Sour beer help

[alix101]

After trying a delicious tropical fruit sour beer at the weekend it's inspired me to brew one.
I've never attempted a sour beer so need help.
I know it's all the rage at the moment, so I assume a few have tried and a few will be experts on how best to do it.
I know there's a few options like using Brettanomyces, or a sour mash which has to many variables for me but I don't know for sure, or adding Lactobacillus...
Any help is as usual is appreciated.

[wilfh]

Depends what you want out of it at the end I guess. I've done one sour mash and it was easy enough leaving the mash for a day to sour. I got a nice bright acidity from that. I've also done one with a sour dough starter that I have going for bread. Much more funky and sour (and more of an acquired taste!) . Like most things its easier to be simple and I haven't really played around with hops in a sour brew.

simple malt bill and not many hops if you want the acidity. Also keep you sg down. I went up to 1.06 and the lacto didn't like it at all.

Decide what you want and go for it...
Cheers
Wilf

[jaroporter]

well.. um, unless you can condense that down into a question at this point i'd really recommend searching about online for some ideas . there's loads of really excellent blogs about at the moment that go into all the detail on types of sour beer and techniques and methods and give loads of ideas. perhaps find out the kinda style that beer was (berliner/gose/lambic/etc.) and use that as a starting point to research. i certainly wouldn't rule out a sourmash as any more variable than just pitching bacteria at this stage! but with a bit of planning they're nice easy brewdays.

[BrannigansLove]

You could start off by trying to use the brett that turned out to be sacch (WLP644), which gives a tart, fruity finish. I plan on giving that a try sometime this year. You could do worse than taking a look at the Mad Fermentationist blog, or the Milk the Funk site.

[Simonh82]

As a starting point, the simplest method is probably kettle souring. With kettle souring the wort is sterilised by the boil after the souring has occurred. This means you don't have to worry about infecting your brewing equipment or having separate brewing vessels for sour beer.

With kettle souring the wort transferred to the kettle after the mash, briefly heated to kill off any existing bugs then cooled and held at ~35°C and inoculated with a lactobacillus strain. This could come from a yeast company like White Labs, or it could come from things like pro-biotic drinks or supplements. You can also inoculate the wort by steeping some raw grain in it.

After the wort has soured it is boiled and fermented as usual.

As others have said, there are a huge number of different ways of making a wild/sour beer so it is definitely worth doing some proper reading up on it.

[alix101]

I'll look into it further then.
I'm looking for a clean sour not a massive lambic Farmhouse type of sour, more like biting a grapefruit.
I remember my sour dough culture I built and the wild microbes in my house were foul .
I've read and watched a lot on sours without considering making one, maybe I need to read more.
But I class this as online research ....

[hazelbrew]

I have been experimenting with sours.

I say experimenting as there are many ways to progress and learn, and many possible outcomes. I think its fascinating. Jump right in is what I say... results can take 6 months or more so the longer you wait.. the longer it is before you have something to try.

To echo and add to above:

"tropical fruit beer"
- buy samples to see what you like. Berliner Weisse? Goze? Geuze? lambic? 100% Brett? What beer did you try?

reading:
-+1 to Mad fermentationist and Milk the funk. Solid gold reading. The book American Sour Beers is worth the money too.

Reculturing from bottle & finding the bugs
- brew uk and malt miller sometimes have a lucky dip or sales on brett and bacteria. out of date so need stepping up
- reculture from bottle. See 1. Buy bottles to try. if you like them try reculturing from the bottle. I have done this successfully on a range of beers - Orval, Straffe Hendrik to name two. Then grow them up for a future brew. Has the benefit that if you like the beer you now have the bugs to try and copy.

Split batch
- i found this idea on one of the US forums. Great idea. Just brew or run off an extra gallon or 2 from every clean batch you brew. Pitch bottle dregs or recultured dregs into the gallon for either primary or secondary fermentation. This gives a low effort, space and cost way to experiment. you can pitch bottle dregs directly into a single gallon for secondary fermentation. I have done this four times now. Quite different beers result. only bottled 2, got another 2 to bottle.
I took two gallons of wheat beer at bottling time 6 months ago. It reached 1014 FG:
I pitched Orval dregs to one gallon. smells great not bottled yet. down to 1008 FG
I pitched the Straffe Hendrik dregs - smells good. More acidic from the sample. Down to 1004FG

. Also pitch Yeast Bay Lochristi and Yeast Bay Melange to a gallon each from a saison from kit. Both quite different results. and different to the base. Lochristi good. Melange produced a ton of acidity almost too much. I have gone for a second run with these by putting another gallon each of a saison at bottling time again. i.e. another secondary. Bugs should be stronger this time.

I have also tried a 100% brett. took ages to culture up enough yeast for it. Jury still out on it - not bottled yet and it smelt rank during the ferment. Massive pellicle on it.

hope that helps with ideas!

[jaroporter]

clean sour suggests a pure lacto sour - easiest is kettlesouring. there's quite a few breweries doing fruity/tropical berliner weisse's at the moment, so maybe that'd be a good starting point. just don't be put off if the first one comes out not as expected or even rank! learn why and try again!

[hazelbrew]

clean sour suggests a pure lacto sour - easiest is kettlesouring. there's quite a few breweries doing fruity/tropical berliner weisse's at the moment, so maybe that'd be a good starting point. just don't be put off if the first one comes out not as expected or even rank! learn why and try again!

Siren Calypso was one of the beers that made me want to try my hand at sours. It's a dry hopped Berliner Weisse. Awesome beer on a hot day. Simply awesome.

[alix101]

The beer was in brew dog but it was by dugees it was clearwater tropical thunder it says it's a wild beer lambic but I'm not so sure as it was so clean.