Sour brown with lacto brevis

[mnick12]

Hello everyone,

I thought I would share my experience so far with a beer I recently brewed.

The recipe was as follows:
72.7% pils
14.5% torrified wheat
7.3% C80
3.6% caramunich
1.8% special B
Hop to 8 IBU ( I used EKG)

Mashed at 166F for 1.5hrs, yes 166.

Target OG was 1.066, actual ended up at 1.064

Anyway the brew day went off without a hitch and I collected my wort. The wort was cooled to 100F and transferred to a 6 gallon carboy. I then pitched a decanted wyeast lacto brevis starter and placed the carboy in my chest freezer at 56F. 36 hours later I pitched a 2l starter of wyeast 2308 and fermented until the krausen fell (7 days).

Once fermentation subsided the beer was racked to a new carboy and a mixed culture of ECY03-B anfd ECY19 was pitched. The beer at racking had a SG of 1.018. The taste was interesting, it smelled sulfur-ish as you would expect from a young lager. However the taste was even more interesting, it was lightly tart, and had a flavor reminiscent of old mashed grains.
Anyway the beer is sitting in my closet now at 76F, in a week or two I will be adding a pedio starter.

Originally this was supposed to be a sort of oude bruin, but it is more orange than brown. Im thinking the new guy at my LHBS forgot some of the crystal.

Some photos:
1. The decanted lacto starter
2. The two bretts
3. The beer after primary and the decanted bretts ready to go.

Stay tuned

 

[vagabondat02]

I'm doing something kind of similar to this but with some minor differences. I used grain to sour my wort post boil, now have it fermenting with wlp530 and will be pitching wy5526 early next week. I'm skipping the Pedio though, since the grain got things pretty sour on its own. I'm also hoping that not pitching Pedio will get a me fairly complex Oud Bruin from grain to glass in about 7-8 months rather that 12-18. Gotta love the experimental side of sour brewing!

 

[mnick12]

I have no used wyeasts brett L, but the Brett B strain is great. Lots of cherry character from it.
Did you boil after souring with grain? If not you should have some pedio in your brew, IIRC there are at least 4 or 5 different strains of pediococcus living on malt.

Also what did you grain bill look like? Im always curious to see what people are doing. Yes experimental brewing is the best!

 

[vagabondat02]

Ha! I guess I have some Pedio in there after all! At least I have a basement and plenty of carboys... Recipe was:
7# Pilsner
1# Caramunich
8oz Flaked Maize
4oz Chocolate (not so traditional, but tasty)
8oz Special B
1/2 oz Hallertau @60
1Tbsp whole wheat flour @ 5
Mashed @150* to make things easy on the Lacto, Lacto got four days with an electric blanket @115*, underpitched the Sacch, added flour for the Brett to chew on. I got the idea for this after I made a Dubbel with the 5526 in the secondary that aged six months before bottling, and is fantastic at month nine. The Brett threw a slightly noticeable amount of acetic, which is causing it come across the palate like one of the blended Flanders Reds.

 

[mnick12]

Just an update on the beer.

Around 11/7/14 I pitched a 1l decanted wyeast pedio starter. It was grown in 5%DME 5%glucose and 1% peptone. The decanted slurry was pitched into the beer along with 2oz of home toasted and boild oak chips. Nothing interesting was noted.

Just pulled a sample today for some analysis. The SG is 1.011 and the beer is quite clear. The pH came in at 3.2, so something did some work in there.
The smell is quite oaky, but that is quickly overcome by a dark berry sort of smell. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the reminds me of blue berries or blackberries crossed with wine. Actually as is smells similair to what I remember rodenbach grand cru smelling like. The taste is similair strong oak followed by the soft dark berry flavors and a pleasent but not pungent tartness. The beer has a medium mouthfeel (for a sour...) and is really lovely where it is. I am planning on letting the oak mellow a little bit and the gravity stabilize, but other than that I would bottle it now! Im sold lacto brevis rocks!

 

[Matteo57]

I'm builing up my starter of amalgamation from the yeast bay which is a blend of 6 different brett strains to do a lacto B for a few days then pitch the amalgamation into it .... Stoked and looking forward to it! Will probably dry hop it also before kegging it! I hear a lot of good things about Brevis so I'm stoked to try it finally!

 

[mnick12]

It is certainly interesting, both the starter and the wort fermented with the lacto brevis smelled odd. They smelt like day old mashed grains (that weird sort of putrid sweet smell), but after fermentation with brett the profile is much nicer. I dont know if it is the brett or the grain bill, but I am getting a lot of mild berry aromas that I have never had from brett. Normally my brett fermentations are funky or tropical.

I am curious to see how your brew turns out, what is the grainbill?

 

[mnick12]

Just an update,

The lacto brevis sour recieved a 200ml starter of brett naardensis about 3 weeks ago. There was a slight increase in CO2 production ,and a pellicle began to form.

Around the same time I brewed about 6 gallons of a 1.052 brown ale with 34% specialty malts. This beer finished at 1.020 and was specifially brewed to blend with the other beers.

I also have a one years old sour brown brewed with bugfarm from last year that needed to be blended. In total I had 10 gallons of sour brown to blend (5 of the lacto brevis sour and 5 of the bugfarm), along with about 6 gallons of clean malty brown ale to cut the acidity of the others.

After trying a few blends I decided on a ratio of 1:2:2, where one is the ECY01 sour at a sg of 1.002, 2 of the sour brown with lacto brevis at 1.011, and 2 of the clean brown ale at 1.020. The three were combine in a 6 gallon carboy, and it is sitting in my closet until the gravity stabilizes then its off to bottling!