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

[TANSTAAFB]

Lactic acid 88% to drop pH to 4.3 prior to pitching Swanson's lacto probiotics (lactobacillus plantarum) and lactobacillus delbrueckii from the club Sunday night 3/18/18.
3/21/18 added saved blend of WLP 644 Saccharomyces Bruxellensis Trois and 590 French Saison. Saved in two flip tops and both gushed when opened. Infection or effects of diastaticus? Pitched anyway
Also pulled 2 cups from saison brewed with WLP565 DuPont and pitched into all 3.
Found dregs from a couple of sours, one was a Three Barrel sour, and pitched into only 6.5gal carboy

 

[TANSTAAFB]

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Added cherries from a friend's tree, tart cherry juice, and two cans of Oregon tart cherries to one carboy. Added a large can of Oregon raspberry puree to another. Left the 6 gallon carboy that has gotten most of the dregs alone.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Tasted all three. Cherry is going to be amazing! Raspberry is kind of meh right now, not sure what to do with that other than let it ride. The base beer is ok...tart, tastes good, was just hoping for more character from the Brett by now

 

[RPh_Guy]

4 months is very young. Glad to hear it's going well!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Been a while since I've updated. Can I just say I F'n HATE de-labeling and cleaning bottles! It has now been over 8 months since I started this sour adventure. The cherry version is pretty awesome, the raspberry and (previously) unfruited versions are pretty meh. Our homebrew club had the opportunity to go pick grapes at a local vineyard and I ended up with about 3 gallons of must once de-stemmed and squeezed. So I topped up the plain and raspberry carboys with the must and decided to go ahead and bottle the cherry one. My buddy and his wife will be swinging through town tomorrow evening so I can send bottles home with them! I spent all day soaking all the Belgian style bottles I've saved over the years in oxiclean, scraping and scrubbing, rinsing and sanitizing. I had already rehydrated the champagne yeast when I ran out of steam, so I went ahead and combined some of the sour beer, grape must, and yeast to acclimate the yeastie beasties to the acidic environment and tossed an oak spiral that has been soaking in red wine for a few months into the carboy for sh!ts and giggles! I know I won't get much from the spiral but I forgot about it, so what the hell! I'll bottle, cork, and cage them tomorrow just in time to send them on their merry way to Ft. Collins.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

My friends have dubbed this Dead Frog cherry sour and I got a chance to taste it carbed and cold at the homebrew club Christmas party. Let's just say it didn't last long and I got a lot of positive feedback from some pretty experienced Brewers, home and commercial! I thought it was really good, can't wait to sip some at leisure and really enjoy the fruits of my labor

 

[RPh_Guy]

Awesome, nice work!

 

[jrgtr42]

Good to hear the feedback on that. I guess it's late to answer, but I have a sour I've brewed a couple times. I started with the Russian River Consecration clone from MoreBeer. It's a Strong Dark Ale, soured on wine barrel staves and black currents. The kit included a couple chunks of wine barrel, about 3 inches long each. First batch was great, so I did it again, substituting oak cubes I'd soaked in rum, and tart cherries for the currents. Each time took about a year to sour up, so that time table you had originally wouldn't have worked. I'm really happy with both batches, and I'll be brewing it again in another year or so to make sure I have the pipeline. I don't drink sours all the time - maybe once a month I'll pop one, so by the time the next batch is ready, this one will be about gone.
I mash and boil as usual, then ferment clean using the Abbey Ale yeast. I then rack over to a glass carboy and pitch the bugs. The latest one I used the Sour Patch Kids blend from imperial yeast, plus the dregs from a couple commercial bottles, as well as tossing those staves in from last time - I was presuming something had stuck around on there.
Nice thing about the MoreBeer kits is they include the full recipe, so I can replicate it myself without having to spend for theirs again.