Sour beer advice

Hello brewers!
I am making a sour beer and I am looking to discuss the process. I started with a sour mash, did a clean ferment (kind of like a pale ale with Wyeast American Wheat) and racked into secondary. Here I added dregs from a previous sour beer (lambic blend) and I have noticed a nice a nice white film over the top. I would like to go for a high degree of sour, and I've been reading that its best to inoculate with this culture for primary to achieve what I'm aiming for. If that true in your experience?
I plan on adding another lambic blend (as soon as it comes in, that is), unless there were another type of souring yeast that would help me reach maximum sour over the next year or so.
Thanks for your advice! Cheers!

Just to be clear, I have not yet added a sour culture except for the dregs...

I'd add the dregs from a couple of commercial sours rather than another pack of Lambic Blend.

So, instead of adding the lambic blend i should use dregs? Do you have a favorite kind?

Yeast doesn't make beer sour, although brett can make it extremely dry, which will make any sourness stand out. The vast majority of sourness in your beer will come from the sour mash. Since you added the dregs after a clean ferment, most of the available sugar is gone, and the ABV is too high for lacto to survive. If there's any pedio in thev dregs, it will probably add a small degree of sourness, but what you're mostly going to get at this point is brett-derived dryness and complexity. If you add fruit at some point down the line, that would be an additional source of acidity/sourness.

Lacto can take a good bit of alcohol (~8%), but craps out at 3.8Ph. While the brett can handle more than twice the alcohol and a Ph of 3.4.

Wyeast says their lactic strain can tolerate alcohol up to 9%, although that could be marketing.

The bigger problem you're going to hit is hops, anything over 10 ibus stops the bugs cold. (ie. hops original purpose in beer)

Yes, hops! I used debittered hops in the boil, and maybe only an ounce or less. I saved then for that reason.

Are you saying to start with one particular yeast (lacto) then use a second after the yeast dies off?

How long does fermentation take for sours? I'm curious if its the fermenting that takes so long or just waiting on the beer to develop.

MaltedNewby said:

Are you saying to start with one particular yeast (lacto) then use a second after the yeast dies off?

How long does fermentation take for sours? I'm curious if its the fermenting that takes so long or just waiting on the beer to develop.

Click to expand...

Lacto is short for Lactobacillus a lactic acid producing bacteria. It's not yeast. It's very slow (in beer) but is responsible for (some of) the sour acidic taste in sours.

neilph7 said:

Yes, hops! I used debittered hops in the boil, and maybe only an ounce or less. I saved then for that reason.

Click to expand...

Any idea where you are in~%abv and or gravity? The options really depend on what's left.

I am at 6.5 abv, I would guess 1010/1012 gravity.

You could get a bit of sour out of that. Pitch Wyeast 5335 or WL677 on it. I wouldn't pitch anymore yeast because you're running out of food.