more pleased. Despite the hiccup with the Lacto fermenting 50% of the beer, the extra 2 pounds of LME added did wonders and gave a nice, pleasant malt backbone. I used 20g of fresh ground coriander at 5 min in the boil, just enough for my tastes. It's quite subtle but does give the beer a margarita like scent and taste without even adding the lime and such. I used 17g of black Hiwa Kai volcanic salt at 5 min. Again, just enough to balance and be firmly noticeable but not bitey more my palate. My mom and GF helped bottle and they raved about it, said it was perfect and didn't need anymore salt or spice.

As for tinctures, I made an 8oz of Espolon blanco w/ 4 limes worth of fresh zest slices and about 7g (1/2 orange) of navel orange zest slices.
Wood tincture of 21g Spanish cedar spiral in about 5oz of Espolon. Both tinctures sat for over a month.

Added 4oz total of the lime/orange tincture at bottling, and 1oz of wood tincture.
Added about 5-6oz of fresh lime juice at bottling.

As an exbeeriment, I put a pinch of fresh grated lime zest in half of the bottles. Let's see how it turns out. And based on the taste tests, it turned out to be 8.0%.
 
Meant to ask in my last post, what specific kind of salt do you use for your gose? Does it matter?

I've used pink Himalayan salt before and that was alright but when I went to buy the salt, there was quite a selection at Whole Foods. Tried the pink Himalayan side by side with the black Hawaiian Hiwa Kai. Major difference. Found the Hiwa Kai to much more well balanced and savory from the volcanic minerals. The pink was far more sharp and astringent, more close to your standard table salt.

Then again salt is polarizing flavor, so most people's opinions should be... taken with a grain of salt?
 
ShareBrewing said:
Meant to ask in my last post, what specific kind of salt do you use for your gose? Does it matter?

I've used pink Himalayan salt before and that was alright but when I went to buy the salt, there was quite a selection at Whole Foods. Tried the pink Himalayan side by side with the black Hawaiian Hiwa Kai. Major difference. Found the Hiwa Kai to much more well balanced and savory from the volcanic minerals. The pink was far more sharp and astringent, more close to your standard table salt.

Then again salt is polarizing flavor, so most people opinions should be... taken with a grain of salt?
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Well said...with a grain of salt! LOL

I was going to ask about your sourcing for the Hawaiian Hiwa Kai salts so I'll try Whole Foods next visit. I am just finishing the last of my Himalayan Pink Sea Salt but think I'll try your suggestion next.

When I make my next Gose it will be a Watermelon Gose, still has salt in it, but half the amount as called for in the Margarita. I should have the black salt by then. Good tip.

I make Watermelon Gose in the summer when fresh melons are available, and Margarita in the other months.
 
The Hiwa Kai was just more "rounded" and balanced than all the other salts there. It wasn't bitey or sharp on the palette, but very smooth. Try the Hiwa Kai next to your other choice of salt and see the difference. Everyone's palette is different.

There must have been 7 or 8 kinds of salts there at Whole Foods... who'd of thought? Everything from red/clay colored salts to black to pink to various white salts but sourced from different countries. But luckily it's super cheap for our means. We never need more than an oz, and most of those salts sell for not more than $7-$10/lb. Also highly recommended for getting the fresh coriander seeds as well. Man, it really makes the difference to grind the spice JUST before adding. So much citrus!

Does anyone have good suggestions for salt sourcing? Honestly, until I made that trip to Whole Foods, I never realized there was such diversity in FLAVOR of different salts.
 
ShareBrewing said:
The Hiwa Kai was just more "rounded" and balanced than all the other salts there. It wasn't bitey or sharp on the palette, but very smooth. Try the Hiwa Kai next to your other choice of salt and see the difference. Everyone's palette is different.

There must have been 7 or 8 kinds of salts there at Whole Foods... who'd of thought? Everything from red/clay colored salts to black to pink to various white salts but sourced from different countries. But luckily it's super cheap for our means. We never need more than an oz, and most of those salts sell for not more than $7-$10/lb. Also highly recommended for getting the fresh coriander seeds as well. Man, it really makes the difference to grind the spice JUST before adding. So much citrus!

Does anyone have good suggestions for salt sourcing? Honestly, until I made that trip to Whole Foods, I never realized there was such diversity in FLAVOR of different salts.
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Speaking of coriander....I bought organic coriander on Amazon recently. Before I use an oz, I'll put it in a dry sauté pan on low heat and toast the seeds until I smell them becoming toasty fragrant. Once cooled, I crack lightly before adding into the boil.
 
What would you say is the benefit of the toasting. Sounds interesting but do you notice a discernible difference with it?
 
ShareBrewing said:
What would you say is the benefit of the toasting. Sounds interesting but do you notice a discernible difference with it?
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I began toasting coriander seeds while dialing in a Witbier recipe. I made a couple of batches, then tried the toasted method. I had both versions to compare and noticed a subtle nuttiness with the toasted version. Just seemed better but I thought it may just be me wanting it to be better. I was going to do a blind taste test but the non-toasted version ran out before I had time to try. Its a very simple and fast process so its worth a try.
 
isomerization said:
Watermelon sounds like an excellent pairing with gose, how do you add the fruit?
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I've found making your own watermelon concentrate is the best way to go. For my watermelon gose I do the following for 5 gallons:

Juice an entire large watermelon to yield 1/2 gallon of watermelon juice. Strain it to get rid of the solids. Freeze the 1/2 gallon of juice. This is where you start making the concentrate. Once frozen ( I use a gallon water jug) turn the jug upside down over a mason jar and let it melt/drip until you've collected 32 oz of concentrate, discard the frozen stuff left over in the jug. Return the concentrate to the jug and freeze it again. Repeat the last step to collect 16 oz of concentrate and freeze until you want to thaw it to add to the keg. This 16 oz of concentrate is perfect for flavoring 5 gallons.

If you're wondering how it works, when you're dripping the concentrate to collect from the frozen juice, the sugary liquid melts first leaving behind water in the jug. This gives you concentrate.
 
isomerization said:
Watermelon sounds like an excellent pairing with gose, how do you add the fruit?
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Arnobg uses the same concentrate method I use in which KeyWestBrewing shared a couple of years ago. Watermelon is likely to be one of the most difficult flavors to infuse due to its high water content. This concentrate process is the best way to remove most of the water content.

I actually liked the same full volume of salt (1 Ounce Sea Salt)in the melon version that we used in the Margarita Gose. I did a blind taste comparison with the popular Briny Melon Gose brewed by Anderson Valley and found ours to be very similar.
 
Thanks for the tip. I don't brew with coriander too often, so I might need to try that on my next wit or gose.

And you guys were right, this spent about 4-5 days souring, and about 8 days in primary. Due to the nature of all of the flavorings being added, you really DONT have to go secondary for this beer. Besides the salt and coriander, I added everything at bottling! Super easy!
 
I also use a full ounce of salt on all flavor variations. I personally wouldn't use less but I like my gose salty.
 
arnobg said:
I also use a full ounce of salt on all flavor variations. I personally wouldn't use less but I like my gose salty.
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I totally agree! I have never been to Germany to know what the "real" Gose style would be like in comparison, but I have tried backing off the salt at my wife's request. That happened all of one time and back to the full oz we went!
 
This sounds really good. I brew a gose every year and split it in secondary onto different additions. This is going to be the next one.
 
Thanks to Morrey I brewed 10 gallons of this beer over the weekend. I used WLP672 to sour built up a starter over a couple of days.

It soured much quicker than expected I hit my ph mark in 36 hours. It is now bubbling away and both tinctures are started.

Morrey thank you again for sharing this! Really excited to see how it turns out.
 
Just tasted it at 10 days old in the bottle. For an 8.0% beer it carbed up fast and certainly doesn't drink like it.

Definitely a batch to do again. The SWMBO won't let it leave there hand, and won't let me give any bottles away! For my taste the 17g of salt in 5 gal was perfect.

Thanks for sharing this idea/recipe! Can't wait to exbeeriment with it in the future!
 
I just pulled a sample to taste and the sourness is really starting to come through! Hopefully I will be able to get this in the brite tank Saturday!
 
jready said:
I just pulled a sample to taste and the sourness is really starting to come through! Hopefully I will be able to get this in the brite tank Saturday!
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Its really hard to gauge the sourness by taste while there are fermentable sugars still in the wort. But once the sugars are converted...the sour really pops!
 
Thanks to Morrey for sharing the ideas/recipe. Gotta a few comments on this from friends this is one of the best recipes I've ever made.
 

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