Do I go all in?

[thebrewquest]

I recently brewed a big porter. 9.1% big. I transferred to secondary after 14 days in primary, and it was delicious. I added 2 bourbon soaked vanilla beans and was going to let it sit a week before kegging. 5 days later, see below pic.

So, my local homebrewclub is split between kegging and drinking if it still tastes ok, or letting it ride for a while to see what happens. My concern with an accidental infection is that i dont know the quality of the bugs. I know it's really a moot point because i can always dump it in a year if it doesnt turn out ok, but I'd like to give it the best chance possible (especially because of how expensive this batch was).

So, the question is, do I go get some lacto or pedio from the LHBS and pitch it and go full sour? Will that give it the desired sour quality? Or will the now existing bugs render that useless?

Ideally, if I successfully sour this, I'd also like to add raspberry or blackberry or cherry.

Thoughts and advice?

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[oli-aus]

Hmm if it tastes good I would be tempted to keg it (or at least half of it) by the time the beer fully attenuates it will be super boozy if it's already 9% with sach.
If you do decide to sour it I would deff use A blend with Brett in. Will develop all the nice flavours and get rid of a lot of the possible off flavours along the way.

If you keg it and keep it chilled then the infection could effectively be stalled due to low temps.

Best of luck!

 

[sweetcell]

i would get some known bugs in there ASAP. i'd go with something aggressive if possible like the yeast bay's melange, ECY bug farm/county, etc. i'd avoid the mixes from while lab and wyeast.

 

[Weezy]

My $0.02...
It might be too late to over power it at this point, given that pic. I'd just taste it once a month. If it's evolving into something interesting, let her keep going. If it starts to taste off putting, just dump it. It's not worth the fermenter use and storage space to hope it improves in 6 months or a year, since you don't know what's in there.

The question is.... Where'd the infection come from... Getting that much activity in 5 days is telling and scary.

 

[thebrewquest]

My $0.02...
It might be too late to over power it at this point, given that pic. I'd just taste it once a month. If it's evolving into something interesting, let her keep going. If it starts to taste off putting, just dump it. It's not worth the fermenter use and storage space to hope it improves in 6 months or a year, since you don't know what's in there.

The question is.... Where'd the infection come from... Getting that much activity in 5 days is telling and scary.

I tasted it and it was delicious. I crashed and kegged, then added some bourbon. The infection came after adding the vanillla beans. Ill just keep cold and drink it until it tastes bad.

I agree with everyone saying 6-12 months was too long to bank on an unknown variable.

Cheers!