Souring a Saison - 1st Time With Sours

[kdw2pd]

In a month or so, I'm planning on brewing 5 1 gallon sour/brett beers. The base beer will be Saison DuPont (OG 1.055, FG = ~1.008, IBU = 25, fermented with harvested DuPont yeast). From there, I'll cold-crash, harvest the DuPont yeast, and then rack the beer into 5 1 gallon glass jugs. The active dregs were chosen from the Mad Fermentationist's dregs list. 1.) JP La Roja, 2.) Goose Island Lolita, 3.) Boulevard Love Child #5, 4.) Petrus Aged Pale, and 5.) Crooked Stave Vielle Saison (brett strain CMY001 + other stuff).

A few questions:
1.) Are the IBUs of the DuPont recipe too high?
2.) Similarly, is the FG too low? Should I mash higher to give the bugs more to chew on?
3.) Temps for souring? Can I just leave them at room-ish temp?
4.) If I did started souring in mid-July, could I bottle in late November and have reasonable sours?

 

[shaarm]

Ibu of 25 is near the upper limit for lacto souring, from what I have read. If you want it more sour, you may want to drop it down a bit (just my opinion but I like sour)

I throw everything in initially (primary) so I can't say for sure.

I just do room temp in my basement.

From my experience, bottle dregs sour quicker than commercial pitch of something like roselare blend. Jolly pumpkin are especially quick from my experience. However, you have to be careful when bottling. You want a stable gravity over a period of time, not just a few days. You may be pushing it to bottle then. However I have had sours with dregs that I was able to bottle in 5-6 months. It did end up a little over carbed, which tells me it wasn't quite done.

 

[burninator]

1. That level may inhibit your lacto and pedio, but it probably won't stop them.
2. If you're pitching at the same time, it won't matter. The brett and bugs will get to work on the OG.
3. I do this for regular saisons, or even higher, but ymmv
4. That might depend on the batch. They may not all be ready. The CS, in particular, has a mix of lacto, pedio, and brett, that could take longer.

As an aside, are you sure the Petrus contains live brett? I was under the impression they started pasteurizing or filtering a couple of years ago.

 

[kdw2pd]

To be clear: I'm going to ferment it out with the DuPont sacch yeast, then rack to the bugs once it's hit FG. I've read about co-pitching, but I wanted a variety of sours the first time out.

Good call on the Petrus. It's on the list of Mad Fermentationist dregs, but they've apparently started filtering and don't re-pitch. Thanks for the heads up! I'll find something else.

What should I drop my IBUs to, for the lacto/pedio to work better?

Do I want some oxygen to pitch on top of the bugs/Brett? Should I add any DME/sugars for it to work on when I rack?

 

[microbusbrewery]

I'd drop it a ton if I were you. For most of my sours, I use aged hops, so they essentially result in 0 IBUs. Personally, I'd shoot for 10 or less IBU's.

 

[Natdavis777]

1) I personally would lower the IBUs a bit, but I have limited souring experience, so I could be wrong.
2) Again, I would personally give the bugs a bit more to consume. I too, pitch all my bugs/yeast at once, and will blend at the end (what I have done with my lambics)
3) Room temps should be fine
4)It is possible, but only time will tell.

 

[burninator]

Maybe Orval dregs in place of the Petrus, for a straightforward, classic flavor. Or I've heard good things about Stillwater dregs, if you can get it.

 

[microbusbrewery]

Orval uses brett, but no souring bacteria. You'd get some funky brett character, but not souring.

 

[burninator]

Orval uses brett, but no souring bacteria. You'd get some funky brett character, but not souring.

Good call. Got off-script a bit there.

 

[kdw2pd]

Thanks for the suggestions, folks. After reconsidering, I think I'm going to go the easy route and pitch dregs from a few different Brett beers instead of the sours. It sounds like Brett is easier to work with, more IBU tolerant, and funks up faster than I can get a sour to be ready.

Also, Mad Fermentationist's dregs list specifically say Petrus contains no bugs. I can't read.

 

[tgmartin000]

You won't get very sour with Brett alone, if at all. If you want 25 ibu, try to find a commercial sour beer with 25 ibu and try to harvest that. I've soured a 35 ibu beer with jester king dregs. If you can find those, highly recommended.