Sour blending program at home ?

[RPh_Guy]

Does anyone have a successful sour beer blending program? Would you describe it?

 

[DrKnow]

Brew sours on a regular basis so you have a good “library” of beers. Taste them periodically. Some things will be great as standalone beers so proceed with fruit/dry hop/packaging. Others may have great Brett/yeast character but lack sourness, so you blend some more acidic beer in. Other beers may be very acidic, to the point they might be unpleasant to drink on their own (but lacking obvious flaws like excess acetic acid, acetone etc), these would be your “acid beers” to blend into less acid forward beers. And vice versa with adding funk forward beer into acidic beers that lack that dimension of flavor. Example: I have 5 gallons of really good funk forward Brett saison, I might add a half gallon/gallon of acidic beer in before packaging just to dial it in. I would then move the leftover “acid beer” to a smaller vessel to store it (this is where spare kegs or progressively smaller carboys come in handy). It sounds so much more difficult than it is in reality. People talk about blending sour beer and you picture graduated cylinders and complex equations like “17.62% this beer blended with 64.79999% that beer and the remainder is magic.” It’s more just having enough extra beer around to steer a finished product in a certain direction. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just purposely trying to make it sound difficult. Most of the time when I brew these kinds of beers, I make an extra gallon or two per batch. That way when I rack out of primary, I can fill a one gallon carboy or two to keep around for easy blending. If you are making good sours out of unblended batches (which judging by your activity in this sub-forum seems to be the case) blending some beers should be a walk in the park for you once you try it out. Just think of it as another tool in the tool box.

 

[brownni5]

I'm trying to go this way too. A couple weeks ago I blended my first Bier de Coupage, much as was described above: had some extra wort from a couple brews over the past year that had dregs added - used these for blending into a fresh Saison. I enjoyed doing it enough that I made a couple 1-gallon extract batches to be used for blending in the future. I also have a 15- gallon barrel red solera that I plan to bring into the fold.

I have next to no experience here, but I found Dr. Lambic's Sour Beer Blog to be helpful. There, he had a cool graphic that had a bunch of carboys with tasting notes and what he did with them. He did have at least one dumper and wasn't scared to let others keep aging.

 

[monkeymath]

I am about to make my first steps into the realm of sours - the aged kind - but I am somewhat afraid that it will not be all that rewarding with limited space. I don't really have any room for a fermenter to sit for a year or more, much less a bunch of them for blending. And without blending, I'm afraid, you run a risk of ending up with something not-all-that-enjoyable.

But I'll have to give it a shot nonetheless. Beer is nice - great even -, but a good, aged sour beer is a delight without compare.

 

[RPh_Guy]

If you don't have space for leaving a beer to sit for at least 4-5 months, you probably shouldn't be using a traditional souring/pitching process.

FYI it seems to be a well-kept secret but there are modern methods to make fruity/funky Brett sour beers in a matter of weeks.

Also, blending certainly isn't necessary. I've made plenty of great sours without blending.

---
I just got a new 30 oak barrel and I'm trying to work out a plan to fill it. I definitely want to use some kind of perpetual blending.
However I'm just not keen on just leaving some extra beer from different batches sitting around and seeing what I can combine later; I prefer to have a plan.
I think I can design an acid beer and I think the barrel will have a heavy hop rate to maximize Brett flavor. I may also have another batch trying to maximize barnyard flavor. Then that allows me to just brew small batches of whatever and I can blend to increase both the funk and acidity.
That's my vision for an organized blending program in a nutshell, anyway.

 

[DrKnow]

I’ve had great success using the “solera”method on 25 to 60 gallons barrels. It helps to have some other brewers in on those kinds of projects. Design the beer to be more of a quick turnaround sour when it goes into the barrel, then start adjusting subsequent beers and adding more hops, going more Brett forward as you take your first few pulls. I think the key is to take pulls every 6 months or so and keep the microbes in the barrel with a steady supply of food. It’s not what the pros do, but it works really well and produces great results. Most of us home brewers don’t need 60 gallons of sour/funky beer to be ready all at one time in order to stay in business.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Design the beer to be more of a quick turnaround sour when it goes into the barrel, then start adjusting subsequent beers and adding more hops, going more Brett forward as you take your first few pulls.

My thinking for the barrel is that it'd be beneficial to keep the pH fairly high so Brett will produce more flavor, no? Acidity suppresses flavor production.
Other things are influencing my thinking too: I'm not sure I need to pull 5 gallons out of the barrel at a time. .. And I actually don't know anyone else that home brews so it's not a project I can split unless I join a club.

In summary I'd have 3 beers available solely for blending stock purposes:
Minimally sour (lots of aged hops) Brett-forward beer in the barrel, developing oak flavor.
Acid beer (no hops, buffered). I may need to do some experimentation to see which of my bacterial cultures are most aggressive.
Barnyard funky beer (late hopped and dry hopped, WY5112, maybe jolly pumpkin dregs. fed with trubby wort ??). Experimentation required.

I can then brew 2-5 gallons of something quick turnaround (around 5-14 days) whenever I'm in the mood and blend in any of those three stock beers as needed. My regular sour brews are all great and typically don't have any flaws that need fixed, with the exception of THP that occurs after bottling. Just needing that little extra push to go from great to amazing.

Does that all sound reasonable? I intend to siphon out some trub with each barrel pull.
Appreciate your input.

 

[DrKnow]

This sounds like a reasonable approach. Although I’d be a little wary of not pulling at least 5-10 gallons the first few times if the barrel is “young”. Things can absorb too much oak flavor and it’s not pleasant. But it sounds like a decent plan. Good luck. Happy blending and let us know how it works out.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

This is a really useless post that describes my current blending program....
Two of my first sour/funky beers were a simple wheat/pils blend with no hops + sacch, lacto and brett. Not surprisingly it ended up very sour with not much brett expression.
Another is a 'Saison' at about 30IBU, saison yeast and TYB Beersel. It's really nice and funky but (as intended) not sour. Both were bottled. Blending 50/50 in the glass is delicious! Sorry, I've had a few.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Things can absorb too much oak flavor and it’s not pleasant.

I'm definitely concerned about over oaking! This barrel was a gift, otherwise I would have selected a used barrel.

I've given this a lot of thought but I'm still unsure what would be best. Brewing and bottling ~25 gallons of beer at a time is a real pain with my 5-7 gal brew system, so the number of beers I can put through this new barrel will be limited by the large inconvenience and huge excess of beer. Making ~30 gallons of wine is a little cost-prohibitive for me plus I'm not sure I would even want that much of a single batch.

I'm thinking I may try to extract the oak flavor with a lightly-sulfited maintenance solution for a few weeks-months. I'm also hoping that since I'm probably not going to be using the barrel beer for the majority percentage in blends that even if the amount of oak is excessive that it will be good after blending. In fact I'm thinking "excessive" oak may even be helpful since I may want oak flavor in the final blend and it will be reduced significantly since the other beers in the blend are un-oaked. ? It's hard for me to judge since I have no experience with that.

Thoughts?

 

[DrKnow]

I’d say your best bet is to get a solid hard bung and boil some water and roll it around in the barrel a few times to extract some of that harsh “lumber yard” flavor. Do that a few times just before filling. That will also ensure the barrel is swelled and the staves are tight. I would avoid sulfite solution at all costs. It’s hard to get that sulfur/fart smell out of the barrel once it’s in there.

 

[mashpaddled]

Your idea about blending is fine but the barrel is going to be an issue. It will take you many beers to extract out enough oak to let beer hang out in it and not get over-oaked. Even fills of water will take a while because water does not extract from oak at the same intensity as alcohol.

Ideally if you could find a distillery near you that would be willing to run a couple passes of spirit through it you could get good extraction and then run a couple clean beers through it to get the barrel closer to a light oak character.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I’d say your best bet is to get a solid hard bung and boil some water and roll it around in the barrel a few times to extract some of that harsh “lumber yard” flavor. Do that a few times just before filling. That will also ensure the barrel is swelled and the staves are tight. I would avoid sulfite solution at all costs. It’s hard to get that sulfur/fart smell out of the barrel once it’s in there.

Your idea about blending is fine but the barrel is going to be an issue. It will take you many beers to extract out enough oak to let beer hang out in it and not get over-oaked. Even fills of water will take a while because water does not extract from oak at the same intensity as alcohol.

Ideally if you could find a distillery near you that would be willing to run a couple passes of spirit through it you could get good extraction and then run a couple clean beers through it to get the barrel closer to a light oak character.

Thanks guys, good ideas.

There seems to be mixed opinions about sulfiting a holding solution (on MTF). I suppose I won't use sulfite because I don't anticipate microbes being a problem.

To reduce the oak I'm going to have to try the boiling water idea. I don't think loaning it to a distillery is feasible for me although that would be really cool.

Mathematically, if the barrel beer has a whopping 5x the amount of oak flavor desired, I can use it as 20% of a blend (with the rest un-oaked) to make it perfect. Yeah?

 

[brownni5]

Edit: now I see the barrel is new - ugh, yeah, that's a tough one.

 

[#p3brews]

had some extra wort from a couple brews over the past year that had dregs added - used these for blending into a fresh Saison.

halo, super curious about these results, as i too have 4 separate quart jars of fresh wort and various old dregs from sours, etc, saved in the fridge. is there anything i shouldn't do? thinking just blend, swirl and plug with airlock? 32oz jugs with fresh wort and various dreg yeast combos. maybe sprinkle some dry yeast into a couple too.

 

[brownni5]

halo, super curious about these results, as i too have 4 separate quart jars of fresh wort and various old dregs from sours, etc, saved in the fridge. is there anything i shouldn't do? thinking just blend, swirl and plug with airlock? 32oz jugs with fresh wort and various dreg yeast combos. maybe sprinkle some dry yeast into a couple too.

I'm forcing myself to wait til June to open one of these - I think that would be 6 months in the bottle (maybe 5, I can't recall off hand). Either way, no real results yet.

If I were you, I'd try to keep the dregs separated as long as possible. It may be that you like one blend better than the other. Additional dry yeast might not hurt, but then again, maybe it will? Who knows?

 

[henchman24]

My program probably isn't the best or most sophisticated.... but here goes:

I have 5 fermenters that I cycle sours through. I have a couple basic base recipes... one dark, one golden. Both really only get aged hops unless a fermenter is getting out of hand with acidity. One was formerly a spontaneous ferment that actually worked... call this the wild, two that are a mix of commercial and bottle cultures that have been going for 4-5+ years now, one that is a mist of the commercial and wild yeast (it wasn't getting sour enough and needed a kick... the wild can get aggressively sour) and one was a MTF Bootleg Biology release. All have about a half ounce of oak cubes that have been reused more than a few times (this was an addition into my 2nd year of this and made a large difference). I typically will brew and pitch directly onto the yeast cake (if it doesn't kick off in 3ish days, I will pitch some sacc... mostly non-killer wine yeast). I'll pull a beer out and that day typically have fresh wort available to put on the cake. When there is too much sediment I will pull off the cake into a half gallon mason jar... casually wash, make a starter, and a week or so later pitch that into the cleaned fermenter it came from.

I typically ferment in those for 6-9 months.The two pure commercial and bottle culture fermenters can reliably produce great sours after 6 months. More than a few times, I haven't needed to blend to get great results. The wild fermenters create the most complex and flavorful beers, but have some rough edges and are a bit unpredictable. The MTF isn't real sour, but has a nice funk. When I feel a sample is in a good spot, I transfer to a keg. I have 6 kegs dedicated to blending stock. For the most part, they are solo fermentations, but a few times they've just been topped up. I try to keep those from the same fermenter. I keep them at room temp and 3-4ish psi. Just enough to keep the keg happy.

From there I will take notes on each as they get kegged, and tape them to the kegs. I tend to need a blend every ~2-3 months, so I will re-taste and take new notes to see how they are progressing. My blending process is pretty simple, review my notes, pull off samples and mix until I'm happy. Some beers will get 2 blended... some get up to 5-6. Depending on what I am doing with the blend, I will look for different tendencies. More acidic fruits, get less acidic blends. The best blends tend to just be kegged for serving, get some dry hops, or a smaller amount of fruit. The more meh sorts of blends might get more fruit, more assertive fruit, or blended with wine (I find getting good grapes is difficult in my area)/fruit to get them to the right point.

If I'm fruiting the sour, I will transfer to a fermenter with the fruit. I have markings on that fermenter to closely enough estimate the volumes I need. If I'm dry hopping, I transfer to a keg and dry hop in there. If there is nothing to add, I just transfer to a new keg. I like to pull off 2-3 bottles worth to age long-term, so from here I will pull those off and carbonate with carbonation tabs. The rest gets put onto one of my sour taps.

 

[#p3brews]

I would then move the leftover “acid beer” to a smaller vessel to store it (this is where spare kegs or progressively smaller carboys come in handy). . . I make an extra gallon or two per batch to keep around for easy blending.

thanks for the esplainin' - question?
when restocking in a smaller vessel are you just adding new airlock? what about oxidization? same in keg, i dont think you'd gas, but there would be space for air on your aged wort, no?

i'm curious because yesterday i puller a cork off a half bottle and the aged dregs shot out like i won the stanley cup. i had to cover with mouth and took down a good pint of pretty tasty stuff. then i popped the swing top off a small amount of liquid (less than half) and the thing nearly exploded. it was unreal how much pressure was in that bottle. i tasted with a dixie cup and heard a couple beers saints rejoice. it was that good. i put on airlocks and dropped a little safeale 5 on them.
just curious how to breed, handle, tame these beasts.

 

[RPh_Guy]

My program probably isn't the best or most sophisticated.... but here goes:

I have 5 fermenters that I cycle sours through. I have a couple basic base recipes... one dark, one golden. Both really only get aged hops unless a fermenter is getting out of hand with acidity. One was formerly a spontaneous ferment that actually worked... call this the wild, two that are a mix of commercial and bottle cultures that have been going for 4-5+ years now, one that is a mist of the commercial and wild yeast (it wasn't getting sour enough and needed a kick... the wild can get aggressively sour) and one was a MTF Bootleg Biology release. All have about a half ounce of oak cubes that have been reused more than a few times (this was an addition into my 2nd year of this and made a large difference). I typically will brew and pitch directly onto the yeast cake (if it doesn't kick off in 3ish days, I will pitch some sacc... mostly non-killer wine yeast). I'll pull a beer out and that day typically have fresh wort available to put on the cake. When there is too much sediment I will pull off the cake into a half gallon mason jar... casually wash, make a starter, and a week or so later pitch that into the cleaned fermenter it came from.

I typically ferment in those for 6-9 months.The two pure commercial and bottle culture fermenters can reliably produce great sours after 6 months. More than a few times, I haven't needed to blend to get great results. The wild fermenters create the most complex and flavorful beers, but have some rough edges and are a bit unpredictable. The MTF isn't real sour, but has a nice funk. When I feel a sample is in a good spot, I transfer to a keg. I have 6 kegs dedicated to blending stock. For the most part, they are solo fermentations, but a few times they've just been topped up. I try to keep those from the same fermenter. I keep them at room temp and 3-4ish psi. Just enough to keep the keg happy.

From there I will take notes on each as they get kegged, and tape them to the kegs. I tend to need a blend every ~2-3 months, so I will re-taste and take new notes to see how they are progressing. My blending process is pretty simple, review my notes, pull off samples and mix until I'm happy. Some beers will get 2 blended... some get up to 5-6. Depending on what I am doing with the blend, I will look for different tendencies. More acidic fruits, get less acidic blends. The best blends tend to just be kegged for serving, get some dry hops, or a smaller amount of fruit. The more meh sorts of blends might get more fruit, more assertive fruit, or blended with wine (I find getting good grapes is difficult in my area)/fruit to get them to the right point.

If I'm fruiting the sour, I will transfer to a fermenter with the fruit. I have markings on that fermenter to closely enough estimate the volumes I need. If I'm dry hopping, I transfer to a keg and dry hop in there. If there is nothing to add, I just transfer to a new keg. I like to pull off 2-3 bottles worth to age long-term, so from here I will pull those off and carbonate with carbonation tabs. The rest gets put onto one of my sour taps.

Thanks! Sounds interesting. I'd like to try some "spontaneous" beers after I get some blending stock going.

 

[henchman24]

Thanks! Sounds interesting. I'd like to try some "spontaneous" beers after I get some blending stock going.

I think I had 3 or 4 attempts before I got one that actually worked without getting mold or tasting terrible. I brew inside, so I'm sure it picked up some of the yeast floating around my brewery area, but it definitely picked up some wild stuff. It isn't outstanding on it's own, but makes for a great part of a blend.

 

[goodolarchie]

Like a lot of you guys I have a good library of sours to draw from, including four barrels. The barrels are all effectively soleras but I've had a couple break in way too tannic (tight grain) that were basically empty and refill.

So every year, I have a 20 gallon brite that I do a master blend. I try to do this in Jan after the holidays die down, because it's likely I have something young and spontaneous from an October/November brew date, and it gives some runway for any of the March/April competitions, especially if I need to bottle condition (not entirely necessary with the brite).

This is one of my favorite things to do with 1-2 friends or other homebrewers who love mixed ferm beer. They enjoy it too because I make pretty much anything available to taste, and I can enough wort the week before that I can easily top off any barrels, carboys etc. for sampling. This means I have to draw more beer for sampling, but who doesn't like feedback. We'll try a few cuvees (by weight, is easiest), I'll use their notes over the next week to select what makes for a nice blend. And since I only do this once a year, and aim to collect 20 gallons of it, I try to use at least two of the four barrels, plus fresh beer from stainless so it can naturally carbonate.

I've never regretted aiming for subtlety - agree with rPH that single batches can have amazing depth of character, they don't need to be blended. Really the point of blending to me is to balance oak, funky/phenolic, estery, overly acetic/lactic, and sometimes reducing a harsh trace characteristic (e.g. a bit caproic) below noticeable threshold on an otherwise great beer. Almost all of my barrels are too sharp in one area, they all benefit from blending. The SS and carboy beers tend not to drift as much over time.

Subtlety lets me pitch some active brett, wait for a pressure rise and go straight into bottles, or wait a few months and think about any fruits that might pair well for the secondary. I can always add acidity, funk etc. in a secondary, but I can rarely re-balance the blend. Anything left by October goes into kegs as harvest parties are popular in my agricultural county, I've turned a lot of orchardists and mj growers onto "gueuze"... sanitize the tank and repeat!