Sour Cherry Saison

simcoe4life · 12-30-2009, 10:36 PM

So I made a french saison with WY3711 back in August in hopes of making a clean saison. I racked it to secondary with an auto siphon that had some bugs left in it from a previous funky batch (I did not sanitize very well).

The clean batch got infected with what I'm thinking was simply brett brux and some strange Jolly Pumpkin bugs. I was a little annoyed, but I tasted it after a few months and it was incredible. Nice brett/horse/barnyard/slight acid saison. Great stuff. I figured I would let it sit another couple of months to evolve into something even better.

I acquired some sour cherries that I was planning on putting into my roselare flemish red batch. I thought "Hey why not just put them in the saison?" The saison had the bugs (infection) in it for 3 months at this point. So I added the cherries, sampled the beer a month later, and it tasted AWESOME. Earthy citrus funk. I racked it to a keg, primed the keg, and put it on tap two weeks later. It was to be my xmas saison.

It goes in the kegerator for two days, and I pour a glass. Different beer. Clearly had notes of that diacetyl butter taste. It's like the priming sugar woke up the pedio and it went crazy.

I'm told I should take it off tap and let it warm up for several months and see how it tastes later. Hopefully any brett in there will clean up the pedio thus getting rid of that butter taste, and, might even age the beer into an even better funked version.

I guess I don't really have a question, just starting a discussion to see if others have experienced this.

simcoe4life · 12-31-2009, 12:46 AM

I just realized something....the gravity on the saison was down to 1.002 when I added the fruit. Perhaps the addition of all that sugar from the fruit is what kicked up the bugs into production hence the odd tastes. They are having a feast. Only time will tell.

ericd · 12-31-2009, 04:41 AM

Yeah, just sounds like it needs more time, it will probably go back to 'normal' in time.