Fermenting after a Sour Mash

Hey folks,
I've read just about everything I could find on here about using a sour mash but couldn't find answers to a few of the questions I had. Im hoping the helpful people of HBT can help me out.

I've been brewing for a few years now, but have never attempted a sour beer, and decided it's time to try. I decided to use the sour mash method because it seemed easier than using a Brett culture. I understand how to make the sour mash, and am going to use the technique described here.

I just wanted to be sure of a few points:

1. I add most of the sour mash liquid after the mash, but before the boil?
2. Once I complete the boil, can I just pitch a regular yeast strain to complete the fermentation? Will I still get a sour flavored beer?
3. I know most sour beers will need a year or so to develop these sour flavors, is this still true with this method? What kind of flavor will I get if I let it sit for 6 months before kegging?
4. What do you think my max IBU's for my recipe should be?

Just FYI , I'm going to be making a sour cherry brown ale, using a mini-mash method. I'll be putting some oak chips in there after fermentation as well. Let me know all your thoughts. Thanks for your help again.

1. yes, before the boil.
2. any regular yeast strain would work. I've used US-05 and S-04, for example.
3. you won't get any more sour by aging with this method, the degree of sour is fixed when you boil because you kill all the sour producing bacteria in the boil.
4. think about the combination of sour and bitter. Does it sound good? There is a reason most sour beers have little bittering or hop presence. Berliner weiss, for example, is often 2-5 IBUs.
Good luck with your brew.

Excellent. Thanks for your help man.

Looks like you already got your answers. I'll just add a caution to do everything you can to keep oxygen out of the sour mash. You can cover with aluminum foil or purge with CO2, or if you don't keg, you can mash in hotter and add some soda water.

pdxal said:

4. think about the combination of sour and bitter. Does it sound good? There is a reason most sour beers have little bittering or hop presence. Berliner weiss, for example, is often 2-5 IBUs.

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Well, the BW example is partly because it's such a light beer in the first place, and partly because higher levels of hops kill lacto.

As explained above, a sour mash fixes the amount of sourness you will get in the beer, so long term aging is unnecessary for the purposes of making the beer sour. However, you mentioned you are going to add oak. You may need to plan on weeks or months to get the oak flavor right (or for it to mellow if you overshoot it).