I’d like to try my hand at making a peach gose; I’m hoping that you guys can offer some insight on what I’m going to try to do:
Primary fermentation with no fruit using standard yeast (something clean - Safale 5 or American Ale).
After fermentation is complete:
Transition to a secondary, add fruit (peach puree or concentrated peach juice) and a good healthy starter of WLP672 Lactobacillus brevis.
Essentially my goal here is to not use soured malt and to not add lactic acid - but to use just yeast to reach the desired effect. Does the above plan sound like it would work?
Using bacteria in the secondary sounds like a fine way to sour it. It’s a good way to produce consistent results and everything I’ve read/heard is that it produces a more rounded sour than just using sour malt or lactic acid. Just keep the hops to a minimum and keep in mind that the peach will up your abv. I don’t know how alcohol tolerant that strain is.
The other thing you can try is a sour mash or sour worting. These can produce a nice sour with the added benefits that the beer is ready weeks or months sooner and you don’t have to worry about contaminating your equipment. The one and only Gose I made, I mashed 1 lb of grain then put it in a growler filled to the top with water and kept it around 100°F for about 18 hours before brewing. I also used lactic acid to get my mash ph correct. Worked out great and got a nice subtle sourness.
This should work well IMO. I made a fig gose one time using a similar method and it turned out great. Try to keep the lacto secondary ferment below 68* as it can produce medicinal flavors above that.
Also keep the table salt additions below the perceivable threshold by weight. Your mouth should water, but it shouldn’t ‘taste’ salty.
