Blended Lacto Sour Saison

[jlangfo5]

Hey all! Since I am still waiting for triple decoction vienna lager to.. well lager, I decided to brew a sour saison.

I mashed 27 lbs of grain made up of 20 lbs of marris-otter/ us 2-row and 7 lbs of rye. I mashed it low and slow for two hours at 146 to make it as fermentable as possible and ended up with 12 gallons of wort at 1.044. I only heated the wort up to 160 for a few minutes and did not add any hops to it.

I then pitched a starter of WLP672 LACTOBACILLUS BREVIS into my two 6 gallon carboys.

Right now, I am waiting for the beers to sour before I pitch my starter of Wyeast 3711 saison yeast, which is supposed to give a bone dry finish and some pleasant pepper/clove esters. So, the real trick is this, I want to pitch the yeast into the carboys at different times.

I want to let one of the carboys get really sour, and let the other one only get slightly to moderately sour. That way at bottling time I can blend the two beers together and have different varieties of sour sasion. Some bottles could unblended very sour saison or unblended moderately sour saison, and others could be a blend of the two.

Does any one have any advice or feedback regarding blending of sour beers? Also, what can I expect the lacto to do once I pitch yeast? Once the yeast eats most of the sugars will the lacto go dormant?

 

[jlangfo5]

Alright, so here is a status update!

As of last night, one of the carboys PH had dropped all the way down to 3.41! The beer/wort tasted pleasantly of lemons and subtle fruit. I decided to go ahead and pitch the wyeast 3711 saison yeast into it and hook it up to my airpump.

It is sitting in a hot water bath right now to keep it warm for the lacto and saison yeast, so right now.

Without futher I do, I bring you... SCUBA BEER!

 

[jlangfo5]

Alright! It looks like fermentation activity has slowed down and possibly stopped for a few days. I took a hydrometer measurement to serve as a reference for my next reading to tell if it's really done. I think I will rouse the yeast and warm the beer up again and take a reading in a couple more days.

The sample smelled delicious, strongly lemony and great saison character to balance it, also the smell had a surprisingly large amount of malt to it as well.

Reading was at 1.004

 

[badlee]

Great job there.
I am about to dry hop a beer brewed in a similar way.
I mashed 2.2lb og wheat malt at 65c for 90 mins,sparged and added 2.2lb of extra light DME.
Boiled for 15 mins with 5ibu worth of Nelson Sauvin.
Pitched Lacto Brevis at 35c for a week and then pitched a large starter of Belle Saison.
Three weeks on it is down to 1.002 from 1.050.
Getting ready to dry hop the hell out of it with more Nelson

 

[jlangfo5]

Thanks! I will consider dry hops as well, but I really like the currant balance quite a bit. I do need to rouse my yeasties still and make sure that they are actually done though.

I have also come to the realization that without hops, it dones't take much residual sugar to impart a decent malt flavor,

 

[badlee]

You can say that again!

 

[jlangfo5]

Alright, Sour Rye Saison, here we go! I bottled a little over 11 gallons of the stuff yesterday, both batches had hit the same level of sourness, so careful blending was not needed, just mixed them all together in a 20 gallon bucket and added enough buckwheat honey to prime to 3 volumes.

The flavor is very lemony tart, it smells delicious, the lacto is definitely a stronger flavor than the saison yeast, although the saison yeast still adds a bit spiciness.

Overall, the uncarbonated sample I tried really struck me as what a Belgian version of berliner wiesse should taste like, I even added some homemade grenadine syrup to my glass and it was fantastic. Without any bubbles I find the sourness to bit a bit assertive to enjoy much of on it's own. I am eagerly awaiting this beer to be carbonated. I plan on entering this under the Belgian specialty category in late October.

Behold the fruits of my bottling labor yesterday! (Had friends over to help)

 

[505-Brewer]

Curious how thus ended up. ?

 

[nhwrecker]

yeah - me too. Please update!

 

[jlangfo5]

It turned out to be very tart with the prevailing flavor being lemony. It finished quite dry, and yet the saison yeast did not really showcase the saison profile that would be expected. It scored a 33 under Belgian specialty and the judges commented it would have done better under some sour category instead. The judges said it tasted very interesting and that it accomplished exactly what it had meant to accomplish, it was a dry sour beer with strong lemon flavor.

It could either be enjoyed cold and enjoyed over period of time, or the way I actually preferred to serve it, I would take half a shot of passion fruit syrup and add that into a glass, in a similar fashion to how Berliner wiesse is done in Germany sometimes.

For sure, if you want to sour something, I would take the wort keep in warm in a hot water path and pitch the lacto starter before you add the yeast, in fact, I would let it ride the whole way till its quite sour, then I would add the yeast. I was not able to blend really because both of my beers had gotten quite sour.

An experiment I might consider in the future, sour 5 gallons of wort, ferment it out, then blend to taste with beer made with hops while at the same time making sure there are enough hops to stop the lacto from working on the residuals from the non sour beer. I wouldn't also mind experimenting with hitting it pretty hard with juniper berries and dry hopping with some spicy hops.