Need help making a sour double IPA!

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Bisco_Ben

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So after making a few successful hoppy kettle soured beers, I got the idea to take my tasty 8% double IPA made with plenty of fruity/citrusy NZ/US hops and make a sour version of it. I just began the souring in the kettle about an hour ago with the omega yeast labs lacto blend and plan to let it go for 3 days before finishing. MY QUESTION IS: should I still add bittering hops to this beer in order to maintain balance of bitterness, or should the combined acidity from the lacto with a 4oz high alpha hop steep at 190 for 30 minutes (6 gallon batch) be enough to balance the 8% ABV? I usually added 1oz of warrior hops at 60 mins with the rest of the hops going into the whirlpool/steep, which gave me around 100 ibus according to beersmith. I don't need this to be a bitter IPA, I just don't want to end up with a sweet unbalanced sour beer. Any help would be much appreciated!:mug:
 
I think it will depend somewhat on how low a pH you reach. Personally I would aim for pH 3.5-3.6, only do a whirlpool w/ a ton of hops (if you put in the additions as a 5 min kettle addition that will provide a good ibu estimate for the wp addition at 0 min, no more than 10-12ibus), ferment w a big pitch then dry hop heavily. If u insist on a bittering addition keep it low and use a low alpha low cohumulone type hop. The acidity will balance the booze while bitterness will clash. Sounds delish.
 
Thanks for the quick reply 505-Brewer. In no way am I dead set on a bittering addition since I know bitter/sour clash. I really just want to have a nicely balanced and very flavorful/hoppy 8% sour beer. something similar to the almanac hoppy sours, just a little beefier.
 
I do a dry hopped sour as described and its mighty fine.4-6 oz dry hop per 5-6 gals. I usually boil then sour the wort so i stick to 5 ibus. My buddy does berlinner weisse w the omega blend and 12 ibus low alpha. He ends up pH 3.5.
 
Soooo when I went to go check the pH today I was struck with horror. Not only did the pH stall at 3.8 after 72 hours, the wort had gone completely bad. It had mold on the top and smelled of diapers and other horrible smells. I dumped it and am now brewing an IPA to make myself feel better but what do you think caused this? When using the white labs brevis, I never purged the kettle with CO2 and never had a problem, but I think this is because that bacteria is contaminated with yeast and produced CO2 on its own. I did however place saran wrap onto the wort and tried to seal the kettle with it, but maybe it wasn't enough? I also didnt stir the starter much at all until I wanted to mix it up so that I could harvest some into a mason jar. Any help would be much appreciated as I am going to get this blend going in another starter very soon!
 
Sorry to hear this. I have never soured in the kettle because of stories like this. I always boil the wort then knock out warm, de aerate the wort with CO2 and pitch in at whatever warm temp required. I recently bought some heating wraps and carboy thermowells. Regulate with an inkbird controller. Very happy with this setup to keep O2 out. I dont bother boiling later. I guess the point is boiling to kill other nasties and keeping out O2 (however you choose) is critical.

As an example I once had a lacto brevis that took days to start! I think it got too warm. Still turned out great. Just trying to emphasize the effectiveness not brag. I have also gotten some butyric from lacto brevis bug brett seemed to clean it up with time
 
Soooo when I went to go check the pH today I was struck with horror. Not only did the pH stall at 3.8 after 72 hours, the wort had gone completely bad. It had mold on the top and smelled of diapers and other horrible smells. I dumped it and am now brewing an IPA to make myself feel better but what do you think caused this? When using the white labs brevis, I never purged the kettle with CO2 and never had a problem, but I think this is because that bacteria is contaminated with yeast and produced CO2 on its own. I did however place saran wrap onto the wort and tried to seal the kettle with it, but maybe it wasn't enough? I also didnt stir the starter much at all until I wanted to mix it up so that I could harvest some into a mason jar. Any help would be much appreciated as I am going to get this blend going in another starter very soon!

sounds like your lacto was not happy for some reason and clearly some bad bugs took hold. i recently pitched omega lacto blend into a 4 gallon 1.032 berliner and it was 3.2 after 24 hours. did you hop your wort before kettle sour? omega's says there blend is not very hop tolerant so i did not hop mine at all. i did not purge or seal the kettle and had no issues. did you boil and then cool and then kettle sour or did you just mash, run off and then throw in the lacto? of course without boiling there be all sorts of bugs in your wort. i'm also not sure if having a higher gravity wort will effect lacto. seems like it would be happy to have the sugar but maybe there is an impact.
 
I mashed and ran off 7.5 gallons all together. The preboil gravity was 1.057. I then boiled for 15 minutes with the immersion chiller in the whole time. After 15 minutes I quickly cooled to 90*F (i agitate the chiller in the wort to make it drop faster) and then added the lacto at 90*F. I then took saran wrap soaked in starsan and ran it on top of the wort/kettle as I normally do. I opened the top of the kettle maybe three times very quickly and thats about it. The starter didnt smell very clean either to be honest but nothing as bad as the wort after 72 hours...
 
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