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Long term aging in a bucket may result in too much O2 pickup and some acetic production, so keep that in mind when thinking about how long you want to let this go. If it is tasting pretty rough at this point i personally wouldn't let it go too much longer (maybe 2-4 weeks max) before tasting...

I agree that this doesn't seem like a good idea and it is better to try to make a sour stout from the start than sour up a finished like this. But brett can definitely tolerate tat alcohol. Consider how worried the wine world is about brett. And their primary fermentations go quickly so if...

First, how does the beer taste? There seems to be a common reaction of 'this beer is messed up but adding brett will fix it'. And while that may work sometimes, I think it is generally best to make good brett beers by design and by starting with a good beer. So I'm not saying absolutely don't do...

Sounds like lots of good experience here. Personally, i don't like kettle soured beers as much as fermentation soured beers when sourness is one of the primary characteristics. The combination of lower attenuation/heavier body and sourness in kettle soured beers isn't something that I like very...

The OP is talking about sour worting here and not sour mashing so there is no grain bed anymore. Jujitsudave, transferring into small jugs sounds like a good plan. If you plan on inoculating with grain rather than a pure culture then you might get heterofermentative lacto, meaning that it...

Yeah, I suppose there could be some wild sacch. This figure based on data from belgian researchers of what is in fermenting lambic that Raj Apte put together (slide 11) starting at just over a year shows that actidione resistant yeasts are basically the total yeast counts. Most Sacch strains are...

I agree with mnick that there shouldn't be much, if any, viable sacch in a beer that old with that low of a pH. And I'm not sure about the reasoning that a big starter will result in proportionally less sacch growth. If the worry is that sacch grows faster and would take over, then i would...

Yeah, De Cam uses Urquell barrels as well (exclusively I believe). They are 1000L but they had them re-coopered down to that size. The book Lambicland says that the Urquell barrels are pitch lined, which would make sense for long term storage of a clean beer in oak with decades of reuse. But...

Ha, I do spend a lot of time thinking about saison...:) Yvan de Baets draws quite a few parallels between historic saison and lambic, including the potential blending of the two together into the finished product, in the History of Saison chapter he wrote for Markowski's Farmhouse Ales book. So...

Sweet, I'm glad you were able to do a successful split with this idea Zymurgist. It will be interesting to see how the melange portion turns out. The doppelbock/roeselare split sounds cool! Scone, I've done some dark saisons with a good bit of crystal as well and while i do enjoy them, they...

I do it sometimes and it is fine. It is more of a pain than DME and doesn't store as well so I usually have DME around for starters. If it isn't very fresh LME I would make sure that i decanted it well before pitching. And I think there might be more inconsistency in LME points/lb/gallon due to...

This seems like a pretty ambitious plan. In my experience dark saison is a really difficult type of beer to brew. It's hard to get appropriate malt character without loosing the light bodied, drinkable spirit of saison. In my opinion crystal malts are best left out of saisons or used very...

Sorry I can't offer experience on when the cheerios character goes away, but i believe that flavor is what people are talking about when they say 'mouse taint' if that helps at all in searching for answers.

I have 5l flasks and I really like them. I prefer having extra headroom and my old stirplates don't have a problem. I am often trying to roughly triple a smack pack and that is 2L on a stir plate according to Mr Malty. I generally don't make starters larger than ~2L but still that takes a flask >2l.

I generally blend yeasts in saisons and one with a blend of 3724 and 3711 took first place in the final round of NHC 2013. In addition to which strains are involved in the blend i think that the blend ratio of the different strains is pretty important...

I know it's too late for this time around, but i think rehydrating would be better. I expect you'll get a lot of yeast die off from pitching directly into such a harsh environment, which will mean fewer cells to do the work you want and potential for off flavors from the dead yeast.

I do quite a bit of yeast blending with saisons and i am happy with the results. With those beers i am shooting for a specific blend ratio for a specific flavor profile and fermentation behavior. Here's how i do it: http://horscategoriebrewing.blogspot.ca/2014/09/yeast-growing-and-blending.html...

Yeah, I agree sweetcell. Both the Sparrow Wild Brews book and the Tonsmeire American Sour Beers book say pedio is more hop tolerant than lacto. I don't have much personal experience to confirm or deny this but everything I've heard says you're good to go.

I use the aquarium heater method and I like it a lot. Was your bucket full of water when it floated? If the height of wort/water in the bucket is greater than the height of the bath then i wouldn't expect it to float. What is the wattage of your heater? Different heaters are rated to a a certain...

I think using 3711 would push the beer a fair bit away from the Baltic porter style. The beer would likely ferment out much drier which would take away from the big rich nature of the Baltic porter. And the yeast character (both fruityness and the phenols that you are looking) for would be a bit...