Looking to brew what I guess can be described as a sout braggot, want the sweetness and fruit from a big melomel with a the acidic sour from an american wild. Inspiration for this was mixing some Schramm's Black Agnes with Side Project Oude du Ble at a bottle share. 17lbs 2 row 6 gallons strike 154* Rest 60 Fly sparge until 7g Boil to 5.5g Remove half gallon wort to a culture with bottle dregs 5 lbs honey at flameout 2 packs S-04 or US-05 yeast re-hydrated Ferment 3 weeks Transfer to secondary Pitch sour culture Age on lots of raspberry (mesh bag) 6-9 months. Really haven't seen any info on doing anything like this out there. Any thought on what I may want to tweak?
Personally, I'd add the honey after fermentation has started, and wait a month before transferring. Also, wait until the sour culture is close to where you want it and then rack onto raspberries, only giving it 1-2 months on fruit.
You may want to consider making a raspberry melomel and an American wild and then blending them. You'll have a lot more control over the flavor profile of the braggot.
I thought about doing it as a blend, but would like to do it in one shot if possible. Figured if it wasn't to my liking and needed one or more of the other I always do could do a quick kettle sour or melomel and blend to and bring up what ever was lacking in the profile.
I'll give a +1 to the blending suggestion as well to get the best of what you want while limiting things can go wonky, like the batch of raspberries or the bottle dreg culture. Depending on the brewery and the beer, the dregs from a bottle of sour beer can be a bottling strain added solely to make bubbles and not acids or phenols, but if your starter smells pleasantly sour then you're on the right track. I have a 2 gallon fermentor for making melomel and a 5 gallon fermentor for making standard ales. The ratio works great for what I end up buying, making, and blending together. Making a melomel on its own also lets me add plenty of fruit without using a bag and stir, aerate, so on, as much as I want which I can't do with a straight up grainy braggot, as well as any assortments of sour or funky cultures. I also have a second 5 gallon fermentor that I have used to referment blends of meads, beers, and braggots on even more fruit or let it sit on wood or spices which has worked extremely well. I haven't found kettle souring to work for making anything with a lot of honey or fruit, so I can't recommend it myself. My first and favorite braggot I've made was a red ale brewed with aged hops and fermented with fruity Belgian yeast that was blended with a fresh, very sour wild cyser (the culture was made from local honey and local apples and pitched entirely into the batch). Acids that I try to go for are usually ones found in (as far as I know) Flanders Red Ales: loads of lactic and malic acid, some citric acid, a smidgen of acetic acid; Brettanomyces and/or Saccharomyces, some Lactobacillus or Pediococcus, little to no Acetobacter. Wild cultures can vary hugely, but the ones that I've tried to keep for braggots and sour reds seemed to produce more of the former and less of the latter.
It looks like 2/3 of your fermentables are from malt, so I wouldn't call it a braggot. However, to your point/question, I think it depends a bit on your experience with brewing sours, mead/braggots, and high ABV beers. If you've got a lot of experience, go for it. If not, you are combining all the issues of brewing those three types into one. For instance, you are pitching your sour culture into a 13% ABV medium. Personally, I'd also go with the above suggestion on blending. It is a lot of time, effort, and money if you end up with something you don't like in 9 months.
Wow . . . LOTS of stuff going on here. As people have said, your plan needs some work for it to be successful. This is not an ideal time to add honey. Add it at high krausen so your microbes can handle the influx of sugar and avoid osmotic shock. Why do a clean primary? Especially one with a POF- strain? What microbes are in your sour culture? I don't see the inclusion of hops in your beer, but be aware that some LABs are inhibited by hop related compounds and alcohol. It is MUCH better to age the beer and then fruit 8 weeks prior to packaging. That'll give you a fresh fruit flavor and aroma. Raspberries, btw, are usually added at a 2 - 3 lbs. per gallon ratio, but it depends upon your fruit and how much berry character that you want. I've made dozens of braggots and quite a few sour and funky ones. They are interesting, but do need patience and the right technique to turn out well. Cheers and good luck with this project. If you have further questions, please feel free to ask.
