Split Batch Tripel - Half Sour

I've never done a sour beer before, but was inspired at the GABF a couple of weeks ago. At quite a few breweries (don't remember which ones due to a few to many 1 oz pours), had soured tripels. One brewer in particular told me that they used their standard tripel and then soured it.

I listened to the Jolly Pumpkin, Can You Brew It shows and thought maybe I would take 5 gallons of my tripel and just pitch bret b and l and do it's thing?

Any thoughts or ideas? I'm sure many of you have done something like this
before.

Would there be enough residual sugars to sour it up if it finished around 1.008?

First off you'll need lactic acid bacteria (lacto/pedio) to make a sour tripel, adding Brett will get the beer funky, but won't add much acidity. Souring a strong beer is pretty tough, especially one that finishes as dry as a tripel. Aging in barrels really seems to help beers sours, so if you aren’t doing that you’ll have to put a bit more effort into getting your beer to sour up.

I’m about to brew a sour tripel, my plan is to pitch 3787, along with Roeselare and a culture from Russian River Temptation together in primary. That way the other microbes get a shot at some simpler sugars before the Sacch eats them all. I’m also planning on holding off on adding the table sugar for a couple months to give the bugs a chance to get established before boosting the gravity. I’m going to be aging on oak cubes soaked in calvados (inspired by the fantastic bottle of Buteuse Brassin Special I got to try from these guys http://www.troududiable.com/ ).

Good luck, hope that helps.

Not to thread hijack, but I was also planning to do my first wild batch with my tripel recipe. Basically what I plan on doing is brewing normal pitching wyeast strong belgian yeast, after about a month in the primary rack it off and pitch a healthy starter of brett b yeast. Let sit for a minimum of 6 to 8 months. Does this sound like the best way to go about making a brett'd tripel?

That's not Hijacking at all, that's basically what I was wanting to do too. It sounds like that may not be the best approach? Has anyone ever had a tripel made like this?

as oldsock said, brett alone wont make a sour, it will be funky but not sour

I think a trippel with brett could be good, but it wont be sour, with extended aging the beer will become more funky and brett dominated, as brett will continue to eat all the esters produced by the primary strain and produce its own flavors

I want my tripel to br funky but not sour. Would it be best to ferment with my sach yeast first then rack off into the secondary 2 to 3 weeks after and pitch the brett, pitch all brett with no sach, or some other combo to produce a funky tripel?

Biscostew said:

I want my tripel to br funky but not sour. Would it be best to ferment with my sach yeast first then rack off into the secondary 2 to 3 weeks after and pitch the brett, pitch all brett with no sach, or some other combo to produce a funky tripel?

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If you want funk without sour pitch Brett B and Sacch in primary, rack to secondary when fermentation calms down, age for a few months, then bottle. Should be tasty, good luck.