Help me brew a phenomenal sour to celebrate my sour loving buddy's wedding!

[TANSTAAFB]

This is me (the ugly one [emoji12]), my buddy Michael, and his lovely wife Mary at Crooked Stave in Denver. I just met Mary today and found out they already eloped to the courthouse! Mary is a wonderful and beautiful person and I'm thrilled he found a great friend and partner, he deserves it!

They are planning a big party sometime this summer to fall, and I'd love to have an awesome beer to share with them to celebrate. I turned Michael on to sours a couple of years ago, and now it's pretty much all he drinks if it's not a night for the hard stuff! He had given up on beer because it gave him horrible headaches. He's in Ft. Collins now...sour beervana! His tastes tend towards the more acidic. Duchesse de Bourgogne is one of his all time favorites. He also LOVES lambics and krieks that are done well.
So here's the challenge. Please give me the benefit of your experience to brew a great sour in 5 months or so. Even if it's not as good as it could be at that time, I want something that I could Cork and cage that will continue to age in the bottle that I can give it to them as a wedding gift they can enjoy over the years.
I have brewed several Brett Saisons but never a truly sour beer. A one year old Brett I made was actually Michael's induction into the world of sours and wild beers! I have read a lot and have several books I will go back through for info. I'm in a homebrew club and live in an area with a lot of vineyards and a few breweries. I'd love to score a wine barrel but other than that I don't have a plan. I do induction BIAB in a 20 gallon kettle and I have lots of carboys and some space. I'm even thinking of trying several things and seeing what works out the best. What'd'y'all think?

 

[radwizard]

I have a really quick and easy sour that turns out really tasty in 5 Months.

70% Pils
30% Wheat
Mash at 150
No Hops
Co Pitch Imperial Yeast A20, EYC Dirty Dozen, 2 shots of Good Belly Mango Probiotics (for 5-6 gallons)

I have dry hopped it, used hibiscus, and packaged it with fruit juice so far. Turns out great, and should age well with the Brett.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

So no bacteria other than than lacto from the probiotics? How would you describe the flavors you get from the base beer? I imagine you can get some good tartness and acidity and then the brett adds complexity. One of Mary's (and my) favorites from Crooked Stave this go round was Member Berries Primitivo (you member? You member!) a golden sour aged in oak with Colorado grown wine grapes. This recipe might play well with something like that.
Thanks, keep em coming!

 

[Dcpcooks]

Dirty dozen has 12 strains of brett plus the the good buddy pitch. It will have plenty to sour. It’s a good time to buy ecy as well. They (ECY)don’t like to ship it in the warm months.

Where do you live. We have several cultures including a two year old lambic that’s been sitting in a Lolita barrel we got from goose island, so it’s got all the bugs you could ask for.

I may be able to ship you some cultures

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Dirty dozen has 12 strains of brett plus the the good buddy pitch. It will have plenty to sour. It’s a good time to buy ecy as well. They (ECY)don’t like to ship it in the warm months.

Where do you live. We have several cultures including a two year old lambic that’s been sitting in a Lolita barrel we got from goose island, so it’s got all the bugs you could ask for.

I may be able to ship you some cultures

Wow, that would be awesome! I live on the Western Slope of Colorado

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Especially since I checked Love2Brew and it would cost more in shipping than to buy the yeast for a whopping $25 for one ECY bottle! Wow!

 

[Dcpcooks]

PM me your contact info. I’ll look into the best method to ship it safely.

We brewed it two years ago. They main source of bugs came from Omega yeast in Chicago and a pitch from my buddy Karl who wrote the barrel aging article that was on the cover of Zymergy last year.

 

[Dcpcooks]

I’ll ask my LHBS to save a shipping box from a yeast shipment. That’s probably the best way to ship it. I wish I had a few of the old white labs screw top containers still.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

PM sent. This is why I love this place!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Oh, and for anyone else trying to figure out a good way to ship/ store (at least for a little while) yeast or bugs. You can get Nalgene bottles like this
Nalgene Wide Mouth Square Storage Bottle (2-Ounce) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001OPJLGY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
but way cheaper at REI or a good outdoor gear store.
Here's a better price on Amazon
Nalgene HDPE Wide Mouth Round Container, 4 Oz https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000P9Z21I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[radwizard]

Yeah, I just got some stuff from L2B and shipping was pretty expensive. I ended up ordering more stuff to make it reasonable.

I threw out the Goodbelly idea because it is super easy (works well at ale temps) and is cheap (I usually get mine at Whole Foods in a four pack) It works quickly as well, which would be helpful in your time frame of 5 months. IMO it is an easy way to get into sour brewing.

It's a really good idea to use a Brett blend with it, to give it complexity. It is pretty "one note" on it's own. It's very good on Berliner's and such.

You can choose any Brett blend to use if you end up going this route. I just recommended ECY because it is a great blend and is currently available.

And yes, you are right. The idea would be to get sure-thing acidity and achieve complexity from the Brett. Also you won't be introducing anything into the fermentation that may take more time to clean up - like ropiness from pedio for example.

Good luck!

 

[radwizard]

And also....

You should get more carboys. You are opening the Pandora's Box here. Brewing sours is super addictive. Seriously.... My basement is getting out of control!!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Since I use Speidel fermenters for all my clean beers I have 5 or 6 carboys and I'm barrel hunting. This is already out of control, just ask my wife!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Hadn't thought about ropiness from pedio, thanks for the reminder!
There are obviously a lot of ways to approach this but I'm curious as to everyone's opinions re: fermentation process and vessel. Here's what I can think of, please add anything I might have missed and tell me what methods you prefer and why...

1) primary in glass with sacch (favorite strain for this anyone) and then pitch bugs a little later
2) primary in glass with the bug pitch and let it ride
3) transfer either of those options to a barrel or use a spiral or stave or chips or something
4) primary in the barrel with sacch then pitch bugs
5) primary in the barrel with the bugs and let it ride
6) pitch everything at the same time in either glass or barrel--bugs, brett, & sacch
What's your process?
Oh, and if I score a barrel and I like what I'm getting I'll probably do a solera and just keep adding dregs from good beers to build my zoo!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Bueller. Bueller. Bueller...

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I just talked to the president of our homebrew club and he said they just tapped a beer they made with a culture they've been building up for a couple of years from a Crooked Stave Nightmare on Brett brew. He's also a microbiologist, so he's a great resource. And he said I can have some of that zoo as well as some funky stuff they haven't even played with yet! I'll go try the beer and pick his brain this week and then we have a club meeting on Thursday. I'm getting pretty psyched about this!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Wow, I really expected to get more of a response from the community on this one!

 

[RPh_Guy]

There are like a thousand ways to make a great sour beer haha.
Berlinners, Goses, Flanders/Flemish reds and brows, Lambics (blended or unblended), fruit lambics, american wild ales, ... hybrids and sours of every other beer style.

If I had unlimited resources I'd get about 4-5 barrels (55 gal each), make a bunch of wild starters, and then spontaneously ferment a basic lambic recipe in all the barrels with different starters and/or dregs. Blending is the ideal solution to get consistent quality beer these wild microbes. Some I would age on fruit separately after pulling from the barrels.

However, this seems outside the scope of what you want to accomplish.
Maybe just try a straight Flanders style red since your friend loves Duchesse. Pitch everything at once (Lacto, Sacc, Brett, Pedio) and some dregs a few days later. Should be ready to bottle in 6-18 months, plus up to 4+ months bottle conditioning to get past any Pedio issues if they occur.
http://sourbeerblog.com/designing-and-brewing-a-flanders-red-ale/
Barrels are great but unecessary; oak cubes can be used for the oak flavor and PET bottles can provide microaeration.

If your time-frame isn't quite so long there are alternate processes to accomplish a sour moderately Brett-y beer quicker.
American Sour Beers is a good read and describes many possibilities.

Hope this helps

 

[505-Brewer]

There are like a thousand ways to make a great sour beer haha.
Berlinners, Goses, Flanders/Flemish reds and brows, Lambics (blended or unblended), fruit lambics, american wild ales, ... hybrids and sours of every other beer style.

If I had unlimited resources I'd get about 4-5 barrels (55 gal each), make a bunch of wild starters, and then spontaneously ferment a basic lambic recipe in all the barrels with different starters and/or dregs. Blending is the ideal solution to get consistent quality beer these wild microbes. Some I would age on fruit separately after pulling from the barrels.

However, this seems outside the scope of what you want to accomplish.
Maybe just try a straight Flanders style red since your friend loves Duchesse. Pitch everything at once (Lacto, Sacc, Brett, Pedio) and some dregs a few days later. Should be ready to bottle in 6-18 months, plus up to 4+ months bottle conditioning to get past any Pedio issues if they occur.
http://sourbeerblog.com/designing-and-brewing-a-flanders-red-ale/
Barrels are great but unecessary; oak cubes can be used for the oak flavor and PET bottles can provide microaeration.

If your time-frame isn't quite so long there are alternate processes to accomplish a sour moderately Brett-y beer quicker.
American Sour Beers is a good read and describes many possibilities.

Hope this helps

“and then spontaneously ferment a basic lambic recipe in all the barrels with different starters and/or dregs.”

Uh thats not spontaneous fermentation if your adding starters or dregs........

 

[divrack]

im not the most knowledgeable but you could do a split batch and add only bugs to one half and ferment it super warm to get everything going and then blend it back together to age as you dont have a huge amount of time.

 

[radwizard]

I'm a fan of pitching everything at once in most cases. I really think the best option for starting is to get several carboys going, rather then a larger vessel for re-use. Fermenting with mixed cultures can be unpredictable and you would not want to put all your eggs in basket.

I recommended using the probiotics in an earlier post strictly because of your time frame. I use them somewhat frequently if I want to get something sour on tap quickly. I do Berliner type beers, and sour Saisons with that method. My best sour beers are aged longer with a diverse culture.

I'm assuming that your goal now is to build a home sour program. From the OP, I was under the impression that you wanted to kick out a really good sour in 5 months - Which by now would only be about 4...

I would suggest brewing up two 5 gallon batches of wort and pitch Sacc along with different cultures of LAB and Brett. When fermentation settles down, I would top off your FV's, and leave them alone. At 6-9 months sample the beers to see where they are at. Having multiple beers means you have more options at the end. Hopefully they are both tasting good, and can be blended. Possibly one could be dumped, and you'd still have something for your efforts at the end.

The other suggestion I have is to get some one gallon vessels going to pitch dregs into. These will come in handy later as a source of microbes, and give you more to work with with down the road.

 

[RPh_Guy]

“and then spontaneously ferment a basic lambic recipe in all the barrels with different starters and/or dregs.”

Uh thats not spontaneous fermentation if your adding starters or dregs........

Haha, you got me there.

Putting various wild starters (untested in batches) into a barrel that may contain more wild microbes is about as spontaneous as I would go. I should have called it "wild".

Cheers

 

[radwizard]

How has this project come along? Do you have anything fermenting yet? Did you settle on a culture?

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Update. A very good friend is sitting in my living room right now drinking wine after an excellent meal of steak, artichokes and lobster. She brought me 150# of grain from Colorado Malting Co. 50# of Belgian base pale, 50# of malted white wheat, and 50# of unmalted white wheat. The president of the homebrew club has several different zoo pitches and I have Swanson's lacto probiotics in hand. I plan on doing a couple of big as$ turbid mashes with unmalted wheat, splitting into 5-6 carboys, and pitching every culture I can get my hands on. I will kettle sour at least 2 and pitch Brett cultures and saison DuPont to finish them out. I'll let the mixed cultures ride as long as I can and then make blending a club project to make the best sour I can. Then I'll Cork and cage the best blend. I bought oak spirals to add to a couple of carboys. Thoughts?

 

[Beerswimmer]

Sounds good!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

The first brew day has begun! 12 gallon batch
10# Colorado Malting Co Belgian Base Pale malt
5# CMC White Wheat Malt
5# CMC unmalted white wheat
Beta Glucan rest at 104(ish) per Jean-Christophe Larsimont in his saison article in the most recent BYO (March-April) because of the high percentage of unmalted grain. I'll raise it to 122 for a protein rest and then up through saccharification temps to mash out. Even though I BIAB I added .5# rice hulls and will take it to 165ish just to improve run off. I plan to boil to hot break before chilling and pre-acidify the wort to 4.5-4.2 pH

I'll cool to 105ish, pitch a bunch of Swanson lactobacillus plantarum, and transfer to glass carboys. Then I plan to add more strains of lacto either from the club bank or the LHBS, and then a variety of brett, again either bought or banked. I'll add a combo of Saccharomyces, probably DuPont, French, and Brux. Keeping pedio out of this one.

I brewed bigger than needed so I can save some wort for starters as needed. I'll boil and save in Mason jars.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Nice!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

My induction setup is PERFECT for step mashing!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

So I step mashed from 104 to 122 through saccharification range to 155 and then ran errands. Errands took longer than expected, ended up mashing for a total of almost 6 hours! But got about 85% efficiency! And I picked up another lacto culture from the club bank so I'll be pitching plantarum and delbrueckii around 105 and let it fall to around 70 before pitching the rest of the sach and brett

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Just in case anyone was wondering, it is well worth the time to open and dump the caps. They don't dissolve very quickly. Ask me how I know...