My sour blonde isnt getting sour??

[Bisco_Ben]

Hey guys, so exactly 4 weeks ago I brewed biermuncher's centennial blonde, pitched a 1L starter of Lacto from whitelabs and let it go for a week (heavy/fast fermentation). Then after 7 days I added nottingham and let it ride until now. It has been sitting at about 75 for 3 weeks then I brought it down into my basement which is at about 65*. I tasted it today and there isnt any acidity or sourness at all. I can smell the lacto but there is little to no taste difference at the moment. Any insight on what I did wrong or what I can do to help would be much appreciated!

 

[jahdub]

Did you double check your IBUs? Also, did you pitch the starter whole? Lacto starter should have a lot of lactic acid in it already.

 

[Bisco_Ben]

IBU's were at 22, which people told me was fine since flanders reds and some other styles can get up to 25 ibus. Next time i will definitely aim for less though. I decanted and pitched the starter as usual though in order to keep the starter wort out of the final batch. Was that a bad idea?

 

[jahdub]

I would go for a lot less. You're just using lacto to sour. Flanders reds have other bugs and complexity.

No clue if it was a bad idea, I haven't tasted the final product from any of my sour starter beers. I made them in sealed containers at ~105F. Starter tasted great, so I put the whole thing in. I imagine not decanting will result in a more sour beer.

You could try adding lactic acid to taste.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

What strain of lacto?

IBU was probably too high for lacto only. Flanders also contain pedio, plus acetic acid.

Lacto starters should be crashed longer then yeast, they can be slower to fully crash out. If you only did a day or two like it was sacch, you might have dumped a ton of cells.

Let it ride, see what happens. You could always add some bottle dregs known for powerful souring like Jolly Pumpkin, Crooked Stave, or Cascade.