Funktown to Sour

HBTers,

I'm wanting to try my hand at some souring and was wondering if I could ask for some advice. I want to do a split batch for a stout/porter (recipe below) in which 3 gallons of wort will be fermented with only Wyeast 5526 (Brett L) and the other 3 gallons with The Yeast Bay Funktown Pale Ale yeast and dregs from a bottle of Goose Island Madame Rose.

My question is with the sour batch. I've read that the thinning/drying of a stout will render the roasted character undesirable. By using flaked barley will this be able to add enough body to the beer so that it doesn't thin out over time, or will the brett from the Funktown yeast end up eating all the body in the beer anyway? Also by using Special B, will this lend enough balance to help keep the roasted malts from dominating the beer as it thins? Thanks in advance for the advice.

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs 8.0 oz Golden Promise (Simpsons) (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 60.0 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 2 10.0 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 10.0 %
1 lbs Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4 8.0 %
8.0 oz Black Malt (Simpsons) (550.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.0 %
8.0 oz Carafa II (Weyermann) (415.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.0 %
8.0 oz Roasted Barley (Simpsons) (550.0 SRM) Grain 7 4.0 %
0.90 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 21.1 IBUs

Mash in the mid 150's

i read about a way to kill off the bugs once you get the FG you desire on the mad fermentationalists blog. might be worth a read..sorry no link

I'm not sure if it's that roasted flavors are undesirable or if they just are lost. A lot of the malt and hop flavors are lost while souring in my experience.

I'd start with looking up recipes for dubbels since those would lend nicely to sour beer and tweak your recipe accordingly. Cheers!

I suspect that the Brett L batch will be problematic. It took over 2 weeks for my Brett L starter to do anything of note. You'll need to step up a big starter if you're planning to use only of Brett L, which could take months. Also, is a funky cherry flavor what you're looking to get from that batch?

Hmmm......interesting....plan. did you try a sour porter/stout you tried and ejoyed that inspired this? Because to be honest this is a REALLY tough style to sour correctly and even that is wildly objective. Bitter, roasty, and atsringent are not usually happy bedfellows with sour, funky and acidic. Especially with your bretts o' choice there. Funktown has strong fruity flavors.granted porters originally had brett. The only palatable brett porter i have ever had was made wigh crooked staves bugs...by crooked stave. Maybe you should try brett trois vs lambicus. If you want that cherry character, use cherries and brett 3, along with the souring bugs, maybe the funktown on its own?

Just throwing thoughts around, should be a wild ride either way - no pun

So Ive tweaked the recipe a bit (below), and lowered the roasted percentage. I have the Brett starter going (1 L with package date of 6 June 2014). It has a pellicle formed already. I'm hoping 1 liter for 3 gallons is enough.

My plan with the sour is to use the Funktown/Madame Rose for primary. Transfer to seconday on crushed figs (we have a fig tree in our back yard with about 5 billion figs already), and oak cubes, and let sit.

The Brett L is said to have the cherry at first, and then fade with time. I want to see what it will taste like with the roasted/coffee flavors from the malts. Basically I just want to experiment and see what comes about from all of this, and then proceed from there.

I agree this is going to be tough to get right, and there's not a lot of examples of a sour porter, but no risk no reward. After all this is all about discovering what works and what doesn't....right?

duhh...recipe

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs 6.0 oz Golden Promise (Simpsons) (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 61.8 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 2 12.6 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.4 %
15.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.8 %
9.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.7 %
9.0 oz Roasted Barley (Simpsons) (550.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.7 %
0.75 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 17.9 IBUs
0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 8 -
1.0 pkg Brettanomyces Lambucus (Wyeast Labs #552 Yeast 9 -

TYB, like white labs, have much fewer cells then wyeast, you will need a starter for solid fermentation with FT

I've made 2 sour stouts with good results, and I'd say your revised recipe looks good, but why so much biscuit malt? IMO, 1.5#s is a lot for any beer and seems very odd to me in a sour/brett beer. you may want to split the roasted barley with something milder like carafa, but that's up to you.

1L brett L starter should be fine for only 3G, you definitely didn't need to start it that far ahead. L does the cherry note in secondary, but i've yet to use that one in primary on its own to know if you still get it there.

MileHighBrewer said:

Maybe you should try brett trois vs lambicus. If you want that cherry character, use cherries and brett 3, along with the souring bugs, maybe the funktown on its own?

Click to expand...

why do you think trois would work better? lambicus is the only one i havent done primary with so i'm not really sure what to expect from it, but with how tropical trois is it seems like an odd combo with a stout

**1L brett L starter should be fine for only 3G, you definitely didn't need to start it that far ahead. L does the cherry note in secondary, but i've yet to use that one in primary on its own to know if you still get it there. **

Because I started my starter four days ago, should I place an airlock on the flask now? I just have a foam stopper in place and its sitting in a corner in my downstairs room.

oh my bad, i misread that before, thought you made the starter june 6th, not it was packaged then. if you have a pellicle on it, then yes i'd put on a airlock as IMO you're letting too much air in.

Dcp - two of the funky stouts i have ever tried and liked were commercial, both breweries use trois.

L is super funky if used as a primary, i did a lambic-ish beer using it, super funky bretty character....no pie cherries ime