[thehorse]

I've never done a sour beer before, but was inspired at the GABF a couple of weeks ago. At quite a few breweries (don't remember which ones due to a few to many 1 oz pours), had soured tripels. One brewer in particular told me that they used their standard tripel and then soured it.

I listened to the Jolly Pumpkin, Can You Brew It shows and thought maybe I would take 5 gallons of my tripel and just pitch bret b and l and do it's thing?

Any thoughts or ideas? I'm sure many of you have done something like this
before.

Would there be enough residual sugars to sour it up if it finished around 1.008?

[1vertical]

well I must chime in here. I suggest that you just make your trippel and add
to secondary the dregs from some bottles of orval (if you like that flavor). The
brett in that beer is agressive and will do the job in short order.  That said,
be careful that the bret does not over take your brewery cause it can and will
given the opportunity.....you will have sour everything.

[tygo]

I currently have a strong golden ale that I mashed on the high side sitting in the secondary with Brett C.  SG after regular fermentation was 1.012 and it's down to 1.005 as of last night.  I expect it will continue to drop.  The sample tasted pretty good.  Definitely some brett character coming through.  I think I'm going to be happy with the level of sourness without adding any additional bugs but we'll see in another couple of months.

That said,be careful that the bret does not over take your brewery cause it can and will
given the opportunity.....you will have sour everything.

I just racked mine to another secondary last night to get it off of some crud that had accumulated in the carboy.  I was just congratulating myself on how careful I was with the transfer and now you've got me sweating again.  Thanks.   

[markaberrant]

I've never done a sour beer before, but was inspired at the GABF a couple of weeks ago. One brewer in particular told me that they used their standard tripel and then soured it.

I listened to the Jolly Pumpkin, Can You Brew It shows and thought maybe I would take 5 gallons of my tripel and just pitch bret b and l and do it's thing?

You need to be more clear.  Do you want a sour beer, a funky beer, or a sour/funky beer?  Brett will only contribute funk (not entirely true, as it does create a very small amount of acid).

Just adding Brett B will give you something like Orval.  If your gravity before adding brett is 1.008, you likely won't get a lot of funk character.

[thehorse]

I think I'm going to just go for funk.  If my FG is about 1.008 or lower, could I boil up some DME or Maltodextrine and bump it up to around 1.012?  That way I could give the bugs more to work with and then also have my original Tripel recipe to drink?

What strain of Brett would you go for?
Can I just put it in a carboy with foil over it, enough oxygen for the brett?
How long will I need to age it?

Thanks for all the help, super interesting!!!!

[1vertical]

here is the place you need to go to study up on your new found interests...

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/forum.html?tid=1108752780&pg=1