Advice on souring/brettanomyces

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Moody_Copperpot

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I recently brewed a Strong Ale, and I’d love to introduce some sour and vinous notes to it. I love my IPAs and all of that, and am a very hop forward brewer, but I absolutely LOVE sour ales, and can’t get enough of them lately. Namely anything by Jolly Pumpkin. I didn’t use any sort of special yeast, just S-04. I’m planning on aging it a minimum of 90 days. Any advice on how to achieve a bit of a sour character to the beer? Brettanomyces for example?
 
Brettanomyces will not sour a beer, it adds the barnyard funk.

Lactobacillus and Pediococcaus(sp) is what creates the sour twang that it seems your are looking for.

This is a good primer. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/11/brewing-sour-beer-at-home.html

IMO you should brew a beer with the intention of souring it, and plan the recipe accordingly. There is some debate as to whether you add the funk with your base yeast strain or after fermentation is complete.

90 days is not long enough for a beer with Brett or pedio. My advice to you would be do some research, and if you want to get a sour pipeline going, plan ahead from recipe formulation and expect to invest a year or two of waiting. In the meantime be happ you can buy jolly pumpkins delicious products while you wait.
 
If you want something fast and dirty, try a little lactic acid. I have never tried it and heard it is a bit one dimensional, but I have also heard that it can produce satisfactory results. This might give you an idea of how a recipe may taste and you can do it by the glass for testing.

Wyeast and White Labs make blends that contain everything you need. Yeast and bacteria. I have used the Berliner Weisse blend and the Roselare (sp) blend. It is important to know that if you use these blends, do not make starters. There are specific ratios of yeast to bacteria and you will mess up this balance if you do.

90 days, as stated above, is not enough time. I have a Berliner Weisse on month 4 of aging and it is no where near ready. I also have a Kriek aging that will go through a total of 18 months of aging before I take a taste.
 
I know I need to plan ahead next time, I guess what im wondering, is if I can still introduce some sour character here. I've never added yeast to a beer again after the initial pitch. Is that something worth exploring? I know more than 90 days are probably necessary, that was just my initial plan for the strong ale. I'll check out that link too.
 
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