Cherries/brett/sour Ferment

[kdaust]

Thinking about the time component and risk of infection for the rest of your brauhaus of using Brett or funky/sour yeasties.

Would it be possible to innoculate a large jar of cherries with Brett or dregs of a sour beer, cover with glad wrap and ferment? Then add the already fermented cherries to a fermented beer to taste?

Would the Brett then start attacking the previously unfermented sugars in the beer (thus rendering the time savings moot), or do you think it might be worthwhile?

Another thought is there would be no hops to stave off other types of infection?

 

[raven19]

This method has some merit.

I think you would need to add some cooled boiled water to the cherries, and mash them up so the bugs can access the flesh of the fruit easily in a liquid environment. Maybe freeze the cherries first is another option to open up the flesh for fermenting.

Re: blending - Yes, after adding your cherry lambic portion back to the beer the bugs would start to work on the beer. Albeit slowly - so you could keg the beer, gas it and enjoy. If kept cold enough the bugs may not work on the beer as much.

Keep in mind with proper cleaning and sanitation techniques you can have funky beers fermenting near you normal beers though.

Why not add a quarter or half of your beer to the cherries with the bugs. Then blend back in with the clean beer afterwards? Blend the proportions to your liking at a small scale, once you find the mix you like, blend the whole batch accordingly.

Just keep a separate set of soft plasticware for each type.