Planning a funky Imperial Brown Porter

I am looking at doing a 10g batch of an "Imperial" Brown Porter (1.080 40-45 IBU) in the near future and I was considering taking 5g and giving it the flanders brown treatment. Have any of you had expierence using Roeselare in a higher gravity/IBU brew? If so what was your expierence? Did you still get a decent bit of sourness with the IBU's being a little higher? I plan to age it for 12-18 months and will be using a glass fermenter with a carboy cap/airlock to keep the O2 exposure down. I use the Raj Apte method for my reds but I want to keep the acetic acid down for this one. Thanks in advance for any insight.

Lacto and Pedio die around 8%ABV. 1.080 will get you well above that before the pedio could grow. Brett can live much higher.

Rather than adding Roselare you might want to try a sour mash for a portion of the overall mash to get the lacto sourness. You can then pitch one of the dedicated brett l,b,c strains to get the rest of the barnyard earthiness.

For the sour mash take a few pounds of grain and mash as normal round 150ish then hold at 100 degrees for 24-36 hours. Once it is down to around 100 add yogurt culture or 1/4 lb acidulated malt. Then drain the liquor into the rest of the boil. Warning sour mashing can be inconsistent, and smells like a ripe diaper while in process.

Thanks for the input. I am still in the planning phase and working through all the factors in my head. My friend has my copy of wild brews so I am forgetting a few things.

I am going to have to dial back the gravity so that the BU/GU ratio will lower and not impact the pedio/lacto. I plan on mashing at 154*F and using the Wyeast 1968 for the primary yeast so that some residual sugars are left behind for the bugs and a little maltodextrine will be in there as well. After primary I will pitch Brett L, roeselare and some of the Russian River chips that Vinnie gave out back in '07 in secondary. Thanks for helping me work through this. When I get a plan on the brain I can focus on little else. Let me know if you see any holes in the plan. Any input is welcome!

Well the lacto may be impacted but the pedio is what I want anyway. It is a more complex sour and I would much rather focus on it over the damn finicky lacto.

I've used it in 1.108 OG brews with no problems. I like the results of other blends better in strong dark ales like this though. I'd go with East Coast Yeast's Bugfarm, or a lambic blend of some sort.

I also suggest getting some Bugfarm friom east coast yeast (princeton homebrew stocks it), it is much hardier and contains bugs from breweries like cantillon, boon, fantome etc

I wouldnt worry about it being a higher OG, I would though suggest pitching the blend from the start

Interesting. I hadn't heard of Bugfarm before this. Thanks very much for the info! I will be looking this up for sure!

Looks like the Bugfarm is pretty popular. I called the shop and they said I was number 63 on the contact list. I am looking forward to getting some of this to see how the flavor profile is for it. Thanks again to everyone that posted!