Will this work?

[slats]

I have about two gallons of a cherry stout that I brewed about six months ago. It has been sitting in a carboy in my fermentation chest freezer ever since. The airlock has been maintained and by all appearances there is nothing funky going on with it. I am interested in souring it. Any ideas on what to do with it?

I've been thinking about making a couple of gallons of wort with some dme and adding some Roselare blend, blending (carefully) with the cherry stout and letting it go for awhile...


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[dantheman13]

You won't get much sourness from an already fermented beer due to Lactobacillus preferring simple sugars (you could try to rely on Pedio to sour long term), but you can get some good Brett character. That said, I've done something similar with a clean raspberry brown. Here's what I did:

1. Brewed a sour brown ale on my house culture that REALLY soured well, very thin.
2. Brewed the same brown ale recipe with US-05 only, and put raspberries, oak, bourbon, and some wine into it.
3. I blended 3 gallons of the very sour brown ale with 2 gallons of the raspberry brown ale, and kegged it so that I could keep it cold and prevent the souring organisms from thinning out the raspberry brown ale portion.
4. People love me when I share it with them.

If you don't want to brew a separate sour beer, you could try topping up the carboy with 3 gallons (assuming your carboy is 5-6 gallons; if not you could transfer it to a a 5-6 gallon carboy) of wort and pitching Lactobacillus, Pedio (if you want), and some Brett strains. Dregs from commercial beers is a good idea too. I would leave out the Saccharomyces if you are trying to get it reasonably sour and rely on the Brett to do the main part of the fermentation. You could pitch Lactobacillus first, leave it for a week, then pitch the Brett to try and up the lactic acid levels (use WLP677).