Want to try my hand at a sour ale

[Bluelinebrewer]

I'd like to try making a sour ale, but I'm not sure how to go about this. I recently brewed a blonde ale, to soon be racked onto strawberries for a Strawberry Blonde. I've done the recipe a few times and it's never dawned on me to try and sour it. (I did search the forum and found a similar thread, but my beer has already been brewed and I'm not sure how to proceed.) So, my plan is to rack half of the beer onto some strawberries for my regular Strawberry Blonde, and sour the other half. So, should I go ahead and rack the sour onto the strawberries and just wait, or should I sour first and then add the strawberries? I'm a complete noob when it comes to souring a beer, so any and all comments, suggestions, and "you're and idiot"'s, are welcome. Thanks in advance!!

 

[marvaden]

You might want to post this to the Lambic/Wild Fermentation forum.

There's many ways to do this, but from what I have read, most people agree that you want to do the racking onto fruit as the final step. Also, sour ales are very tricky and take a lot of time. I suggest doing your first one with a blend (such as Wyeast's Roeselare). After about a year on that, then rack it onto the strawberries for a few months.

There's a lot more knowledgeable people on the Lambic forum than me (I mostly stick with just sacch and brett or 100% brett brews).

Another note, the bacteria like the unconverted complex carbs, so unless you have a lot of them, it probably won't be quite like what you would expect from a Flanders or Lambic. Not saying that it won't turn out good, but that's just one of the little technical tidbits that I have learned in my research.

 

[andhou27]

Sour beers = lactic acid!

 

[Waynep005]

I used the roselare blend for my first sour. I pitched it as my yeast racked it to secondary after a month and let it age for 9 months then added oak for a while nad them bottled. turned out great.

 

[badlee]

Blueli ebrewer
There is another way that is much quicker but much less rewarding.
Brew a recipe you like and do three things.1) keep IBUs below 25.2)age on acidic fruit for a few weeks.3)add about 10% weyermann acidulated malt to your mash about 40 minutes in.
I did a strawberry brown ale this way and it was great. Something sour to drink whilst you are waiting for the real sours to ferment

Sent from my GT-I8552B using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Calder]

It sours quicker if you pitch the bugs up-front, but there is nothing wrong with adding them late. Pitch a blend pack (roselaire, lambic blend, or the like), or the dregs from a couple of sour beers. Put on an airlock and leave it alone for 8 months to a year. Keep airspace small and the airlock filled.

After a year, add fruit (if you want), and leave a further few months. Bottle with fresh yeast.

Sours can get very complicated, but at the very basic level, they are easy; the main thing you need is patience.

 

[niquejim]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f72/drunk-owl-mango-55227/

 

[Seven]

Do sours really require a year before they are ready? The instructions I've seen say 6-12 months, like this one.

 

[gregkeller]

Here is the thing, most of us pitch of big/appropriate pitch of a sarch, and then after they've had their go at things we pitch a relatively small number of "bugs" (Lacto, pedio, brett, etc). So when you do that it takes a long, long time to get the sour character you are looking for.

Now want it done faster? Pitch a vial of a belgian strain of yeast (I wouldn't even make a starter) and at the same time pitch a big brett starter, a big lacto starter, maybe a handful of sour beer dregs you've been saving and you should have a great sour beer, much quicker than the "standard" method. A vial of brett or lacto does not have enough cells in it to sour a beer quickly, i think that's why people need a year or more to have sour beers ready to drink. I also think that adding a bunch of sour dregs to a beer is an awesome way to get lots of depth. You are getting lots of diversity in your brett and lacto strains, and they throw off slightly different esters that add a layer of depth to a beer that you can't get with a small pitch of just one type of brett and/or lacto.

 

[Calder]

Do sours really require a year before they are ready? The instructions I've seen say 6-12 months, like this one.

You can drink a sour after a couple of months. It won't be very sour. As the site says "This kit can take between 6-12 months to finish, depending on your personal preference on how sour it should be." I expect it will continue to sour and get more complex for a further 12 months after that.

What the Roeselare blend does; it has a small population of sacc yeast. You straight pitch the pack (no starter). That way the bugs get a couple of days to play (and multiply) in the wort before the yeast start creating alcohol. Once there is alcohol in there, everything slows down. You can get a sour beer with that yeast in 8 to 12 months if used properly. In this case, the OP has a fermented beer (lots of alcohol).

 

[pelipen]

Do sours really require a year before they are ready? The instructions I've seen say 6-12 months, like this one.

Depends how it's done. My current one is barely sour yet at 10 months and tasted horrible at 6 months. Now it's starting to taste nice, but I'd guess needs another 6 months at least.

 

[Bluelinebrewer]

Wow, thanks for all the replies! I'm thinking maybe I'll go ahead and rack the whole batch onto the strawberries, and do another brew for my sour. Sounds like the best approach is to pitch the Roselare blend up front.

 

[CA_Mouse]

You can also try this way. This is the one I did in '12 and drank in '13. I've done it as well for '14 with 2 different versions. The first one took about 11 months before it was ready and I expect the second one to take the same. The third one will be different fruit and I expect it to take about 18 months.

 

[marvaden]

Bluelinebrewer,

That would be the most straight forward way. It has all the micro-organisms that you need to make a sour ale (sacch, brett, bacteria).

One suggestion is that you read through a bit of how people and lambic brewers construct their mashes. The bacteria will be outcompeted by the saccharomyces when it comes to eating the simple sugars, so unless you get some complex sugars that the saccharomyces can't eat, you won't get much sour at all.

Time frame wise, a lot of people say to kick one off in the fall as the temperatures are dropping because otherwise you will get too much bacteria character.

You'll have to show us your awesome pellicle pictures when it's formed!

Cheers!
Ken

 

[solbes]

I brewed my first one on New Years day in 2013. 35% of the mash was unmalted wheat. Added normal house yeast plus the dregs from Jolly Pumpkin and an Odell's wild ale. After the fermentation started dying down, I kept the temps in the upper 60's/low 70's for a month. I thought this would help the souring process, thinking it would not be sour enough.

Wowza did it get sour. Tasted it for the first time last summer and the sourness was pretty sharp. I ended up blending half the batch with a Belgian blonde and adding raspberries to the other half. Bottled both a few days ago at the 1 year mark. The sour sharpness has gone away leaving it pleasantwhile the brett character has really come forward. I will let them sit in bottles until summer at least. Most of the bottles will be consumed after 2 years from brew date. Yes it takes a long time!

I'll probably brew up another one soon so I can keep the uber-long pipleine going. Once you get them going, you can also do small test batches. I had extra wort from my barleywine, so I added some of the blended sour to a 1 gallon batch. Not sure it will get going with the high gravity and high hopping rate, but we shall see.

 

[tgmartin000]

I also plan on brewing my first sour this year. I'll probably go with a grain bill along the line of a flanders red (lots of caramel malts), and mash really high. After lots of research I'm also planning on using the roselare blend, and skipping the oxygenation step. My plan is to brew in the early spring then rack onto about 10 lb of raspberries in the summer when they're ready.

My question: can I rack a beer that has a pellicle? Or is this a bad idea?

I also plan on doing a berliner weisse this spring to enjoy this summer.