Lambic's that haven't soured

[theming]

Hi,

I've been homebrewing in a group with some friends for 5+ years now.
3 years ago we did our first try at brewing sour beer, as part of a sour beer competition in here in Norway.

of our two entries we got a shared win, and a clear last position (of about 15 entries).

After that we've brewed what we want to be a lambic-style (or with fruit).
Due to rebuilding the brewing locations etc, these have been standing untouched for nearly 2 or 3 years, depending on the batch.
Last week me and one of my brewing friends tested them from the fermenters, and found that they are definitely not as we want them.

A short summary is:

Fermenter #1: A Framboise, brewed in September 2012.
When we botteld parts of this in August 2013 it was great, and it was what won us the gold-medal in the competititon.
Today the raspberry tastes a bit "faded", and I was thinking about racking it on top of about 1kg raspberry, let it sit there for a month or two before botteling. Hopefully that should give a "brighter" fruite taste to the beer.

Fermenter #2: A "lambic" brewed in September 2012.
The is the one that we ended last in the competition with.
It looks good, and smells good, but has no acidity / sourness in the taste.
We had hoped this would develop with more time in the fermenter, but that's not the case. There is no bad or off-flavors, just not the acidity that is needed to make it a good beer.
Any tips on improving this?
I've been thinking about:
- Adding some sugar and lacto or pedio bacterias. Would that help?
- Brewing another batch, targeting it to be "too sour" and use it to blend with this one.

Both of these batches were fermented first with WLP001 for a couple of weeks and then with a sour mix (Wyeast Roeselar Blend).

Fermenters #3, 4 & 5:
These were brewed August 2013, and have been untouched since then.
All were fermented first with Safale US-05 for two weeks then Roeselar Blend.
They have the same "problem" as Fermenter #2. Ok smell, but no acidity or freshness in the taste.

Solution would probably be similar to Fermenter #2.


Any tips on how to proceed, and hopefully get something good out of these?

Best Regards
Øystein

 

[Quaker]

There isn't a need to pitch a Sacch yeast first with the Roeselare blend. To prop up the first ones you can do as you proposed brewing a too sour beer for blending. I just used Wyeast's Lacto Brevis for the first time as part of their Oud Bruin blend and it got delightfully sour within a week. The other possibility is racking onto an acidic or sour fruit (or vegetable like rhubarb).

Roeselare is a bit restrained on its own anyways and by letting US05 eat much of the fermentable sugars, you held it back even further.

If you read the sour beer blog, he recommends pitching Lacto first to give it a head start before following with a Sacch and then a Brett strain to achieve the desired sourness and funk.

 

[inflictor-of-grimness]

Either blending with a very sour beer or adding a pedio source + maltodextrin are good ideas.

If trying to make a more sour beer I would shy away from roeselare and go for something more aggressive like ECY blends or good bottle dregs.

 

[theming]

There isn't a need to pitch a Sacch yeast first with the Roeselare blend.

I had suspicions about that from our results so far, but good to get it confirmed.

To prop up the first ones you can do as you proposed brewing a too sour beer for blending. I just used Wyeast's Lacto Brevis for the first time as part of their Oud Bruin blend and it got delightfully sour within a week.

We'll try something like this then, to hopefully get a brew that's over-sour.
I expect that this will take quite some time as well, until it's fermented out properly. But the benefit is that the beer also should have sufficient viable yeast to carbonate as well.
Anyone have experiences on how long it will have to ferment?
And also: Any suggestions on yeasts or blends to use?
In Norway we now have easy access to yeast from White Labs, Wyeast and just now from Yeast Bay as well.

The other possibility is racking onto an acidic or sour fruit (or vegetable like rhubarb).

I expect this is an option when fermenting it in the beginning, not as a way to "fix" it now. My hope is to maybe blend an over-sour with the current beer, and bottle some of it but rack parts onto fruit to get more variations.

Roeselare is a bit restrained on its own anyways and by letting US05 eat much of the fermentable sugars, you held it back even further.

If you read the sour beer blog, he recommends pitching Lacto first to give it a head start before following with a Sacch and then a Brett strain to achieve the desired sourness and funk.

I'll check the blog, and we'll definitely adjust our routine for future sour brews.

Either blending with a very sour beer or adding a pedio source + maltodextrin are good ideas.

Sounds like this is worth trying. Any idea on how to treat the pedio? Should we create a starter first, or just pitch it straight from the package?
Also: Any tips on amount of maltodextrin would be appreciated, so that we don't en up with vinegar.
Sounds interesting to try adding pedio in one fermenter while we brew some extra sour batched for possible blending if that's required.

If trying to make a more sour beer I would shy away from roeselare and go for something more aggressive like ECY blends or good bottle dregs.

ECY(If that's East Coast Yeast) is unfortunately not available in Norway as far as I know.

 

[foltster]

ECY is hard to get everywhere.

I would try and get some good bottle dregs to try and sour with, but at this point getting a very sour beer to blend seems the right choice.

Another option would be to use some lactic acid to provided some tartness. I would test this very carefully before committing to it but its possible it could provide just enough of an acid boost to get the flavor you want. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/04/brewing-sour-beer-with-acid.html