Help with my first sour

[popmedium]

Hey pals!

In advance, thank you for your help.

First, my question: I've brewed my first sour beer, I'm a few months in to fermentation and I'm concerned about the flavours I'm getting.

In short, the flavours are very hot - phenolic and estery, reminiscent of when I started brewing and didn't have temperature control. I followed the guidelines given by white labs and fermented at 25 Celsius (77 F). Now this is really high but that's what the site said and I've been burnt in the past by not following the guidelines?

So my question: should I be worried? Or being that there are still another 7 months or so before the beer should be ready, will the character change a lot when the bugs start doing their work?

Stats on the beer:

Belgian brown ale, soured, with port soaked oak chips added at the end

OG: 1.068

Fg: currently at 1.016

Yeast: wlp655 (Belgian sour mix - it has sach, pedio, lacto, brett)

Brewed on July 20

Appreciate any help or advice you guys can give

 

[tazman1967]

Looks ok, Id just hide him in a cupboard for the next 7 months at ambient temps.
Sours are a long slow journey, plenty of time left to go.

 

[tazman1967]

Looks ok, Id just hide him in a cupboard for the next 7 months at ambient temps.
Sours are a long slow journey, plenty of time left to go.

 

[manticle]

My sours are generally sacch yeast at normal ferment temps then aged at ambient, in glass with bugs and flavourings (oak, whatever). I have added other flavours part way through when I thought the flavour balance was out but as Taz says, they really change with age.
Set and forget and keep oxygen low if you don't want aceto to get too much.

 

[BreathingHeat]

I'm with Manticle. My best sours have been by brewing a solid sacc beer (I typically do a saison) and adding the funk (bacteria and/or brett) later in the process. I'm now typically splitting off 1/3 of pretty much all of my Belgian batches to sour part, post primary fermentation. One consideration with this approach is that most souring agents don't like alcohol, thus you run into the possibility of nothing really happening beyond the initial beer. This (sometimes occurring) alcohol intolerance and a limited amount of consumable sugars hedge your best in both directions.

One common misconception is that sours require multiple months-years to mature. Using the technique above I have had great funky farmhouses ready in just a few months. Elevated temps during the sour conditioning definitely helps.

My best sour has resulted by adding nothing but dregs from one bottle of Tilquin Gueuze to a saison and waiting 2 months. It was fantastic.

Manicle - To increase the funkiness, I suppose additional time or the adding more fermentables (dextrose, etc.) would generally intensify?

 

[manticle]

Things I've added have been fruit (citrus zest, whisky soaked raisins) bourbon, vanilla bean, oak chips. These things like time. Also the various bugs added may require more or less time.
I made a belgian golden strong that wouldn't attenuate (mixture of brewday fuckups) and added orval dregs. Went from 1030 to 1008 in a fortnight, dropped bright and tasted delicious. Won a state award and 4th at national level. Age didn't help though - a year later, some not so good funk developed in the last couple of bottles. Who knows what 10 years might have done though. Anyway time definitely changes but time is not always needed. If it tastes good, drink, if it tastes ungood, wait.

 

[BreathingHeat]

Thanks. What about adding more dextrose if nothing funky is happening? Yay or nay?

 

[manticle]

Unless you specifically need the higher abv, I don't see the point. Not an expert though.
My experience of Mike T (author of american sours, mad fermentationist blogspot and babblebelt forum member) is that he is extremely helpful and knowledgeable on this stuff so contact him through blog or bbb forum - you'll get some better info than I can give.

 

[popmedium]

Dudes this is all fantastic advice. Thank you!

So if I'm hearing you guys right I should;

1) chill out, it can take time. Let the bugs work and see what happens
2) I was going to add port soaked oak chips towards the end. Do you think I could add them now and just leave them in for a bunch of months?
3) next time ferment the sach yeast at a regular sach temp, then adjust for the bugs once primary is complete. (Worth noting, apparently the sour mix I used is meant to work in a kind of cascade- the sach goes first, followed by the lacto then the pedio and finally the Brett. There is overlap obviously but that is the way it's supposed to work).

Thanks again
Joel

 

[manticle]

Add the oak now in a hop sock that can be removed. Taste every few months (wine thief or similar), takw out wgen at preferred level.