Blending and Fruiting

[505-Brewer]

Time to blend a bunch of sours. Sampled 12 carboys a couple weeks back and have some blends to prepare based on taste and blending calculators. Want to fruit some of the lambic/geuze blends. E.g. Going to use drained oregon sour cherries plus extract for. Kriek. Thinking blending then fruiting will kick off new ferm such that i might end up with too low pH again. (Im blending in young beer to bring pH back up some). I know places like Cantillon heavily fruit older portions then blend. Curious what folks think
Is best approach. Most blends will have 3 older lambics w one younger one.

Also have 2 older lambics w a touch of acetic. I know its considered a flaw but could add complexity as a small part in a bigger blend as long as acetic is sub threshold.
Thoughts? Chuck it or blend it in small portions (it has nice brett complexity).
Only 2 carboys have the acetic present both very subtle.

Cheers

 

[doomy86]

Ever tasted a BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien or Duchesse de Bourgogne ? There is definitly some acetic in those beers and they are damn good.

 

[505-Brewer]

Yes I have tasted Duchesse (too sweet in my opinion) but those aren't lambics. I was specifically referring to Geuze/Lambic. So yes those might play well in some of my darker sours.

 

[505-Brewer]

Anyone else ? Just kegged a red sour I brewed 2-19-13. Nice touch of acetic fruit character as mentioned above nice in this type of beer.

 

[Quaker]

If you're confident the acetic is from Brett, I wouldn't fear blending in to taste. If you think there's a chance it was acetobactor, then I'd avoid it.

I've had fruit refermentation increase the perceived sourness (no pH meter). In my most recent ones, I pitched some fresh Brett at the same time in hopes they dominate the fruit fermentation instead of LAB. That was about 6 weeks ago. I tasted about a month in and I think it achieved my goal.

 

[505-Brewer]

Good point. Im expecting it to sour more too. I like the brett pitch idea. I have some dirty dozen. Maybe I'll use that.