I am currently waiting for a blonde ale to sour in my basement. I am using basic brewing equipment (5 gallon bucket, extract recipes etc..). I am about 7 months in and recently opened the bucket to test the beer that I added WLP655 to for souring. Upon opening it I could tell I had some good funk in there but when tasting it I didnt get much of any sour. My basement is approximately 65 degrees so Im sure the Lactobacillus just couldnt produce in that condition. I am getting ready to add Strawberries to the brew and and wondering if it would be a problem to move my beer into the garage. The garage would give me a higher temperature needed for the lacto to sour my beer. Also, this particular strain does have pediococcus as well but obviously that isnt souring the beer either (could be time, temp or both). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Steve
Lactobacillus is very sensitive to hop compounds. 17 IBUs is too much for many/most strains. As for the Pedio, I'm no expert, but my understanding is that it's not as sensitive, but that it does slow down significantly when even fairly low levels of hop compounds are present.
A strong lacto culture should have no issues souring in those temperatures and a lot of them should be able to sour at 17 IBUs and pedio should have no issues at 17. The LAB in the white labs and Wyeast mixed culture blends never seem to be that strong. I’d highly recommend looking to some of the smaller yeast labs or just use some dregs if you want to make sour beers. Highly recommend Jolly Pumkin dregs. Their souring bacteria in my experience will sour significantly even at 30 IBUs at room temps. Strawberries are really tough to use, like one of the hardest fruits to get clean expressive fruit character out of. You’ll here a lot of sour brewers talk about getting a lot of plastic notes when using strawberries in sour beer production. From what I remember hearing it has to do with all the small little seeds. Some breweries have had luck using freeze dried strawberries and I know Cellermaker had a good experience with short contact times but with huge quantities of fruit. Like 6-8 lbs per gallon I think. Personally I’d pick another fruit to use and pitch some sour beer dregs when you add the fruit. I’d leave it at 65 personally and probably for another 3-4 months.
I would give it more time, at least another 2-3 months. And leave it in your basement. Those temps should be fine. +1 to Jolly Pumpkin dregs. They are a beast. Pretty hard not to get a sour beer from them.
Perfect! Thank you all for your help. I will find me a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin to enjoy and pitch the dregs and leave it until October or so.
