Adding bugs when kegging

I'm contemplating my first sour brew and would like to primary with a yeast or yeast blend and then pitch some bugs and or Brett when I keg. This seems like a simple approach and a good way to isolate the bugs from all of my equipment except the kegs, beer lines, and taps. It also seems like a good way to gauge the final sourness by checking the gravity after primary before the bugs finish it off.

Does this make sense? Do I need to worry about contaminating the beer lines or is a good clean and sanitization sufficient? What kind of gravity should be left for the bugs to get a sufficient sour funk? Any yeast recommendations?

I have read that Orval does something similar"
Not sure if this will help

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue6.3/debenedetti.html
The beer is then transferred to horizontal stainless steel conditioning cylinders where it is dry hopped with whole hops and fermented for three weeks with a second batch of yeast at around 59 °F (15 °C). The slurry used for this fermentation is made up of as many as 10 different strains, including Brettanomyces.

I have only read a small amount on Lambic/Sour brews, but it is my understanding that it takes a few months for the sourness to mellow doesn't it? So would your keg being taken up for that long upset your pipeline? With my extremely limited knowledge I say give it a try and THEN go back and see what you did wrong if anything hehehehe.

If I go fir a sour I'm going to be either tying up a carboy or keg, both will be a bit annoying but I'll make do. Does make me want to buy more kegs though

Your technique is a good one for certain types of sour beers. By aging in the keg you will need to vent the keg often.

And you will more than likely contaminant your beer lines. So once you put this beer on tap, then that line and tap should be your sour tap. If you want to switch back I would replace the tubing and give the tap a good sanitizer bath.

What type of sour beer are you thinking of brewing this way? The style will determine how much residual sugars you want left.

And yeast selection will also be determined by the style you want.

I was thinking of starting with a Flanders Red. I haven't had to many commercial sours but the ones I've had I really enjoyed, particularly the Duchesse de Bourgogne.

My kegging setup is incomplete right now and I'm using party taps until I finish my basement. I could easily dedicate a party tap to sours but I'm not sure about dedicating a whole line/faucet... hmmm.... lots to think about.

I personally wouldnt worry too much about dedicating a line to sours. Ive switched back and forth with little issue.

Its a good idea to clean lines often anyway, and a good time is when going from a sour to a "clean" beer. Gunk builds up in the lines that kills head and gives off flavors all the time, so a good cleaning with an alkaline cleaner, then an acid line cleaner, and finally an iodophor soak is good enough to kill anything.

the extreme switch of the pH (basic to acidic) should be enough to kill just about anything on its own, adding iodophor is just extra insurance.

For the alkaline cleaner I use Lye, followed by something like acid post wash or starsan #5 or #6

Thanks for the cleaning tips, I'm new to kegging and have only run a couple kegs through so far (pretty quickly) so haven't done a deep clean. I was planning on doing my normal sanitation (PBW + iodophor) but I'll see about adding in an acid soak in the middle.

Would OxyClean + Acid + Iodophor be sufficient?

I dont use much oxyclean because a box of lye from HD or lowes is extremely cheap, but Im sure it could work as well

I'm all for cheap if it gets the job done. How much lye is needed to clean/sanitize?

Interesting blog BTW, I skimmed through the titles and am definitely going to go back and read a few of your articles.