Seeking advice from experienced sour and fruit beer brewers

I brewed a Blonde Ale, soured for 6 months, then racked onto blackberries for 4 months, just bottled it last weekend. It is really nice, but I wish I would have added more blackberries, and that I would have had a higher FG going into the souring stage (1.006). Finished @ 1.002, nice and tart though, the blackberries add to that as well. I prefer to do pure sour from the start or mix pure and sour from the start.

 

A lot of this is trial and error and taking samples to taste.

I've had some sucesses but most of them were by pure chance. I'd do the beer first, ferment/sour it, then add blackberries later. 3lbs puree to a 5 gal batch can be good, but I'd do this in a secondary. Then yank it/keg/bottle it when you hit the level you want. Lactobacillis has a low alcohol tollerance but produces lactic acid very cleanly...pediococcus also produces lactic acid and has a higher alochol tollerance but also kicks out a ton of diacetyl, so you have to use a clean yeast to reabsorb all that diacetyl up to clean the beer.

 

Pedio should only be pitched alongside brett because brett will hang out actively to absorb and break down the diacetyl. By the time pedio is kicking out lactic acid the sacc strain will have gone to sleep finding no further food.

 

How much funk do you want? I.e. do you want it to be more of a "clean" sourness or a funky sour? That will affect your process.

If you want it to be more of a "clean" sour (think some Flanders reds, oud bruins, etc.) you should ferment it out with a sacc strain, then rack to secondary and pitch a sour mix and/or dregs from sour beers. If you want it to have more brett character (e.g. more like lambic), just pitch the sour mix and/or dregs (if you are just using dregs and no sour mix, add some fresh sacc to ensure fermentation) at the beginning. Brett will chew up dead sacc and other stuff in the trub and make more funky character if you leave it all in the primary. If you take it off the trub (racking to secondary) you will deprive brett of that particular food source.

Let it go at least six month, then add the fruit and let it go 3-6 months. You want to make sure you have time for the beer to ferment out and develop a good flavor. You may want to go more than 9 or 12 months. Taste will be your guide. You can let it sour for more than six months before you add the fruit. With sour and funky beers, time really is the ingredient that adds the best flavor. The fruit flavors of some fruit can wane if left on the fruit for too long which is why you should figure out how long you're willing to go before adding fruit rather than go six months, add fruit, decide you want to go another twelve months. You can always bottle the beer after 9-12 months and continue to age it in the bottle. I don't know how much blackberries will wane in flavor. I have a blackberry lambic aging a couple months in on the fruit but I have raspberry lambic that sat on the fruit for six months and has been in the bottle about eight months and the fruit flavor is still very good.

 

Yeah, I don't deal with brett too much but you could pitch the pedio/lacto first, then a sacc strain while there is still sugar available, but there's probably a reason why this isn't done often.

Sours/funk is sort of the last frontier of brewing since it's much harder to control the outcome of the sour. Which is why blending is very popular...

 

a sacch strain wont clean up after pedio, thats why you need to use the brett, it fixes your butter taste problems

I disagree with the controlling of the outcome, Ive brewed quite a few sours and have a pretty good idea how it turns out each time when pitching a commercial culture, there might be some small variation but this happens in "clean" beers every time you make them as well

 

This is a good overview: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/11/brewing-sour-beer-at-home.html

Read this first, and if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

 

Because pedio is slow to build its numbers and get to work fermenting. By the time it's working sacc is napping.

 

One comment on the OP's fruit addition: it seems a bit low. Cantillon uses ~1.6lbs / gal in the regulars and up to ~2.5 lb / gal in the Lou Pepe line. Personally I do between 1.75 - 2.25 lbs / gal to really make sure to get that strong fruit character. I mean, you're gonna put in that much time, it might as well actually taste like the fruit you want, right?

Also, i've only ever done bugs from the beginning and it seems to work fine for me - not really sure why you'd start with a sacc strain only. Just my $0.02

 

Yep, for example, the wyeast 3278 blend has sacc in it as well. When I have done berliners, I pitch straight lacto then an ale yeast (see Brewing Classic Styles) and when I've grown a starter from dregs I'm sure there's some sacc in there (but I can't confirm). But in all cases, the bugs go in on day one for me.

 

I tend to pitch a mix of bugs and brewer’s yeast in primary. Rack to secondary with oak when the initial fermentation subsides. Rack onto fruit when the acidity/aromatics are where I want them (6-18 months). Leave on the fruit 2-4 months, then bottle. The longer you wait to add the fruit, the fresher that flavor will be when you are drinking the beer. It also gives you a chance to taste the beer and decide whether/what fruit it would benefit from.

I’ll also say that really good quality fruit is one of the secrets. Just bottled a sour I aged on a few pounds of white nectarines I bought last summer at the farmer’s market that is stunning.

 

I brewed a Flanders Red in early Dec. and just added to my barrel yesterday with some extra I racked to a LDPE carboy I've had laying around for years. After reading up on LDPE it seems it's permiable to O2 (but not as much as CO2). I want some acidity from acetobacter, but am wondering if purging with CO2 about once a month will keep it from becoming a vinegar bomb.

 

Gas permeation is a subject way over my head. However, my basic understanding is that the rates at which different gases transferring is independent. That is to say that flushing with CO2 gives initial protection, but I don’t think purging the head space will make any difference in the longer run. In addition most of the surface area of the container is touching beer, so it will allow oxygen to transfer directly (rather than the head space). Head space is a much bigger concern with barrels because the wood above the beer-level dries out, which increases its permeability.

Like most aspects of brewing sours, give it a taste (and then purge) occasionally and judge for yourself how the acetic character is developing.