Introducing sourness to finished beer

[Duane]

My first wild beer is a couple months in secondary. I used US-05 for primary. Initial plan was to go for all funk and no sour, so I introduced the dregs from bottles of Orval and Sofie to the secondary. The funk is already coming along quite nicely, but I've since decided that it needs some sourness to balance out the funk.

How do I do this? It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that adding a lacto culture would NOT work because it can't stand ABVs over a certain level, and my beer is already over 6%.

Should I add some type of acid? If so, which one?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[metic]

Do you know what the gravity of the beer is? If there is enough sugars left, you could try adding some aggressive bugs (e.g. from the dregs of a Jolly Pumpkin bottle), and they might add some acidity as they ferment the remaining sugars. But you're pitching them into an inhospitable environment, so it might take a while even if there are sugars left.

You could try adding lactic acid. I've never done this, but people don't seem to like the resulting flavour. A better option might be to brew a sour beer and then blend it with this one. You could do a relatively quick one with lacto and brett/sacch.

 

[dantheman13]

Another option is to brew a very sour beer to blend with. Of course, that is easier said than done as far as how long that could take.

 

[masonsjax]

You could sour mash a batch for a few days, that should give you a pretty good amount of natural lactic acid to blend in.

 

[Calder]

Pitch some JP dregs and leave alone in the corner until Christmas.

 

[dantheman13]

You could also add a very tart fruit like cherries to it... just brainstorming.