Accelerated Sour Beer Process

[ShareBrewing]

I had the same issue with the honey cherry sour, the Lacto culture somehow ate through about 12 pts of gravity before I boiled off (OG 1.044 -> 1.032). That's why I added the 1/2 gal of cherry juice and the pound of honey. You can always add a simple/complex sugar to boost the gravity to where it once was.

Just know that the Lacto could have been heterofermentative. The beer I used the culture in next, an imperial margarita gose, the same Lacto culture ate through HALF of the beer (1.058 -> 1.027). In that case, I just added 2+ lbs of DME dissolved in a small amount of boiling water right to the still cooling wort before pitching yeast after the post-kettle sour boil. To me, at this point I realized that the lacto had somehow started consuming more and more sugar (not completely sure why), and dumped the culture.

Advice from others here on HBT suggested that the Lacto culture was indeed producing alcohol from the sugar it'd consumed. When I tasted the gose (it could've been either 4.5% or about 8%), the HBT guys seemed to be right, as the beer was certainly clean, but packed the wallop of a 8% beer.

 

[terrenum]

Thanks ShareBrewing; very nice exchanging with you on this project. Since the Brett were very slow to start (no action after 72 hours) I decided to add 3711 French Saison. It is now fermenting happily. I'll do my all brett only experiment another time as I don'T have time to wait a full-month for primary... I know patience is required when you brew this type of beer but my main objective here is to test base recipe for a larger scale project, knowing that I could had complexity by letting the wild critters do their work properly! I added honey to the boil and gained back what I had lost to the Lacto.
Tasted a sample after 4 days in primary and the beer is definitely sour with a nice flavour profile. Looks fine so far. I kept the IBU low at 16 (added after souring of course) but added a bit of hops at 20 min for flavour. I selected floral hops such as Crystal, Cluster and Santiam.

 

[ShareBrewing]

Kinda realizing it's crunch time to start bottling a lot of the sours in my pipeline... forgive me, I'm trying to do a lot this from memory. My phone went haywire not too long ago and I wasn't able to recover the dozens of recipes I had in BeerSmith from the iCloud... luckily had some of this written down.

1) Belgian golden strong (10.5 months)
- Abbey yeast, B. Brux, L. Brevis
- added rose hips, red wine, Fr. oak

2) "Dubbel-like" sour (9 months)
- House culture (2nd gen)
- added black plums, honey, Fr. oak.

3) Pale honey sour (4 months)
- House culture (3rd gen)
- added 25-30% honey, feedings at 1 week, 2 weeks, and 1.5 months.
- added 1 Fr. oak spiral (soaked in tequila)
- WILL ADD lime zest and juice, lime-tequila infusion, and maybe black volcanic Hiwa Kai salt (to be specific).
*** my recent margarita gose (shout- out to Morrey!) really is influencing how I want to finish this brew. Lime was always in mind, but the salt?! Who knows?

4) "Colonel Flanders V.2" (4 months)
*** Rye Kentucky Common recipe ***
- soured w/ House culture (3rd gen)
- added molasses, dark sweet cherries, and Fr. oak.

NOTE: "Colonel Flanders" came from my first sour, a rye Kentucky common with all the ingredients above. Used White Labs Belgian Sour Mix 1 (often used for lambics, Flanders ales, and your more funky Belgians). Made an overly acetic beer but the cake was ripe with great critters. This is what became my house sour culture. The 2nd gen at 3 months tasted so clean and tart. My only taste comparison for the beer at the time was close to Tell-Tale Tart by Boulevard. Insanely good. Decided to keep it going.

5) Cherry Pineapple sour (1.5 months)
**** read thread for details ****

QUESTIONS:

Should I invest in a floor corker to bottle these (and likewise, corks + cages)? Some are less than 6 months so the Brett is sure to be still pretty active.

What kind of carbonation level should I shoot for?

If I bottled in the normal 12 oz glass vessels, would I get bottle bombs?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[ShareBrewing]

Update on bottling:

Bought a floor corker and bottled up #2 from the above. It really turned out to be more of a Flanders red/brown in character.

Quite vinous and dark fruity, with notes of cherry skin, light tannin, and light acetic character. Mild supporting malt. The house culture certainly did its work in only 9 months, and I think I caught it at the right point. Another month and I feel the acetic and 'vinegar-like' quality may have gotten over the threshold of enjoyable.

Bottled to 2.4 vol (my personal taste) in the 750mL (25.37oz) Belgian bottles (see pics). Would you also recommend using these for the speed-sours that use 100% Brett? If these were bottled at 6 months, the culture is sure to be active but would it be enough to create bottle bombs in the usual 12 oz glass + cap?

Should "6 month sours" always be bottled and corked? I've bottled 100% Brett beers and they tend to become over-carbonated within 6-9 months and become pretty dry. Thoughts?