Blending Help

Hindsight is 20/20 but I guess making mistakes is part of the learning process. I brewed a Belgian Dark Strong a few months ago and then racked off 1 gallon onto a # of cherries and Russian River's Consecration bottle dregs. I bottled the remaining Dark Strong 10 days ago and decided to taste the gallon racked onto the cherries last night. I like where it's gone but it's tart. Not so tart that I won't enjoy a bottle but I worry about what might happen in the bottle over time.

Had I not bottled the base beer I could blend away, lesson learned. My question is, should I bottle the gallon racked onto the cherries, drinking it young, or could I open a bottle or two that probably isn't fully carbonated yet and use that to blend with the other gallon?

Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

what is the source of the strong tartness - the cherries or the Consecration bugs?

if it's the bugs: unless you pasteurize first, blending with the un-soured beer probably won't address the issue, at least not in the long run. at first diluting the sour beer will work, but the bugs will eventually consume the residual sugars in the clean beer and there is a good chance that the same, or very similar characteristic will appear in the blended beer. at this point the population of bugs in the soured gallon has grown from that initial population in the dregs, so souring should happen faster than the original batch.

also, blending in the soured beer will dilute the flavor contribution of the cherries... dunno is that is a desirable thing.

Thanks for the feedback. I suspect that it's the bugs from the bottle of Consecration and that I should have waited until i got closer to my final gravity. Lesson learned.

If you have plenty of the non sour version..pour them together in a glass to your liking..or brew up another few gallons and let it ferment all the way out and blend it back to the over soured version.

I have brewed several Belgian dark sour beers and I think if you mash low and allow the Belgian yeast to attenuate well or possible add brett first and than blend with your over sour version you can reach a level you might like. I find tart cherries gives a lot of acidity and bugs are usually over kill. try just tart cherries and brett next time and leave out the bugs.