Beer Forum

Hey there guys,
Well I brewed a brown ale on the 5th. Everything went normal but I did up the mash temp to 156 (normal is 152 on my analog dial) , 10G of cooled wort into fermenters and piched 1800 ml (900 ml into each) stirr plate starter (2 viles in 1800ml X 24 hr.). This was a new yeast to me WL005. Any how I was out of O2 and so I pitched and shook. The ferment is temp controled at 67F and then I rased it to 68 after 5 days. I started at 1.057 and am now sitting at 1.018. It taste very sweet to say the least. I thought about doing a new started of WL001 to see if that would help knowing it probably won't. What do you think about racking out of the Better Bottles into glass and sowering it??? If so what would you recomend sowering with and how long?
Thanks
tim

Your FG at 1.018 does not sound that high. I bet if you carbed it up it would taste pretty good and not as sweet as you think.

But if you wanted to sour it, you would have a perfect candidate for it. If I were you, I would rack it to a glass carboy (5 g) and add either WY Roselare or WL Sour mix. Both of those will get you headed in the right direction given time and patience. If you have a couple of commercial lambics or sour beers (think Jolly Pumpkin, Cantillon, etc) you could just as easily pitch the dregs of those bottles after consuming them and have an even more sour beer in a shorter amount of time. Good luck!

Sounds good, do I need to do a starter? Or just through one tube into 5 gal and let it go? Is temp important as it sours?

No starter necessary. Just pitch it and be patient. Put it somewhere with average room temps (I have found 60-70 deg is best). If it is not perfect than don't sweat it, the beer will still be great! Sour beers a pretty forgiving. Don't touch it for at least 6 mos before sampling. 1 year is better for complexity.

How long did you ferment? Try bringing it up a couple degrees and rouse the yeast a little. British yeast floc pretty well maybe they just need to be stirred in.

But Cal ale won't hurt either a this point that's little room for flavor contributions. I don't know if I'd go crazy with souring it. Maybe if you were going English to begin with toss a little Brett C. in there, stock ale like.