Hey Gang,
So I will be honest and admit, I got lazy and did 0 research before trying to "sour" my Saison and, now in hindsight, did mostly everything wrong to get a pretty useless sour. My main question - should I cut my looses and bottle it as a slightly bretty saison or try to mess around with it more?
Here are the details.
It's a fairly straightforward saison recipe.
OG 1.064
26 IBUs (so quite high for a sour which is a nono from what I see)
FG was 1.004 before pitching a Wyeast Brett Lambicus (again, opps, left the Brett with little food)
I transferred the beer into a new carboy (off the yeast cake) before pitching the Brett.
this was in october, I'm now 5 months later with a beer stable at 0.998 (for like 1-2 months its been stable) and its a good tasting Saison with a little bit of brett funk... I was hoping to get something with a bit more sourness and character.
I was hoping someone with a bit more experience with sour could chime, am I too late to do anything interesting with it?
1) Will adding more sugar help the brett bounce back?
2) Am I better off just leaving the beer on the cake, and when I go to bottle it, I pitch another beer directly onto the cake?
3) I have another Saison with the same pre-bretting characteristics (1 month since brewing) that I was gonna throw Roeselaire blend into next week? Should I even bother? If yes, should I add sugar into it before pitching the brett?
I know its lots of questions buttttttttttt if anyone has advice on ANY or all of the questions, it would be greatly appreciated!!!
Corey
So I will be honest and admit, I got lazy and did 0 research before trying to "sour" my Saison and, now in hindsight, did mostly everything wrong to get a pretty useless sour. My main question - should I cut my looses and bottle it as a slightly bretty saison or try to mess around with it more?
Here are the details.
It's a fairly straightforward saison recipe.
OG 1.064
26 IBUs (so quite high for a sour which is a nono from what I see)
FG was 1.004 before pitching a Wyeast Brett Lambicus (again, opps, left the Brett with little food)
I transferred the beer into a new carboy (off the yeast cake) before pitching the Brett.
this was in october, I'm now 5 months later with a beer stable at 0.998 (for like 1-2 months its been stable) and its a good tasting Saison with a little bit of brett funk... I was hoping to get something with a bit more sourness and character.
I was hoping someone with a bit more experience with sour could chime, am I too late to do anything interesting with it?
1) Will adding more sugar help the brett bounce back?
2) Am I better off just leaving the beer on the cake, and when I go to bottle it, I pitch another beer directly onto the cake?
3) I have another Saison with the same pre-bretting characteristics (1 month since brewing) that I was gonna throw Roeselaire blend into next week? Should I even bother? If yes, should I add sugar into it before pitching the brett?
I know its lots of questions buttttttttttt if anyone has advice on ANY or all of the questions, it would be greatly appreciated!!!
Corey