Old Ale

[tygo]

Starting to put together an old ale recipe.  I'd like to add just a touch of brett/lacto character to it so I was going to follow JZ's suggestion in BCS to set aside 2 qts in a gallon jug and sour that separately then add back to taste (after pasteurizing).  My plan is to use the roselare blend to do the work in the 2 qt sour portion. 

Here's my question:  Should I pitch the entire package of roselare into the 2qts?  Seems like it would be significantly overpitching and I'm not sure what impact it might have on the souring process.  I was wondering if I should just pitch a portion of the pack.

What say you all?

[gmac]

What would you do with a 1/2 pack?

[hoser]

Wasn't it mainly just Brett clausenii that was the main wild organism in British beers?

[tygo]

Wasn't it mainly just Brett clausenii that was the main wild organism in British beers?

I could see some lacto being in there in an aged beer.  The style guidelines say it could have a very mild lactic or brett character, which is what I'm going for.  Really just looking to bump up the complexity of the flavor.

[erockrph]

Why don't you brew a full batch for the souring portion? Use what you need to blend into the old ale and bottle the rest as an Oud Bruin.

[kramerog]

Do a small sour mash on 2 quarts.  Roselare isn't that sour.

[brewmanator]

As an alternative, I have had some success with brewing an old ale to a high FG (1.040) and adding brett to it.  It takes a good six months for the brett (WYeast brett lambicus) to take the beer down (1.018), but the result was pretty spectacular.

[reverseapachemaster]

Your timeline on that beer really matters. If you use roeselare blend you're going to get pedio along with the other two and you might end up being ready to blend and bottle but have a ropy or otherwise unpleasant sour portion and have to wait it out until the sour portion gets to a good place. So if you're going to wait out a year or so to blend you're probably ok (could be at a good place sooner) but if you were thinking six months I wouldn't rely on roeselare (or any other blend for that matter) to be good to go at that time.

If you had a shorter timeline in mind I'd opt for sour mashing/sour worting some or all of the beer and then pitching just brett into some or all of the beer with an expected bottling time around 4-8 months. You can't put brett on a clock either but it is more likely to be in a safe place to pasteurize and blend around 4-6 months. Brett will go through some different flavor profiles over time so you can always pasteurize when you are happy with it because it doesn't produce diacetyl or get sick like a blend with pedio will.

[tygo]

Hmmm, I do have some time for this one but not a full year.  More like 8 months or so.  So maybe a small sour mash would be a better alternative.  Thanks for the great ideas!

[tygo]

Okay, so based on the above advice here's my plan.  I'm going to pull off 2 qts of the wort at about 110F and put it in a 1 gallon igloo and add in half a pound of crushed grain.  I'm going to let it sit for 24-48 hours to get nice and sour. 

My question is should I pasteurize it before I pitch the brett or should I just pitch the brett without pasteurizing?

[kramerog]

Okay, so based on the above advice here's my plan.  I'm going to pull off 2 qts of the wort at about 110F and put it in a 1 gallon igloo and add in half a pound of crushed grain.  I'm going to let it sit for 24-48 hours to get nice and sour. 

My question is should I pasteurize it before I pitch the brett or should I just pitch the brett without pasteurizing?

I can't say that I have had any recent experience with pasteurizing sour worts.  One benefit of pasteurizing   is that you can safely taste the wort before you pitch the brett and blend it with your old ale.

[tygo]

I think I'm actually just going to pull the grain out and pitch the brett.  I'll worry about tasting and pasteurizing at a later date.  Worst case scenario, this experiment turns out terrible and I just don't add it to the base beer.