Feeding a sour?

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marqoid

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I have a sour blonde fermenting, I initially pithed S-05, then JP dregs with 1 cup of chardonnay and oak chips, it has been in the carboy for ~6 months and is down to 1.006. I tasted today and there is plenty of funk but not enough acid to balance and make the chard flavors bright.
My question is:
Is there a way to selectively increase acid?
I know it is still young, do I just need to wait and allow any lacto to develop more?
Should I add malto and let the bugs do more work?
 
Is there a way to selectively increase acid?

There are a couple of different ways.

My suggestion is to add lactic acid. It's easy and instantaneous. The downside is that it usually gives a pretty one-dimensional sour flavor. . . but you say that you've already got "plenty of funk," plus some acid of its own, and plenty of oak and chardonnay flavors to compliment the sour. This sounds like an instance where lactic acid would work well.

There are some other solutions. For instance, you can take a sourer beer and blend the two. It sounds like you don't HAVE a sourer beer on hand though, so I'd say that's a no-go in your situation.

You could also give the lacto more time. My understanding is that in normal fermenting conditions, most souring bugs don't reach their full flavor for 18 months. The best solution would probably be to wait until then, and THEN make the decision to blend or to add lactic acid. . . but if you're asking the question now, it sounds like that's not the answer you want!
 
Well, that confirms I should probably just wait it out.

I have used lactic acid before for a berliner and was very pleased with it.

No, I do not have another beer available for blending that would match the style. But, if I wanted to make a very sour base beer for blending in the future, how could I get the most sour?
 
If you're starting from scratch in order to build a VERY sour base beer, there are a couple of techniques you can use:

(1) While you're formulating your recipe, look for ways to add acidulated malt. It contains lactic acid on its own, and can provide a tart flavor to beer even if you don't add bugs.

(2) If you want to use a neutral yeast to assist in fermentation, try to mash high - in the low 160s - in order to create a highly unfermentable wort. The long-chain dextrines will be consumed by the souring bugs, but won't be available to the neutral yeast.

(3) Also, if you want to use a neutral yeast, pitch it second, after giving the souring bugs a chance to get a head-start.

(4) Consider skipping the neutral yeast altogether, and just fermenting with pedio and brett. The pedio will sour it heavily, and the brett will clean up the pedio's diacetyl.

(5) Fugettaboudit! The sourest lambics that you blend in to make a gueuze are left for five years before they're used. The longer you let your "sour" lambic mature, the sourer it will be.
 
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