Sour for a noob

[Pyg]

I am looking at trying my hands at sours, mostly because it is one of the few beers that SWMBO likes.
over the weekend we got a Growler of Brown's Brewing Blueberry Sour. nice blueberry and dry tart taste.

I am apprehensive about Sours since I know very little of the process.
Actually I know almost nothing except Brett!
I have read quite a bit on here and think I am getting an idea of the process. not to mention I am not finding recipes that may appeal to SWMBO. Or I should say I dont want to make 5 gallons and be stuck with something she doesnt like.
I tend to make partial Mash, but can make a 3 gallon all grain!

So is there anyone who can give me a "sour for dummies" version?

What is a simple, good fruit sour recipe?

Do I just brew up a low ABV (4%) beer, add some fruit and then some brett? and age?
Do I really need to age a sour for months if not a year?

Do I need separate carboys, buckets and racking gear for sours?
Do sours contaminate my gear forever?
Will I be unable to reuse beer bottles, once there was a sour in them?

thanks in advance for any help or just pointing me to a resource!

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I am about to try my first sour with the first runnings of my next batch. I would pitch a known bacteria for souring other than just fruit and brett since brett doesn't really sour, but adds complexity. I was going to use some good belly with lacto planterum. Also many of the lacto bugs have low tolerance for ibu, so hold of on the hopping for the dry hop, or blend back with hopped beer to taste was going to be my plan.

 

[Gibberoni]

I actually just did my first sour. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=573307

Although in my first post I talk about sour mashing, I ended up doing the kettle souring. It was very easy to do, however you will need a pH meter. This is the one I have

All you do is a normal mash, drain and sparge to the kettle, throw some of the unmashed grains in there and wait a few days till pH hits 3.5. You need to keep the temp at 110ish to make sure none of the bad/unwanted bacteria starts to develop. I just threw it on the burner for 5 minutes and it was back up to temp.

After you hit 3.5 pH, do a 20 minute boil with you hop addition, and then ferment as usual. My wyest 333 took off like a maniac, so I would for sure have a blowoff tube next time.

 

[m00ps]

What is a simple, good fruit sour recipe?
you can realyl take any good base recipe and add fruit and souring bugs to it. IME, its best to keep it simple. Like do a sour fruited saison blonde ale over a sour fruited imperial stout

Do I just brew up a low ABV (4%) beer, add some fruit and then some brett? and age?
I usually just primary as normal for +10 days or so, rack to a secondary with minimal headspace, add my sour blend and let it sit.
It doesnt need to be low %abv, but it does need to be low IBUs. Lactobacillus doesnt work too well above 10IBUs or so. Brett is unaffected.

Do I really need to age a sour for months if not a year?
Months? yes. Years? no.
It all depends on how aggressive your souring bugs are and the beer itself. I usually find myself bottling between 3-4 months. You just have to take spaced out samples and bottle it once you are happy with teh sour character. It will continue to develop in the bottle. IME, the more diversity of your sour pitch, the faster it will work. A single strain lacto or something will take longer and likely not achieve the same amount of sourness as a blend containing multiple strains of brett/lacto/pedio/etc

Do I need separate carboys, buckets and racking gear for sours?
Primarily, yes. My rule is anything plastic that touches the beer post-souring needs to be kept separate. I share glass carboys after filling them with PBW for a few days to clean

Do sours contaminate my gear forever?
see above. Any scratches in plastic (even smaller than you can see) will basically harbor bacteria and be extremely hard to eradicate. not worth the risk

Will I be unable to reuse beer bottles, once there was a sour in them?
I re-use bottles from sours for my other beers. Like the glass carboys, so long as you properly clean and sanitize, you should be good

 

[Natdavis777]

I made a few solid fruit lambics (which actually got my SWMBO in love with sours) that were completed in 8-10 months.

I tried my hand first at a sour mash for Berliner and got too much acetobactar (even though I purged with co2, etc). Still soured, but also smelled like dirty feet.

As for the lambics, I brewed a 10 gal batch of basically a 50/50 wheat beer, then pitched a 50/50 mix of Belgian Lambic Blend and Brett Lambicus in each fermentor (both plastic buckets). After a few months, I dropped in a few lbs on Blackberries in one and Raspberries in the other. At the 10 month mark, there was great flavor, some acidity, and low acetic acid. But I wanted more sour. So I ended up getting some Lacto Brevis, made a 5 gal batch pitched with it fermented @ 90F to get a really tart, lactic beer. Boy was that successful. I then blended lacto beer with the lambics and ended up with two kegs of really awesome, tart, fruit lambics. My wife loved them, as did I and other friends who enjoyed sours.


Doubt I will make anymore though, as it just took too long, and they were stored close to other brewing vessels and I didnt want cross-contamination.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458607285.131949.jpg

 

[krazydave]

Check out this site for a bunch of useful sour beer info. It should point you in the right direction.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/11/brewing-sour-beer-at-home.html?m=1

 

[m00ps]

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Doubt I will make anymore though, as it just took too long, and they were stored close to other brewing vessels and I didnt want cross-contamination.

My line of sour fermentors are literally either touching or <3ft from my clean ones. As long as you seal them up properly you shouldnt have an issue

 

[Natdavis777]

My line of sour fermentors are literally either touching or <3ft from my clean ones. As long as you seal them up properly you shouldnt have an issue

Mine are all stored in the mud room under the stairs. The Lacto fermenter is still there with some beer left in it. Havnt had an issue, so I guess it's not as big of a concern as I led it to be.

 

[Pyg]

Just a thought, but I have an old 5 gallon oak barrel I used to age wine.
Could that be used to age a sour, considering I won't care about contamination.
If so, where could I find such a recipe?