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**smokinghole** · 03-28-2012, 01:26 PM

I am hoping the blending of the two batches I did today will encourage a new fermentation considering the high gravity of the soured half and the T58 still left in suspension. I have as close to 10 gal as I'm going to get with the beer blended together. I bottled off a case worth of straight unblended hopped beer. I had to bottle at least one case to make room in the 10gal fermentor. This will allow me to compare the higher hopped portion to the resulting low IBU blend, plus I can decide whether or not this is worth the extra effort.

The rotten corn flavor is basically gone at this point. There's just a hint of it in the blended product. I hope the remaining extract that gets fermented helps scrub that flavor out of the beer. Also the blending should have a detrimental effect on the lactobacillus between the EtOH and the hop acids.

ReverseApacheMaster · 03-28-2012, 02:31 PM

I wouldn't give up on the rotten corn flavor going away until the beer has been bottled and fully carbonated. I don't know what it is about carbonation but it definitely does something more than make it bubbly. It's been fairly well documented that brett beers really get those great funky flavors after carbonation. I once had a somewhat wild beer that tasted and smelled like wet goat all the way into the bottle but when I popped the top on carbonated beers the ethanol and fatty acids producing the wet goat aroma and flavor converted into some delicious flavors. It tasted like juicy fruit.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if additional fermentation scrubs the rest out.

**smokinghole** · 03-28-2012, 02:39 PM

I moved a lot of beer today so I could bottle my acidulated malt soured saison.

Anyhow I'm not worried. I'll bottle it next week most likely. I'm not worried one bit about the flavor leaving. If it doesn't oh well it's not so offensive that it will keep me from drinking the beer.

**smokinghole** · 04-02-2012, 01:55 PM

Morning after pitching lactobacillus culture in unhopped wort.

Third day unhopped portion lactobacillus only.

**smokinghole** · 04-03-2012, 03:28 PM

I decided to pull a gravity reading today as well as sample it after some decent time with more yeast. The beer has almost completely lost the assy flavors which is good. The somewhat bad thing is that the beer went all the way. The hopped portion stopped at 1.007 but my gravity reading on this today was at best 1.002. So I basically have a low hopped slightly spiced sour saison at this point rather than a sour witbier. I think it'll be just fine as summer refreshment in the long run. Just not was I was aiming for, I wonder why the blended batch attenuated further than the unblended. I know the hopped portion was done fermenting. If not I have bottle bombs waiting for me, but I'm damn sure t58 took it as far as it was going in two weeks on the hopped half.

**smokinghole** · 04-23-2012, 11:13 AM

I went to bottle this last week and I took a taste before getting all setup. The beer has gone ropy. At first I assumed I got a pedio contamination from another beer but because it was unboiled and unhopped wort there's no telling what sort of bacteria made it out of my mash tun. So I assume it's just from whatever made it into the wort. I did some research and Lactobacillus delbrueckii spp. bulgaricus can make an exo polysaccharide complex just like pedio is known to produce. So while I likely didn't get the formation from the white labs pure culture anything that made it into the fermentor from the mash certainly could have. I have now added brett to consume and digest the exo polysaccharide hoping the ropiness clears up fairly quickly. The beer fermented out to dryness but now the viscosity is giving the brett plenty of fuel to chomp on for a little while at least.

**smokinghole** · 04-26-2012, 07:23 PM

This beer has another month to lose the hint of butt corn flavor or its getting dumped. I am not going to go through the trouble of bottling it and or waiting for the beer to clean up in the fermentor just to still have a crap corn flavor. May 18th, either it's clean or it goes down the drain. So far I'll chalk up this experiment up as a bad way to do sour wit.

ReverseApacheMaster · 04-26-2012, 09:09 PM

At this point you might as well bottle it either way. Sometimes bottling gets rid of some weird stuff. I had a batch that smelled like wet goat go into bottles but come back out after conditioning for a few weeks with a nice juicy fruit flavor and aroma. No more goat. The same is true of brett beers. A lot of times carbing intensifies the brett flavor/aroma.

**smokinghole** · 04-26-2012, 09:13 PM

Well bottling is tough with the beer being like the corny urine from Slimer. Basically the beer has a month for the exopolysaccharide (rope) to break down, or I will ditch this beer like a slimy booger.

ReverseApacheMaster · 04-27-2012, 04:25 AM

I didn't realize it was that dense. Very strange.

I have a couple of projects going on with a mix of various lacto strains and some other stuff. One developed a very thick sludge in the bottom of the fermenter, plenty of CO2 and a ton of diacetyl but neither has developed any ropiness. One is a little older than your wit and one is younger but stayed warmer. The warmer one developed the sludge. Cooler one developed a pellicle after about six weeks.