Young Flanders Red and adding Vinegar

I'd personally be inclined to add some lactic acid directly to the keg over vinegar in your situation

 

Really depends on how sour it already is and how sour you want it. I'd go with a few ml at a time and sample each time. You can always add more, but it's tough to take it out

 

A super general rule of thumb is 1 ml will move your pH by .05 in soft water

 

IMO a Flanders red that tastes like vinegar is flawed. But if you really want it to taste like vinegar, add vinegar. If you just want more sourness, add some acid.

ETA: Re-reading, I guess I should qualify that statement. A little acetic acid character is appropriate, but significant vinegar character is (IMO) not.

 

I've never added vinegar to a flanders red to get the acetic note. Acetic is definitely in Rodenbach but I think a little will go a long way. I'd experiment, get a few of your brewing/drinking buddies together and mix up a few samples. I would use a good vinegar, maybe a nice balsalmic, and just add it drop by drop into a known volume (ie pint) and sample until you get what you want, and then scale up from there for the keg. I don't think it will take much vinegar though, so be careful, you won't be able to unring that bell.

 

FWIW, food grade acetic acid is readily available online as an alternative to actual vinegar. There's just something about adding vinegar to beer that doesn't sit well with me.

 

Flanders Red "style" encompasses a wide range of different interpretations, ranging from mildly sour to very intense. Most of the acetic sourness comes from older batches, which is then blended in with young beers to control the flavour. IMHO a young flanders red shouldn't have a "vinegary bite", but rather the general sourness should be sharp but mild, and complement the rest of the flavours.

You could add some vinegar or extra acid in order to try to emulate the blending process, but I'd be afraid that you may end up with something a bit one-dimensional. If it tastes good now, I would vote to just serve it as is.

Also, unless a large amount of your friend's guests are beer nerds and like sour beers, I'd definitely be even more conservative with the sourness/acetic aspect!

 

^^agree with this I have had Duchesse De Bourgogne several times, the first time on tap and it was wonderfully complex, the second time at an obscure wine bar that carried beer, not sure how well they handled storage, and it was bordering Balsamic Vinegar. Drinkable, but the vinegar notes overrode the complexity of the beer.

 

Vinegar (white distilled) is very weak compared to the food grade 88% lactic acid they sell in the homebrew store. As such you really shouldn't be afraid to add a couple of oz to a 5 gal batch to bump up the complexity of the acid character. 2-3 oz of lactic acid in a non sour beer will bring it into moderately sour territory, but 1-2 oz white vinegar will barely be noticeable in a batch that size, and it certainly won't be discernible as vinegar. I would encourage you to try adding an oz or two to see if that gets the beer closer to where you want it to be, certainly you don't want to add enough to add an obvious distilled vinegar note, but you would need quite a bit to do that. 1-2 oz may just be enough to add some complexity and help your beer seem a little more mature than it really is.

For what it is worth, my opinion on this is based on having experimented quite a bit with direct acid additions as a substitute for kettle souring. It has been successful enough that my standard procedure for quick sour beers now is to add 3-4 oz of lactic acid and 1-2 oz vinegar directly to the wort (10 gal) instead of kettle souring (these beers would usually then be fermented with brett). I have found that the results are at least as good as and much more consistent than kettle souring, and these beers have won awards in competition, so I feel like I have some validation for my methods. This is, of course, not a substitute for long term wood aging of true mixed culture wild beers, but my point is that the OP should not feel like he is crazy to consider adding a little bit of distilled vinegar to try to enhance his beer.

 

Maybe just rack it sloppily to another container...it will get some acetic character going rather quickly if that's what you want.

 

This is probably a dumb suggestion, so I hope and expect the more experienced brewers and sour experts to jump in and tell me how stupid I am for even bringing it up, but I'm wondering if you could add a little DME to the beer to get some fresh fermentable sugars, then just pitch a lacto starter and let 'er rip for a week or so?

 

To get that classic Balsamic vinegar character without adding vinegar I'd give the beer some extra headroom in the carboy. It needs some oxygen exposure to develop those flavors. Just make sure you're tasting it along the way so it doesn't get out of control.

 

Just a quick reminder. Once you carb it up, it will taste more sour and "lively" than it does out of the fermentor. One of my previous sours was disappointing and "flat" tasting when room temp & non-carbed, but wonderful once carbed and conditioned.