High Gravity Sours

I’m all for trying new stuff, but that sounds awful. Kinda like “have you ever made a sessionable barleywine?” It just doesn’t seem to go.

But hey, don’t let ME pee on your slide...

 

I don't see high gravity and sour as necessarily incompatible. Non-beer beverages like wines and meads typically are high gravity and with tartness to them. That may not be your cup of tea but is not oxymoronic in a literal sense, like a sessionable barleywine.

@Supergenious I've made flanders reds in the 1.06x area; 1.080 doesn't seem out of reach. Maybe old sock's book or the sour hour podcast would point you towards a tried and true strategy for high gravity. I dont have tremendous experience here, but given your concerns about alcohol overwhelming the bacteria, pre-sour with a lacto pitch before pitching Sacc or Brett. If you want hops, maybe blend in some hopped wort after your souring is done, bearing in mind both your hops and your sour gets diluted. Our, you can do a sour wort boil, killing your bugs and hopping at that time. But a little hop bitterness goes a long way in the presence of sour in any event. Get hop aromas from dry hop.

 

I made a kettle soured saison this summer that was around 9% and super tasty!! I kettle soured with Goodbelly, then boiled and hopped like normal and poured onto a huge pitch of 3711. I will absolutely do it again.

 

As it happens there's a post on Mike Tonsmeire's Mad Fermentationist blog about brewing a sour wee heavy. Here's the post, here are tasting notes.

The beer started out at 1.097 and went into a bourbon barrel, where it went unintentionally sour.

Honestly Tonsmeire's recipe seems like a pretty good road map, though you could pitch whatever sour bugs you want up front. I don't think you need to age the beer in a barrel, although you could add oak and/or bourbon if that sounds good to you. I would read the entirety of the posts to understand how he ended up with what sounds like a really tasty beer.

 

Ah, I should have read your post more carefully, I missed that you've got a barrel for this one. In that case you can replicate his recipe pretty closely! Just bear in mind that the rate of oxygen ingress per unit of volume is a lot higher on a 5 gallon barrel than it is on a 53 gallon barrel.

 

Which LABs are you thinking about pitching? Are you averse to hot-side souring?

As far as avoiding terminal acid shock when you bottle, you can always acclimate your bottling yeast to the environment of the beer. If you're interested in that technique, I can link it for you.

 

Some of my favorite wild ales are malt forward and high abv. Last winter I brewed a 10% wild quad and 11% wild imperial stout, both turned out very good, with complex brett character, acidity, and deceptively drinkable. I pitched Sach and dregs at the same time. I actually had to blend the quad with a 100% brett version because the acidity was a little too intense after being in the carboy for 6 month's. Don't waste money on pitching LAB bugs. Use dregs from your favorite wild's and make a starter. You're more likely to develop acidity in a higher abv brew. I bottle conditioned both with the original sach yeast I used in primary.

 

Curious as to why you'd think that commercially available LABs are any less viable than the ones in bottle dregs?

 

I've used both and dregs always sour faster for me.