Saison with sour blend and Pinot Noir

[D-Train]

Please critique this approach. I have never brewed a beer with anything other than ale/lager yeast and malts. If you told me a month ago that I'd be planning a sour fruit beer I'd tell you no way in hell, but a few weeks ago my wife and I were on a recent trip to SF and were introduced to the world of sour beers at Russian River and Mikkeller Bar. There was one in particular that my wife has been raving about since - La Fiancee Pinot Noir by Swiss brewery Trois Dames.

Here is the description:

It’s thanks to Raphaël’s friendship with Nicolas Pittet and Pierre-Alain Dutoit, winemakers from Lavaux/Vaud, that the L’Amoureuse beers were born. They’re real hybrids – born of a combination of dry Saison and the freshly-squeezed juice of local grapes, blended and fermented together. The result is a relatively dry beer with a light, fruity, vinous nose. Unfiltered, unpasteurized, and refermented in the bottle, the L’Amoureuse will continue to evolve and grow more acidy over time thanks to the wild yeasts that occur naturally on the grape skins

This is the red version of the white Amoureuse, for which we use grapes of the Garanoir variety. This beer can only be brewed once a year, during the harvesting season. For the 2014 version and thereafter, the winegrower will not separate the marc from the must at the outset. He intends to leave it for a few days so that it takes on a more intense colour. The must is added to the beer at the height of the fermentation process, which carries on normally. . As the fruit yeasts are active, they develop a drier finish and the end product is a beer that is more acidy than usual.

I want to make a batch inspired by this beer using ingredients I can get locally at the LHBS. I'm not patient enough to wait 12 months to glass (I know, I know, patience needs to come with the territory, please bear with me and see #5 below). The gameplan would be to:

1. Make my saison wort (Belgian Pils, wheat, aromatic) of around 1.045 and transfer into glass carboy (primary).
2. Pitch a saison yeast (3711 or 3724). Suggestions?
3. Begin to ramp up temp to ~80ish.
4. When krausen seems to have peaked (72 hours approx.), add to primary half a can of Alexander's Pinot Noir concentrate. This stuff is 68 Brix and 46 oz. which if my math/logic is right is 61.5 gravity points per half can or adds 1.011 gravity to a 5.5 gallon batch. This would mean that 20% of the gravity is made up from the concentrate and 80% from grains. I'd add it in a way that minimizes O2.
5. Pitch 3203 PC De Bom Sour Blend (lacto, sacch, brett).
6. Hold temp at ~80ish.
7. Do not touch for 4+ weeks.
8. Sample. If sufficiently low FG and tastes good, go to #9, otherwise go to #7.
9. Bottle (add'l yeast needed?) and cellar.
10. Enjoy over time to see how it develops.

I want the end result to have a blend of sour, saison, and pinot, without any one of these characteristics becoming very dominant.

Is this process likely to achieve a decent beer that would have the characteristics I'm looking for?

Thanks for listening.

 

[joshrosborne]

I don't see why that wouldn't work. I would mash a little higher than usual if you use 3711 because it'll tear through your fermentables. I've never used 3724 but what I've heard of it, it might be a better option for this beer since you'll be having it at a higher temperature anyways.

 

[GTG]

I read up on this beer briefly on their website. I've not had it personally but I think you might not want to "sour" this beer if you're going for a clone. They talk about wild yeasts but no souring activity, just some acidity which Brett alone can provide. If this were my try out on the clone, I would ferment this with a saison yeast and brett at the same time.
EDIT: I could be very wrong though as I just read reviews of it being sour in taste.
Just my 2 cents.
GTG

 

[D-Train]

Thanks GTG for the feedback, I wouldn't say I'm going for a clone as much as an inspired recipe. But you have a good point that the inspiration beer may not even have been fermented with microbes and may be brett only. It's apparent from their site that barrel aging is a part of their program so it could be that the microbes do occur from the combination of barrel aging and the fruit, similar to what Russian River does. I did buy the PC De Bom today so I'm pretty much set on using it at this point. The question is do I go with the program above, or something similar, or scratch the idea.

 

[youreanimpulse]

One thing to consider is how sour you want the beer. The first beer I made (an "Oud Bruin" in name and grain bill only) with De Bom was about 9 IBU so I wouldn't inhibit the lacto. It definitely did not, as it is incredibly mouth-puckeringly sour. I'm hoping the Brett does something as it ages, but next time I'm using more hops or making a Berliner Weisse (actually did this, it's dry hopping now and is much more interesting to me). I like sour beer, but this had no nuance. I would think you want the Brett and grapes and Saison wort to come through, so plan accordingly. Maybe using it as a secondary yeast will help contain it, you just may want at least 20 IBUs also to keep the Lacto in check.

 

[dantheman13]

I haven't had this beer, so assuming the commercial beer is not that acidic, I would go with your original plan. With the primary fermentation of a clean saison yeast, the De Bom shouldn't produce a lot of acidity. The Lactobacillus will basically do nothing, but the Pedio should add some light acidity to it after some long aging. If you don't want any acidity in the beer though, don't pitch the De Bom, but a Brett blend like GTG mentioned. By the sounds of the beer though, I would bet some light acidity would be nice in this beer.

 

[youreanimpulse]

No pedio in De Bom. Brett, Lacto Brevis and Sacc. I agree the secondary thing will keep it lower key. Just fair warning that it's pretty powerful stuff.

 

[dantheman13]

No pedio in De Bom. Brett, Lacto Brevis and Sacc. I agree the secondary thing will keep it lower key. Just fair warning that it's pretty powerful stuff.

Ah, well there you go. I wouldn't expect a lot of acidity from the De Bom then. It's made to be pitched as a single pitch into a beer with no additional yeasts to compete with it. Lacto just doesn't do much in an already fermented out beer. I just brewed with the Wyeast L. brevis by itself; pitched it in the wort for 5 days before pitching any yeast, and got a lot less acidity than using WLP677 the same way. So far, it hasn't produce a lot of acidity for me even without competition.

 

[joshrosborne]

One thing to consider is how sour you want the beer. The first beer I made (an "Oud Bruin" in name and grain bill only) with De Bom was about 9 IBU so I wouldn't inhibit the lacto. It definitely did not, as it is incredibly mouth-puckeringly sour. I'm hoping the Brett does something as it ages, but next time I'm using more hops or making a Berliner Weisse (actually did this, it's dry hopping now and is much more interesting to me). I like sour beer, but this had no nuance. I would think you want the Brett and grapes and Saison wort to come through, so plan accordingly. Maybe using it as a secondary yeast will help contain it, you just may want at least 20 IBUs also to keep the Lacto in check.

LOL, I didn't hop the beer I made recently at all, so I can assume De Bom is gonna sour it up pretty good?

 

[youreanimpulse]

Based on my experience, yes, but others aren't having the same experience it seems (which is probably related to a lot of things, not just IBUs). I'm on second gen yeast in my Berliner and both batches have gotten really sour. It just works better in the Berliner stylistically. At about 2 weeks the Oud Bruin was brilliant. Then it just kept souring. A lot. I would say next time I'll try to figure out how to control it better, but if I do another Oud Bruin, I'll do it with the right bugs and wait a year+. I'm getting a bit of a pipeline going at this point anyway.

 

[D-Train]

Just wanted to follow up here. I brewed this back in November. The malt was mostly pils, some wheat, and aromatic, sterling hops to 15 IBU's, and a can of pinot concentrate at flameout. I split into 2 carboys, one receiving De Bom and the other 3726 Farmhouse Ale. At day 11 I transferred the farmhouse ale carboy into the De Bom carboy. A strong secondary fermentation ensued. It's finally souring as I approach the 2 month mark. Overall I'm not liking it too much. Way too Brett'y (I think). There is a strong aroma I don't care for. Might be barnyard. My wife says pee. Something. I'll bottle this soon and it won't be a dumper, but it might take awhile to drink the batch.

 

[Osedax]

Give it more time. Those strange aromas and tastes will change dramatically in about 8-10 months.

 

[D-Train]

Thanks Osedax. Will time in the bottle work? I have a vial of ECY BugCounty that's itching for an empty carboy. That'll be my longer term batch.

 

[Osedax]

Hmm... someone with more sour experience than me should be able to answer that.

Fermenter time and bottle time are both important. Brett acts differently when under pressure and is a good thing. I would at least ensure that the gravity is stable over the course of a month minimum before bottling.

Leaving it on the yeast cake adds different notes as well. Some bad, some good. Hopefully someone can chime in on your question and answer it a little better.