Think of attempting a "Mother" sour.

[maverick0524]

Thinking of doing a sour ale with a "mother" batch. Essentially I'm considering, brewing a half batch for the first brew. Then either fermenting with a mild saison yeast or a belgian strain along with some brett (brux, maybe). Age for 6 months, then brew another half batch at the end of the aging cycle and combine the two once fermentation one the second is complete. Combine the two, bottle half, and leave the other half to age another 6 months. Repeat brew process at the end of the 6 months and just repeat forever or whatever. Wondering though, I'm thinking I should cycle the Brett into every other young batch added to the "mother". Any input out there on attempting a beer like this.

 

[tagz]

You'd basically be doing a solera project. There's a lot of good info out there. You could probably start at the Mad Fermentationist blog.

 

[maverick0524]

Dang... a lot of information on Solera. Can't believe I've missed it, but thanks for the information!

 

[dcp27]

agreed, sounds just like a solera, however just brett is not going to produce a sour ale, you need bacteria.

 

[maverick0524]

Indeed. I'm trying to work out a plan. Like sour bac and yeast in the starter batch, then for the young batches something like, brett, plain, sour, and repeat the process. Then as the years progress stagger the combination. Double brett rotations or double sour. Years with no plain yeast batches going in, etc.

 

[BGBC]

Technically for a solera you would brew a full batch, age it, then pull off some portion and refill the headspace with young beer. You could bottle the portion you pulled off or age it separately for blending, etc. Then age the full solera, pull again, bottle, refill with young beer, and so on.

I'm assuming that's what you have in mind, but in the order you describe it, it sounds like you'd be blending the young and old beer immediately prior to bottling. This is more like a biere de coupage I think. You'd have to be careful with priming since the younger beer will probably have some add'l grav points that the bugs would continue to ferment in the bottle.

 

[maverick0524]

Yeah. I believe biere de coupage is more the direction I want to go with.