Taking soooo long to get sour!

I've had a flanders red aging for about 8 months now. It tastes ok except it's not getting very sour!! Over the winter I've kept it pretty warm. It has a pellicle.

I'm thinking about boiling some sugar and adding it with a nice sour lacto starter...do you think this is a good plan?

Thanks!

At this stage you're probably not going to get much sourness from lacto. It doesn't work will in low pH or moderate+ ABV. If you post your recipe, etc. you might get a better response.

dumping in some commercial dregs might help, if you haven't yet.

I don't know what you mean by sugar, but specifically you could add some Malto-Dextrine, which sacc yeast should ignore and the bugs will work on to further sour your beer...

What was your recipe? Technique? Microbes? etc... hard to offer help without details.

Thank you for the responses!

Here is my grain bill and hopping, 60 minute boil.

4.25 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 39.46 %
4.25 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 39.46 %
0.75 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 6.96 %
0.38 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 3.53 %
0.38 lb Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 3.53 %
0.38 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 3.53 %
0.38 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 3.53 %
1.00 oz Styrian Goldings [3.40 %] (60 min) Hops 11.8 IBU

OG 1.058
5 gallons
ABV ~6%

I pitched Wyeast Lambic blend and S05 to the wort...I couldn't get Roselaere (sp?) in time. Then I pitched the Roselaere later, after it had mostly fermented. It's in a plastic bucket.

I'll have to do more homework on taking good care of lactobacillus!

A good lacto starter will add sourness for sure, but I'm wondering what my options are.

8 months is still pretty young, however you should at least have a hint of sourness. Commercial dregs would be good.

Maltodextrine is also a good idea.

I really surprised that between adding the lambic blend and the rosalare blend that you aren't noticing any sourness yes.

I'd probably dump in some dregs and then check it again in 4 months.

US-05 is a very attenuative strain, have you checked the gravity recently? If it is below 1.005 there isn't much chance of it souring without added food for the bugs (malto-dextrin, DME or whatever). If you’ve still got some gravity you can wait it out.

Lacto actually isn't a big player in most sour beers, even 12 IBUs is enough to mostly stop it from working (the Pedio in the blends will be fine though). Bottle dregs are a must in my opinion, I’ve yet to taste a really great sour beer made with just Roeselare or Lambic Blend.

pitch some fresh wort.

Oldsock said:

Bottle dregs are a must in my opinion, I’ve yet to taste a really great sour beer made with just Roeselare or Lambic Blend.

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What about Bugfarm?

Jaymo said:

What about Bugfarm?

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I've had a couple excellent beers with just Al's bug blends.

I don't know about you, but a lot of mine (at least with BF3) were *really* astringent until they got to around the 8-12 month mark, at which point most of them started getting really good with La Folie level acidity. None of the BF4 have gone the astringent route so far. I have a hunch it was some of the brett strains in BF3.

I've also taken to augmenting commercial sour blends with dregs. Jolly Pumpkin dregs in particular have been adding a nice sourness to most beers I pitched them into. Bam & ES Bam especially.

I also found that pitching starters grown up from from Pannepot and Oerbier dregs have made for a few good beers. The level of acidity is much milder in these though, more fruity-tart than "sour" per se.

I'm not very experienced in this, but I do have a couple of sour beers under my belt at this point. I'd say 8 months is still a bit early depending on how much work the US05 did before the bugs got to it. Neither of the sour beers I have bottled tasted very good until about 12 months, at which point all the various flavors began to blend. Both were made with Wyeast's Lambic blend alone. Neither are as acidic as Cantillon, but both have a nice funky brett character to them.
I'd wait for the pellicle to fall, then bottle, and give another couple of months. After all, lambic sits in barrels for 12-36 months before being considered for consumption.

-aaron