It seems like a few people here have had success with using lacto to make a fairly quick sour: either pitching it a few days before pitching a yeast, or pitching yeast and lacto together. I've tried doing this with lacto and brett trois, the idea being to get sourness and high attenuation relatively quickly, so that I could bottle after a few months.
I've made some good berlinerweisses this way, pitching brett trois and large quantities of lacto together. They have a nice sourness, some fruitiness from the yeast, and a bready/doughy flavours from the wheat and pilsner. Body is a bit thin, but the high carbonation takes care of that.
But I've also been trying to brew a sour brown ale using the same method, with less success. For my first try, I brewed a version of Jamil's Southern Brown recipe, pitching the same brett/large quantity of lacto mix. In hindsight this wasn't the best idea, because the brett chewed right through all the crystal malt that gives that recipe it's character. I ended up with something that had a nice lactic sourness, but that was otherwise fairly thin and without much maltiness/character at all. I transferred it onto some cherries and oak to see if they could round it out, but it's still a bit one-dimensional.
For my second try I changed my recipe quite a bit. One big change was adding ~8% golden naked oats to try to make sure the final beer had some body to it. That worked fairly well, and I ended up with something that was less thin, but with the basically the same one-dimensional lactic sourness.
If they don't round out over time, I'll use both beers for blending, so neither will go to waste. But I'm wondering if anyone has had better luck formulating recipes for this kind of fermentation? I've never had beers by Cascade brewing, but I think they use a similar process. Dave Marliave from Flat Tail also talks about this on his Sunday Session interview, but he doesn't talk about how to brew something that will have more going on than a lactic sourness.
I've made some good berlinerweisses this way, pitching brett trois and large quantities of lacto together. They have a nice sourness, some fruitiness from the yeast, and a bready/doughy flavours from the wheat and pilsner. Body is a bit thin, but the high carbonation takes care of that.
But I've also been trying to brew a sour brown ale using the same method, with less success. For my first try, I brewed a version of Jamil's Southern Brown recipe, pitching the same brett/large quantity of lacto mix. In hindsight this wasn't the best idea, because the brett chewed right through all the crystal malt that gives that recipe it's character. I ended up with something that had a nice lactic sourness, but that was otherwise fairly thin and without much maltiness/character at all. I transferred it onto some cherries and oak to see if they could round it out, but it's still a bit one-dimensional.
For my second try I changed my recipe quite a bit. One big change was adding ~8% golden naked oats to try to make sure the final beer had some body to it. That worked fairly well, and I ended up with something that was less thin, but with the basically the same one-dimensional lactic sourness.
If they don't round out over time, I'll use both beers for blending, so neither will go to waste. But I'm wondering if anyone has had better luck formulating recipes for this kind of fermentation? I've never had beers by Cascade brewing, but I think they use a similar process. Dave Marliave from Flat Tail also talks about this on his Sunday Session interview, but he doesn't talk about how to brew something that will have more going on than a lactic sourness.
